Water Education Foundation

C-WIN, CSPA file suit to end wasteful Delta diversions, protect public trust resources

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 1, 2008 at 4:02 pm

From C-WIN:

Calling it “the biggest lawsuit about the biggest ecological and legal catastrophe in California today,” the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) filed suit in Sacramento Superior Court Friday, November 28, 2008, to protect Delta public trust resources—including endangered migratory fisheries of salmon and open water fish species—and to end wasteful and unreasonable diversions of water from the Delta by big state and federal water projects.

The suit also asks the court to halt irrigation of several hundred thousand acres of selenium-contaminated lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the drainage from which pollutes wetlands, the San Joaquin River, and the Delta.

“California has regulated its waters like the feds have regulated Wall Street and the result has been a collapse of fisheries and aquatic ecosystems,” said CSPA Chairman and Director Bill Jennings. “Given bureaucratic paralysis, we have little alternative but to turn to the courts to prevent the extinction of our historic fisheries.”

The suit names as defendants the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), and the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). Specifically, the seven-count lawsuit charges that the huge export pumps near Tracy in the south Delta kill thousands upon thousands of smelt and small salmon fry every year, at different times of year, and are the main threats to public trust resources in the Delta. DWR and USBR, operators of the two largest water storage, pumping, and canal systems in California, violate numerous federal and state water quality and fish protection laws, the state’s public trust responsibility, water rights orders, and the terms of their appropriative water rights permits through excessive pumping—all illegally allowed by the SWRCB, the state’s water regulator, and the third defendant charged in the suit.

“The State Water Board hasn’t applied one significant measure to protect fisheries in over a decade and the Governor’s Delta Vision and Bay-Delta Conversation Program processes are little more than smokescreens to justify the status quo,” added Jennings.

“It took lots of people all over California to protect the public trust resources and protect the rivers of northern California as it did at Mono Lake,” said Carolee Krieger, executive director and board president of C-WIN. “We must stop the carnage in the Delta now.”

After construction and operation of the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project, runs of migratory salmon went extinct below Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River near Fresno in the early 1950s. The Delta smelt, an open water fish native to the Delta estuary, has almost gone extinct, and desperate biologists may try to cultivate an artificial smelt refuge.

“Our state government has utterly failed to enforce the public trust and obey the constitution,” said Krieger. “In our suit, we petition the court to force the State Water Resources Control Board to enforce the letter and spirit of the water laws and the State constitution.”

“A lot of people don’t realize that the voters of California passed a constitutional amendment in 1928 to ban wasteful water use and harmful diversions from streams,” said attorney Michael Jackson who represents both C-WIN and CSPA in this case. “Even the federal government must adhere to state water law and the constitution, and we intend to show the court how they haven’t time and again, and to persuade the court to end the lawlessness of water exports from the Delta.”

Wasteful water use harms the Delta, argues the suit, when water exported by the Central Valley Project is used to irrigate western San Joaquin Valley lands that are naturally contaminated with selenium, boron, arsenic, and even mercury in some areas. These lands then drain to the San Joaquin River, the Delta, and Suisun Marsh. Settling in sediments where clams and other aquatic organisms feed, the toxins concentrate through the food chain, resulting in embryonic deformities and dead offspring for many fish, bird, and mammal species in the Valley.

“These two projects pump water from the Delta to irrigate impaired lands and recycle contaminated drainage back via the San Joaquin River to an increasingly polluted estuary thereby accelerating the decline of fisheries,” adds Jennings of CSPA. “Enough is enough!”

“We’re getting our slingshots ready,” said attorney Jackson with a smile. “And we know who won the last meeting between David and Goliath.”

For more information on C-WIN, click here.

December 1, 2008 · Filed Under Other Delta Issues

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Suppliers seek approval for the “Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program”

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 1, 2008 at 1:15 pm

From the Antelope Valley Press:

Water suppliers in the state no longer call it a peripheral canal - but a proposed project to bring water from Northern California down south would serve the same purpose, a way to bypass the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Funding to kick off that plan, called the Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program, received the go-ahead from the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency board, with one proviso: Contractors whose shares of the State Water Project total at least 90% must commit to the $140 million study and design plans in order for AVEK to participate. That would keep AVEK’s cost at a maximum of nearly $2.7 million.

