Restore the delta's Blog

Senator Wolk made quite clear the need for Delta communities to be adequately represented in any new Delta governance structures. She also asked important questions regarding the need to establish a scientific understanding of the Delta’s freshwater needs.

We salute Senator Wolk for her inspired defense of the Delta.

Likewise, Restore the Delta thanks it supporters who turned out for Monday’s rally and Tuesday’s hearing. We know that many of you have taken time off work to attend. We appreciate your support and engagement with Delta legislation.

To learn more about Restore the Delta’s participation in these events, click on the links below to check out media coverage.

Final public information hearings regarding Delta and state water policy legislation will be held Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday next week. The Joint Policy Committee Meetings will be held at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday in room 4202 to review and amend legislation.

Senator Wolk will be holding a Senatore Hearing at 1 p.m. on Wednesday to look at financing as it relates to Delta issues.

Participating groups, individual, and agencies must submit written comments by noon on Monday in order to participate in the process for the Tuesday and Thursday hearings. Restore the Delta staff is preparing in depth comments for that.

Where we need help from you is with attendance. We need our supporters to be physically present in order to support our comments. We encourage all Restore the Delta supporters to attend. If anyone needs help with a ride, please call 209-479-2053. We can help with carpool arrangements.

Dear Deputy Secretary Hayes:

On behalf of Restore the Delta – a coalition of over 3800 Delta residents, business leaders, civic organizations, community groups, faith-based communities, union locals, farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists – I want to thank you for taking the time to come to California to learn more about the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. We appreciate the efforts made by your office and Secretary Salazar’s office to contact the people of the Delta who are deeply concerned about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan and new state legislative proposals that if implemented would lead to the final demise of the Delta.

However, today’s meeting exemplifies all that has gone wrong with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, Delta management, and water management planning in California. Department of Water Resource Director Lester Snow brought together for today’s panel discussion representatives from the Westland Water District and the Metropolitan District, along with Dr. Jeff Mount. Who was not included in the panel? The Delta’s agricultural experts, land owners, environmentalists, commercial and recreational fishermen, water agency leaders, business leaders, boaters, wake boarders, political leaders, the poor, and community advocates from the Delta.

Today, you heard the prophecies of doom for the Delta, but what you did not hear is that according to Delta engineers these dramatic prophecies are quite overstated. According to Delta engineers, who have the type of on-the-ground expertise that cannot come from an accelerated and removed academic study, the various threats to the physical stability of the Delta can actually be solved through manageable engineering projects that would cost a fraction of the proposed peripheral canal if implemented.

But somehow these facts, ideas, and alternative solutions never make it into the discussion. Instead the debate for Delta water management has been set by the Westlands Water District and its supporters, as well as the Department of Water Resources which is petitioning to circumvent the salmon biological opinion, under the guise of people versus fish.

What is being sold to the public is an untrue story that a decrease in Delta exports is the cause of the Central Valley’s economic woes, when in truth as reported yesterday by the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific, the primary cause of unemployment and revenue loss for the Central Valley is the decline in construction jobs and projects. What has been left out of the BDCP process itself, and current proposed state legislation, is the people of the Delta and their numerous connections to the health of the estuary. What has been left out of a real public debate is the total economic value of Delta agriculture, recreational fishing, boating, and commercial fishing – economies all tied to the Delta.

In addition, state political leaders and water bureaucrats often describe the people of the Delta as the group that just says no to any changes in the Delta, and, thus, not worthy of including in the discussion. This, once again, is a mischaracterization of who we are and what we want for the Delta.

First, we strongly believe California’s critical water issues need to be addressed, but we need to do so with a more comprehensive approach than what is being put forth by the Department of Water Resources and the other parties at the table for the BDCP. Second, we want Delta water management practices that safeguard the Delta, the environment, and the people who live and work in the area. Third, we want real solutions that include cost effective and environmentally sound programs and projects that will capture, recycle, and treat water for all Californians. And most importantly, we want long-term Delta management that is based on a firm understanding of Delta freshwater needs. Understanding Delta freshwater needs and putting strategies into place to manage the Delta so as to meet those needs must be the primary component of a real habitat conservation plan.

Delta farmers, Delta fishing leaders, Delta environmentalists, and Delta engineers understand the estuary better than any outside person. They are the people who live and work in the Delta. They are the primary hands-on stewards of the Delta. Good governance for the Delta would be comprised of equal representation between local interests and state interests in the Delta. Good governance for the Delta would more importantly make sure starting today that current laws on the books for meeting Delta water quality standards and fish screening at the water export pumps at Tracy would be enforced – which they are not presently.

