Mission Statement

The mission of the California Department of Water Resources' Water Transfers Office in the Executive Division is to review, facilitate and implement water transfers in the CALFED solution area in a manner that prevents: (1) injury to the legal users of the water, (2) unreasonable effects to fish and wildlife, and (3) unreasonable effects to the overall economy of the counties from which the water is transferred consistent with State law.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Resources Control Board are implementing the CALFED Water Transfer Program. They have signed a Memorandum of Understanding which establishes how they intent to share information with the public and create a Water Transfer Information Clearinghouse.

The objectives of the CALFED Water Transfer program are listed in the Water Transfer Program Plan adopted in August 2000 as part of the CALFED Record of Decision. They are:

Facilitate water transfers in a manner consistent with existing law.
Address the institutional, regulatory, and assurance issues that need to be resolved to provide for a more effective water transfer system.
Address the physical constraints that need to be resolved to provide for a more effective water transfer system, particularly cross-Delta transfers.
Encourage transfers that result in overall improvements in CALFED objectives for water supply reliability, ecosystem health, and water quality, and that have no significant re-directed impacts.
Develop a water transfer framework that seeks to avoid injury to other legal users of water, avoids or adequately mitigates adverse impacts that may occur, and publicly disseminates information on general transfer rules as well as specific water transfer proposals.
Promote and encourage uniform rules for transfers using State and federal project facilities and cross-Delta conveyance capacity.
Promote and encourage the development of standardized rules for transfers based on replacement with groundwater and other conjunctive use-type transfers, so that water transfers do not cause degradation of groundwater basins or impair the correlative rights of overlying users and historical groundwater levels are sustained or improved.