“If (at least) 90% of the entitlement doesn’t participate, we don’t want to be in it,” said AVEK General Manager Russ Fuller.

AVEK board members approved the plans in a 6-1 vote. Director George Lane cast the sole “no” vote. “It’s a good program,” Lane said. But, given the current economic crisis, he added, he felt compelled to vote against the funding proposal. “I don’t feel this is the right time to spend (about) $2.5 million of (Antelope Valley) taxpayers’ money,” Lane said.

The Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program is seen as part of a remedy for issues that the State Water Contractors face in trying to get water deliveries through the delta. Various environmental problems have plagued the delta, including a decline in the population of an indigenous species of fish called the delta smelt that die in the pumps that send water into the California Aqueduct, which carries water to this Valley and other Southern California communities.

December 1, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

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Delta smelt closer to extinction

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 1, 2008 at 5:59 am

From KGO, ABC 7, San Francisco:

There is more bad news for the bellwether of the Sacramento Delta. The Delta smelt continue to edge closer to extinction. It is not good news for environmentalists or for the farmers and Southern Californians who count on the Delta for water. ABC7 News went along for this season’s fish count.

The California Department of Fish and Game has been casting nets in the Delta for the last couple of weeks. It is not so much about what they catch, as what they don’t.

Since 1967, biologists have searched the murky waters of the Delta looking for what is left of the once thriving fish populations. They take detailed notes on everything, from what they catch, where they catch it, to the temperature of the water.

“We sample from San Pablo Bay up to the lower Sacramento River and through the San Joaquin,” said Dave Contreas with the California Department of Fish and Game.

But again, the number of fish the department catches is extremely small. “What we started noticing were downward trends particularly at the start of 2000, 2001,” said Contreas.

Read more or watch the video from KGO ABC 7 by clicking here.

December 1, 2008 · Filed Under Delta smelt, Judge Wanger delta smelt ruling, Other Delta Issues

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Who will be Delta’s keeper?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 30, 2008 at 8:24 am

From Stockton’s Record:

It’s a classic case of too many cooks in the kitchen. More than 200 agencies have some say on what happens in the vast Delta, and the product of their labors doesn’t seem to satisfy anyone, as fish die and the water supply shrinks.

Among all other impending Delta decisions, such as whether to build a peripheral canal, a key question yet to be answered is how the Delta will be governed in the future. Who will be in charge?

During a series of recent meetings with California Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman and his staff, San Joaquin County leaders have jockeyed for representation on whatever governance agency is created in the future.

Chrisman chairs a five-member Cabinet committee that will submit a strategic Delta plan, already approved by a blue-ribbon task force, to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by Dec. 31. The committee may expand on the task force’s recommendations; a meeting to gather public comments is scheduled for Friday in Sacramento.

There are signs that at least some local representation will be part of the new governance structure, said Terry Dermody, former San Joaquin County counsel now acting as a water attorney for the county. Dermody said Chrisman’s staff revealed in meetings that it may restructure the Delta Protection Commission to consist of elected officials from five Delta counties, three cities including Stockton, and representatives of three major water agencies for Delta farmers.

Read more from Stockton’s Record by clicking here.

November 30, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Issues, Delta Vision Task Force

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Stop handing Delta water rules to activists, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 27, 2008 at 10:48 am

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, this editorial, which begins by reviewing the restrictions placed on Delta water exports due to the Delta smelt and now the longfin smelt:

… the impact on smelt of the restrictions so far? Zero. In the last five years, eight smelt were caught in the pumps. The regulations have saved none. Others suspect other culprits in the smelt’s decline, such as pollutants, invasive species and drought.

Only the pumps, however, offer the huge, adverse impacts on the water supply for 25 million residents.