Thank you for taking the time to hear and consider our ideas and positions.

Sincerely yours,

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Campaign Director

The language of about a third of each bill is identical, so everything we said yesterday about Huffman’s bill being internally contradictory applies to Simitian’s bill as well.

This bill establishes the Delta Stewardship Council to advance the coequal goals of assuring a more reliable water supply and enhancing the Delta ecosystem “and certain values of the Delta.” (It doesn’t specify what those values are.) It is this council that will review plans prepared by state agencies to see if they are consistent with the Delta Plan (to be adopted in Huffman’s bill).

The Delta Stewardship Council will have seven members, four appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, one appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules, one appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly, and one the Chairperson of the Delta Protection Commission. The council members should “possess diverse expertise and reflect a statewide perspective.” Initial appointments are to be made by July 1, 2010.

Initial terms for council members can be two, four, or six years; all subsequent terms are eight years, and no one can serve two consecutive terms. The Governor can make initial appointments for either two or four year terms, and members with those terms of appointment can be immediately appointed to a subsequent full eight-year term. Thus, some of the Governor’s appointees could serve up to 12 years.

The council’s chairperson will serve full time; other members will serve one-third time. Members will receive a salary. The council will also appoint a full- time executive officer who can hire additional state employees “subject to the availability of funds.” The council will be headquartered in Sacramento.

This bill doesn’t say what constitutes a quorum. Is it a simple majority of four people? This is important because only a quorum is necessary to proceed with a number of the early actions outlined in this and the Huffman bill.

The council will authorize any conveyance facility, after first adopting “instream flow determinations for the Sacramento River and waterways within the Delta that provide the volume, quality, and timing of water required for a healthy Delta ecosystem under different conditions, including seasonal, annual, and interannual bases, and including an assessment of increased spring and fall outflow and increased San Joaquin River inflow.”

Suppose instream flow determinations show that it is not possible to provide for a healthy Delta ecosystem and still ensure water supply reliability. Is there any chance at all that the council would not authorize a conveyance facility? Apparently not. The “no conveyance” option is not an option for this council of stewards.

The bill requires water exporters to submit to the council contingency plans in case of “Delta water supply curtailments and drought, consistent with the board’s instream flow requirements, and a long-term plan for reducing reliance on those exports.” Once exporters get their conveyance, what will be their incentive for reducing their reliance on Northern California water?

The council will provide “the board” (presumably the Water Board) with a list of potential candidates for Delta Watermaster. The board will appoint this Watermaster and vest him or her with authority to direct daily operations of all surface water diversions within the Delta watershed. Decisions of the Watermaster can be appealed to an administrative law judge, also appointed by the board.

The bill also establishes the Delta Independent Science Board and provides guidelines for the stewardship council to use in selecting members. This Science Board will submit an annual report to the Delta Stewardship Council and “shall include in the report scientific and technical findings regarding the management of the Delta and recommended actions of the council, an identification of short-term and long- term matters for research, and a description of the relevance of these matter to achieving the coequal goals.”

How “independent” can this science board be when it is constrained by contradictory goals of protecting the ecosystem and ensuring reliable water supplies?

The last part of Simitian’s bill addresses the question we have all been wondering about: How do they propose to pay for the Delta Plan?

The bill requires the Delta Plan to provide for financing all Delta programs on a “beneficiaries pay” basis, with state funds paying for projects that have public benefits or that benefit a disadvantaged community. Costs associated with a conveyance facility, including mitigation, would be borne by those with contracts to receive SWP or CVP water. Yet, there is also a provision in the bill for general obligation bonds. Indeed, who would pay what and how much is still very uncleaPeople or entities holding rights, permits, or licenses to divert water within the watershed, including holders of riparian rights, would pay an annual fee that would be deposited in an unspecified fund in the State Treasury. The Legislature could appropriate moneys in this fund to complete the Delta Plan, implement certain early actions, pay costs incurred by the council, and pay costs of facilities and activities intended to mitigate damage to fish populations and other natural resources in the Delta.

The Delta Stewardship Council may also issue bonds, apparently paying for them with revenues derived from fees.

The bill says that fees for mitigation facilities and programs should bear “a fair and reasonable relationship” to the environmental damage caused by the diversion. The unexamined assumption underlying this policy is that all environmental damage can be mitigated with money. We know this isn’t true. We know that money can’t bring back an extinct species. We know that money can’t change the Sacramento River from a losing stream to a gaining stream, putting water back into aquifers that are being drained by pumping to make up for diversions.

