Huffman issues statement at today’s historic signing of Delta protection and water supply legislation

From Assembly member Jared Huffman:

“Sacramento, CA – Today, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), which aims to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and ensure an adequate supply of water for California in the years ahead.

Assemblymember Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) attended the signing ceremony and issued the following statement:

“I want to begin by thanking Senator Darrell Steinberg. I’ve had the privilege of working closely with him for past several months on what is surely one of the most complex and politically thankless issues anywhere, and I cannot say enough about his character and commitment — not just in terms of solving California’s water crisis, but in terms of doing it in a way that saves this incredible Delta estuary and does right by the people and communities of the Delta.

Thanks to his leadership, I believe history will show that we made the right choice at this critical crossroads; that we stepped up, took the heat, and started making tough decisions to save the Delta and responsibly and efficiently manage our limited water resources for ourselves and future generations.

I also want to commend Governor Schwarzenegger for the determination and passion he has brought to these issues, and for supporting the far-reaching policy and governance reforms that make this a truly comprehensive package. Thank you Governor, also, for honoring the memory of Tom Graff in your opening remarks. For the past several decades, Tom led the Environmental Defense Fund’s work to protect the Delta and promote sensible water policy. His passing is a loss for all Californians.

The bill Governor Schwarzenegger is signing today is the centerpiece of last week’s comprehensive water package because it goes to the heart of the crisis: how we manage the Delta – the most important estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, and the source of drinking water for 23 million Californians.

For the past several years, the Delta has been on a terrible trajectory.

Without a governance structure to coordinate the work of the 200 plus agencies involved in the Delta, management of this critical resource has been a circular firing squad of conflicting policies, piecemeal plans, and endless lawsuits.

Without a comprehensive plan to ensure a healthy and dynamic Delta ecosystem, we’ve seen decades of species-by-species, permit-by-permit decisions that have put the Delta ecosystem into a death spiral and brought us to the 2nd consecutive closure of California’s quarter-billion-dollar salmon industry.

Without a statewide water supply reliability plan that emphasizes reduced dependence on the Delta through greater water use efficiency, water re-use, and regional self-reliance, we saw Delta water exports rise to unsustainable levels during the past decade, and we paid the price with fishery crashes and abrupt federal court interventions.

And without a comprehensive emergency preparedness plan, we’ve had no coherent strategy for repairing the Delta’s 1,100 miles of fragile levees and preventing a Katrina-like disaster – even though experts say we face a 62% chance of a major earthquake causing catastrophic levee failure in the decades ahead.

Today, we’re setting a new and hopeful course for the Delta and the rest of California.

The new Delta Stewardship Council, and the comprehensive Delta Plan it will develop, will provide a unifying planning and governance framework for the many agencies that work in the Delta. It will increase accountability, transparency, and the role of independent science.It marks a fundamentally new approach to ecosystem planning based on recovering key species, instead of just fighting to stave off extinction one fish at a time. This is important whether you are an environmentalist or a water district – because the reality is, restoring the Delta ecosystem to good health is the only way to bring stability to the Delta as a water supply for millions of Californians.

The water supply elements of this plan likewise reflect a new approach premised on the goal of improving statewide water supply reliability while reducing dependence on Delta exports.

I want to talk very specifically about the Delta conveyance issue – because it’s important to understand what this legislation does and does not do. I understand that some stakeholders hope to build a large peripheral canal – they’ve been clear about that. At the same time, I and many others remain skeptical that such a huge canal is feasible, let alone desirable.

This legislation takes no side in that debate. Let me reiterate. As an environmental attorney who reads the fine print – and in this case, helped write a fair amount of it – I can assure you there is nothing in this legislative water package that authorizes or funds a peripheral canal.

Instead, it establishes a rigorous and protective framework for any delta conveyance proposal. It includes major new protections for the Delta and the environment – starting with a critically important requirement that before you decide how to export water from the Delta for the next 50 years, experts at the Department of Fish and Game and the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) must first identify how much water the Delta needs to be a healthy estuary. Only water that is surplus to those needs can be considered for export.

The protections for the Delta ecosystem go further, by requiring that any Delta conveyance proposal must not only meet the highest environmental standard of the NCCP Act, but must also include a comprehensive analysis of alternatives – including alternative sizes, alignments, different operational scenarios including reduced Delta exports, and also including through-Delta alternatives. And it prohibits construction of any new conveyance facility until the SWRCB issues a permit with binding protections for the Delta and its fisheries.

While some may characterize this as a “path to new conveyance,” it’s a very rigorous path, full of new checks and safeguards. It puts key decisions and approvals in the hands of independent scientists and public trust agencies, which is as it should be. That is a vast improvement over the status quo.

In closing, I want to thank the Governor for choosing this location in the heart of the Delta for signing SB 7X 1, because it reminds us what is at stake. We know about the very real hardships being felt in the San Joaquin Valley in this third consecutive drought year. But I want to remind everyone, as we stand here, on the shores of this critical estuary that sustains California’s commercial salmon fishery, that there is severe hardship being felt by fishermen and fishing communities up and down the North Coast. Their entire industry is shut down this year, as it was last year. And experts warn that without dramatic changes in the way we manage this estuary, our iconic salmon runs will spiral into extinction.

For me, that is a huge part of what’s at stake here – that is why this bill is so timely, so historic, and that is why I’m proud to be here to see it signed into law.””

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