Just how adverse is that impact? Between increasingly onerous smelt rules and continuing drought, the state Department of Water Resources projects that in 2009 wholesale water agencies may get as little as 15 percent of the water they need. Even record snowmelt in the Rockies won’t help, since the State Water Project can’t deliver it.

What would help? A new official attitude that comes right out of a state Supreme Court ruling and recognizes, as Director Don Koch of the Department of Fish and Game put it, “the importance of various agencies’ responsibilities to protect both humans and fish.”

Also at work is the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a move to address all possible hazards to Delta wildlife’s overall health, including a system to convey water for people around instead of through the Delta. A sizable coalition led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and water and wildlife agencies will run up against the activists and their strident opposition to the dual duty for the Delta.

At least 25 million Californians north and south have all the reason they need to encourage the success of the coalition’s efforts.

Read the full text of this editorial from the San Diego Union-Tribune by clicking here.

November 27, 2008 · Filed Under Judge Wanger delta smelt ruling

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Pass law to cut delta water use, Delta Vision Task Force says

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 27, 2008 at 10:39 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Over the next two years, California should pass laws cutting water consumption by 20 percent, shore up strategic levees, study new reservoirs and pass Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $9 billion-plus water bond, according to a set of preliminary recommendations released Wednesday by a Cabinet-level panel.

The Delta Vision Committee, charged with advising policy makers on the future of the failing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, said the proposals are aimed at spurring discussions among committee members and stakeholders who will gather Dec. 5 in Sacramento.

In addition to authorizing additional funding and bolstering infrastructure, the committee proposed designating the delta a National Heritage Area, increasing the state’s supply of recycled and desalinated water and cracking down on water permits violators. Water rights permits ostensibly set the amount of water that may be diverted from any water source.

November 27, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Vision Task Force

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Delta plan completed: Time to take it seriously, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 26, 2008 at 6:11 am

From the Vacaville Reporter, an editorial on the recently finalized Delta Vision Strategic Plan, which includes 6 goals and 73 recommendations:

The devil is in the details, of course, and certainly there is something in the report to displease everyone involved. And there are hundreds of agencies involved. Which is, of course, one reason every other attempt to coordinate a response to the Delta’s problems has failed.

Californians can’t afford to keep squabbling. The courts are already imposing solutions that aren’t palatable. And Mother Nature isn’t waiting around either.

The climate is changing. The rain and snow that used to come with some regularity are no longer arriving on a predictable schedule, if at all. And if sea levels rise, as predicted, there will be more salt water and flooding in the Delta.

A cabinet-level committee is taking comments about the Delta Vision Task Force’s recommendations — the next hearing begins at 9 a.m. Dec. 5 at the CalFed headquarters, 650 Capitol Mall, in Sacramento. It will then make its own recommendations to the governor.

Delta policy must change, and that means everyone will have to give a little or even a lot. The status quo simply cannot continue.

Read the full text of this editorial by clicking here.

November 26, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Vision Task Force

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Overwhelmed by conservation, Yolo County wants a say; Supervisors consider local regulation of mitigation efforts

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 25, 2008 at 6:29 am

From the Sacramento Business Journal:

Yolo County officials and farmers are growing nervous as water utilities, housing developers and private conservation banks eye the county as a prime spot for wetlands mitigation efforts. Five proposed and pending projects would convert about 2,500 to 3,000 acres from farmland to riparian wetlands, vernal pools and other habitats, Phil Pogledich, senior deputy county counsel, wrote in a report to the Board of Supervisors.

And there could be more acreage on the way. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, created by water agencies, environmentalists and state officials, proposes restoring and creating 100,000 acres of wetlands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Among the proposals: remove levees at the south end of the Deep Water Ship Canal, which connects to the Port of Sacramento, to inundate 2,000 to 5,000 acres of farmland.

County officials are concerned enough to consider regulating wildlife habitat projects. Although they have not proposed specific measures, they have suggested mimicking Solano County, which requires a conditional use permit for wetlands-creation projects. That approach means the project proponents have to prepare environmental reviews detailing potential impacts to adjacent farms and wildlife species.