As of today, (8/11), an agenda was published. Representatives from the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District will be discussing the fate of the Delta with Doctor Jeff Mount – whose views of impending doom for Delta levees are being seriously questioned by Delta engineers. And of course, as part of Lester Snow’s agenda, not one environmental, engineering, or agricultural representative was invited from the Delta to participate in the panel.

Restore the Delta believes that this is one of the two most important meetings that our supporters can attend on behalf of the Delta this year.

We need a good showing of people who can make it clear to Deputy Director Hayes that DWR’s decision- making is too influenced by politics and questionable science to be reliable.

The delusion arises from the bill’s acceptance of the notion of coequal goals for the Delta, adopted by both Delta Vision and the BDCP as a way to make as many people as possible happy. This notion has always been flawed because it is not possible to guarantee water supplies for people and agriculture and at the same time guarantee water for the ecosystem.

Huffman’s bill has to include the BDCP; otherwise, the governor will never sign it. But the BDCP is being presented as a Habitat Conservation Plan. According to state and federal law, a HCP should focus on habitat improvement. Since the main objective is to find adaptive management strategies that will enable endangered species to recover, levels of exports cannot be determined in advance.

Having set itself the task of guaranteeing contradictory goals, this bill establishing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009 cannot help being contradictory in trying to devise a plan.

Some sections of the bill are eloquent in describing existing Delta communities and values and the Delta economy (“existing developed uses . . . are essential to the economic and social well-being of the people of this state”). There is even a proposal for making the Delta a National Heritage Area. But elsewhere, the bill makes it clear that maintaining the Delta in its present form is not the business of the state. Several times, it refers to the Delta as “evolving.” All human and natural communities evolve, but they change faster if they are made to change with strategies like refocusing “the economic and public values of Delta agriculture.”

Similarly, the bill includes a detailed discussion of flood control, but mostly for the state and federal water projects; local flood protection plans may be incorporated, and the plan will “promote” emergency preparedness, appropriate land uses, and strategic levee investments. At the outset, the bill says that landowners are not entitled to state funding to maintain or repair private levees, suggesting an end to the subvention program for levee maintenance. There appears to be no commitment to protecting the Delta as a common pool, although it is “the hub of the California water system.” And even more apparent is a lack of knowledge regarding levee protection in the Delta – private levees must be maintained so as to keep stress off of the state and federal levees that protect hundreds of thousands of urban residents in the Delta.

In one small section, the bill calls for regional self- reliance and says that it is the policy of the state to reduce long-term dependence on water from the Delta watershed. Then it spends pages describing a plan to enable continued dependence.

The bill claims that the Delta Plan Act would not affect area of origin rights protections under the law. Then it refers specifically to sections of the Water Code that have consistently been violated when water needed in the Sacramento Valley has been exported and when storing and releasing water for use outside the Delta has not met objectives for salinity control, an adequate Delta water supply, and maintenance of the common pool.

Early actions under the Act can proceed with just a quorum of the Delta Stewardship Council. (Neither the Council itself nor a quorum are defined in this bill.) One early action is to be the appointment of an Independent Science Board. Apparently recognizing that the science applied so far to this issue has not been good, the bill repeatedly calls for using “the best available scientific information.”

One early action of the council will be coming up with a finance strategy for developing the Delta Plan. Coming up with a strategy is all this bill says about how the plan will be paid for.

The council will get DFG started on some identified near-term restoration projects in the Delta. DFG is also supposed to submit information and recommendations that it “deems reliable” regarding the Delta’s instream flow needs, something DFG has not so far been able to do.

The bill uses “department” and “board” without defining them, but context makes it clear that the board is the SWRCB. The board is supposed to charge the department for the costs of instream flow needs analysis “pursuant to the board’s authority to regulate the water rights of the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Projects.” It appears that the State Water Contractors, through DWR, would pay for this analysis of instream flow needs-a clear case of conflict of interest.

The bill includes reference to a “special master” (a water master) to help decide whether board’s determinations of instream flow needs “were arbitrary or capricious.”

The bill gives control of the BDCP process to the Delta Stewardship Council and incorporates the BDCP into the Delta Plan. It requires analysis of different conveyance alternatives but does not consider a no- conveyance alternative. The Independent Science Board is supposed to review data and hypotheses on which the BDCP’s adaptive management is based. Apparently the whole process will go forward more or less as the BDCP intends, but under the Delta Plan. Alternative conveyance requires no further legislative approval. It is here that we find Assembly Member Huffman’s implicit approval for construction of the peripheral canal.