Read more from the Sacramento Business Journal by clicking here.

November 25, 2008 · Filed Under Other Delta Issues, Sacramento

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Support for new aqueduct comes from unexpected source

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 23, 2008 at 7:43 am

From the San Jose Mercury News:

The year was 1980, and a young Contra Costa supervisor was making a last-minute plea to lawmakers who were about to approve a massive ditch that would divert Sacramento River water for Southern California. The Peripheral Canal, it appeared, would ruin the Delta environment and jeopardize the East Bay’s water supply, but its supporters in the Capitol had the votes they needed to get it built.

Supervisor Sunne Wright McPeak was forced into a fallback position. Contra Costa, she told an Assembly committee, would drop its opposition if lawmakers agreed to prevent the canal from being used until two new reservoirs under consideration were built — one near Brentwood and another in Merced County.

Her rationale: In a drought, Southern California certainly would take the water it needed and, without those reservoirs, the water would come straight out of the canal, leaving the Delta to fill with seawater and polluted runoff.

Twenty-eight years later, McPeak is making a similar argument, with a twist. It is now time to reconsider building a new aqueduct around the Delta, she says. However, it must be done with new reservoirs and in conjunction with a major new commitment to water conservation and environmental protection.

That position has raised a few eyebrows among McPeak’s successors on the board of supervisors, where opposition to the canal has held steady for a quarter-century. “I have respect for Sunne, but I don’t understand her transition,” said Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho, whose father, the late state Sen. John Nejedly, also fiercely opposed the canal. “Everything that existed 26 years ago that Sunne advocated against exists today, except it’s worse.”

An interesting read, well worth the click through. Check it out from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.

November 23, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

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Plan calls for overhaul of Delta policies

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 23, 2008 at 7:01 am

From the Monterey County Herald:

The “Delta Vision Strategic Plan” released in October calls for a complete overhaul of the way the Delta — the West Coast’s largest estuary and a source of water for 25 million Californians — is managed.

Developed by a panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the proposal addresses water deliveries, the environment, the local economy, state water policies and overall management.

Recognizing that any fix will take many years, and perhaps decades, the plan calls for a series of short-term actions that, while offering no permanent solution, are meant to improve water supplies and the environment at relatively little cost.

Those actions include information gathering, installing a new fish protection screen at the forebay that serves state pumps and stockpiling rock and other emergency response materials around the Delta to be ready in case of a levee break.

The recommendations are not binding and the plan is under review by a committee of cabinet members and state Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey.

Read more from the Monterey County Herald by clicking here.

November 23, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Vision Task Force

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Supporters of delta smelt lose legal bid to cancel water deals

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 20, 2008 at 7:23 am

From the Fresno Bee:

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a request by environmentalists that could have slowed the flow of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to agricultural interests to the south. The 92-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger is the latest in a case involving the tiny delta smelt, which environmentalists say is facing extinction largely because of reduced water coming into the delta, and from increased pumping.

The environmentalists wanted Wanger to cancel long-term contracts for more than a dozen west-side water districts that get water from the delta. But Wanger’s ruling said that it would be pointless to renegotiate the contracts to help the smelt, because the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation already has the ability to stop water deliveries to the affected districts to satisfy requirements of the Endangered Species Act.

The districts — which include the James Irrigation District, centered on the town of San Joaquin, and the adjacent Tranquillity Irrigation District — said Wanger’s ruling gives them a sense of stability.

It also likely sets a legal precedent for nearby water districts with similar contracts that the environmentalists didn’t challenge. That includes the massive Westlands Water District on the Valley’s west side.

Read more from the Fresno Bee by clicking here.

November 20, 2008 · Filed Under Delta smelt, Judge Wanger delta smelt ruling

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A new look at risk revives an old plan: California policy-makers lay groundwork to reintroduce proposals for water-conveyance canal

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 19, 2008 at 7:53 am

From Engineering News-Record:

A proposal to build a 42-mile long, 400-ft-wide water conveyance canal soundly rejected by California voters in 1982 is rising from the mists of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta again. It is driven this time, in large part, by a heightened appreciation for risk and the physical fragility of the state’s water supply. Consider it a legacy of Hurricane Katrina.