But except for “the board” charging “the department” for instream flow needs analysis, this bill doesn’t suggest how any activities or projects associated with the Delta Plan (apparently including both conveyance and storage-a canal and dams) will be paid for. Tomorrow, we will discuss funding as it is laid out in the other bills.

The flotilla will leave Antioch at 9 a.m. and meet in Sacramento at 7 p.m. Sunday evening for a riverfront rally.

Monday the 17th at 11 a.m., Delta supporters will hold a rally on the West Steps of the Capitol to let legislators and the governor hear their opposition to the peripheral canal, as well as to the Delta fishing and recreation communities being left out of the creation of new governance processes for the Delta.

For more information including schedules and boat staging areas, go to: http://www.millionboatfloat.org or contact Million Boat Float Coordinator Bruce Connelley at bconnelley@comcast.net or 925-625-7467. People near Sacramento can call 916-761-4726 or go to http://www.organicsacramento.org or http://www.northdeltacares.org.

Here’s what is in the package: ? A bill by Senator Simitian to set up a Delta Stewardship Council consisting of seven members- four appointed by the Governor and one each by the Senate and the Assembly, with the seventh being the chairperson of the Delta Protection Commission. That’s just one member representing the Delta.

? A bill by Assemblyman Huffman to direct the Delta Stewardship Council in developing a Delta Plan. The Delta Plan involves the standard coequal goals of water supply reliability and ecosystem protection, with concerns for Delta communities and values taking a backseat. And of course, once water delivery is set as a co-equal goal to environmental protections, environmental protection would become secondary – which is contrary to existing Federal and State laws. The bill also includes a section on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, and sets the stage for the Stewardship Council to implement the BDCP in order to authorize the peripheral canal.

Moreover, these two bills by Senator Simitian and Assembly Member Huffman, which are even numbered in way to show that they are two interlocking pieces of a puzzle, appear to authorize a peripheral canal without any requirement to go back to the Legislature for approval. Thus, despite Assembly Member Huffman’s press release last week in which he claims not to be advancing the peripheral canal, it looks like he is allowing a peripheral canal by connecting his bill with Senator Simitian’s and giving up the Legislature’s authority to allow or disallow a canal.

Other parts of this water package include: a bill by Assembly members Feuer and Huffman dealing with water efficiency; a bill by Senator Pavley on Delta interim actions, water rights, and groundwater; Senator Wolk’s bill on a Delta Conservancy and issues regarding the Delta Protection Commission.

There is good faith material in this total water package, and there is bad faith material that capitulates to the Governor and State Water Contractors with their BDCP water grab masquerading as a Habitat Conservation Plan. Restore the Delta will provide additional analysis daily between now and August 18th.

The hearing on these bills is scheduled for 9 a.m. on August 18 in Room 4202 of the State Capitol. While we still do not know what type of public input will be allowed, we strongly urge Restore the Delta supporters to be physically present at this hearing.

Legislation passed in 2007 directs DWR to develop documents that will guide integrated flood management for the Central Valley. The core document is the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan (CVFPP), and the first step in producing that document is a Regional Conditions Summary Report. Summaries are being written by work groups in the Upper and Lower Sacramento regions, the Upper and Lower San Joaquin regions, and the Delta.

At the first meeting of the Delta Work Group in Rio Vista on August 4, consultants in charge of the process abandoned their agenda early in the day as participants argued against considering a peripheral canal as a potential regional condition. Not only would a canal through the Delta change everything in terms of hydrology affecting flood conditions, but the Bay Delta Conservation Plan has still not provided a firm plan for the canal it wants to build.

In fact, rather than a flood control plan taking the BDCP into consideration, the BDCP should not proceed until there is a flood control plan clarifying the regional situation in the Delta.

Consultants and DWR representatives agreed to take the issue to DWR Director Lester Snow and report back at the next meeting, scheduled for August 27. At that time, participants will find out whether this flood protection planning process can proceed without a bias favoring water exports. If it can, the process will be radically different from other state-sponsored planning efforts that have preceded it.

RTD advocates ensuring emergency readiness to protect the people, property, and infrastructure of the Delta and to provide for a healthy ecosystem. Its campaign platform calls on the State to consult with Delta experts to prepare and fully fund a comprehensive flood plan and emergency readiness plan.

Special thanks to Jane Wagner-Tyack for all her work on this issue of Delta Flows.