“Not long ago, risk was a dirty word, but things have changed,” says Martin W. McCann Jr., project technical director of the “Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Risk Management Strategy” study, one of several concurrent studies analyzing water issues in the state. “Now, [risk] is becoming every man’s tool. But it’s a unique expertise. We need to find the balance in how and when to use it.”

McCann, who also is a dam safety expert and an associate professor at Stanford University, spoke on Nov. 7 about the DRMS study, a project of the state’s Dept. of Water Resources, at the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 138th Civil Engineering Conference in Pittsburgh. He was part of a panel on risk-assessment evolution and expectations.

How experts define and plan for risk mitigation on infrastructure facilities is changing in the post-Katrina world. The emergence of new disciplines developed while studying and recovering from the disaster in New Orleans has led to techniques for evaluating the fragility of infrastructure and weighing that against the probability of failure and its consequences.

At the direction of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), California launched at least four studies to attack the problem of its water supply and the protection of the ecosystems in the delta. The reports are coming in and are refocusing attention on the need for what is euphemistically called a “dual-conveyance” water delivery system. The first conveyance system is the waterways of the delta; the second is a revitalization of plans for a bypass, or peripheral canal.

Read more from the Engineering News-Record by clicking here.

November 19, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

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Dan Bacher commentary: Is Schwarzenegger trading Klamath dam removal for the destruction of the Delta?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2008 at 6:35 am

From Dan Bacher:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger never misses an opportunity to push his environmentally destructive and enormously costly $ 9.3 billion water bond proposal to build two new reservoirs and “improved conveyance” - the peripheral canal.

True to his role as the “Fish Terminator,” the Governor used a press conference that he appeared at with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Mike Chrisman, California Secretary of Resources, in Los Angeles Friday to promote building new dams in California the day after an agreement in principle was reached between Oregon, California, PacifiCorp and the Bush administration over Klamath Dam removal.

“We are here today to celebrate something really big, which is a great victory for the environment of California,” Schwarzenegger gushed. “With the Klamath River Agreement we are making actual history, because this will be the biggest dam removal project ever in the history and the biggest one in the United States. So this is great for California and this is really great also for Oregon.”

He then touted the tentative pact as a consensus-style, win-win situation for the Klamath Basin. “And I’m very proud that everyone here worked together, because something like this cannot be done if not everyone is cooperating and working together, if it is environmentalists, if it is the farmers, the Native American tribes, salmon fishermen, the state and the federal agencies, the PacifiCorp, everyone, and I want to thank them all for their great cooperation. Everyone cares so much about the magnificent river and also the water quality and the fish population, and that is why this came about,” Schwarzenegger gushed.

After making that statement, of course, Schwarzenegger just had to promote building new dams and sub-surface water storage, although he didn’t specifically mention “improved conveyance” - the peripheral canal. In numerous press conferences and photo opportunities over the past two years, Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein have campaigned for a water bond measure that would two new unneeded reservoirs, Temperance Flats on the San Joaquin River and Sites on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, in spite of the fact that water in both watersheds is dramatically over-appropriated already and the chances are that these dams would never fill anyway.

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November 16, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal, Water Storage

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Discovery Bay CSD to weigh in on Frank’s Tract project; some fear it is a precursor to a peripheral canal

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 14, 2008 at 6:47 am

From the Brentwood Press:

As residents and local agencies throughout East County continue to grapple with the details of a proposal backed by the state and federal governments to improve water quality and habitat conditions in the Delta, the Discovery Bay CSD Board is preparing to respond to a state agency’s request for public input on the Frank’s Tract Project.

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Federal Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) are proposing the construction of flow-control gates in the Frank’s Tract sector of the Delta. The purpose of the project is to improve the salinity of the water while preserving the habitats of the Delta Smelt.

But while some agree that the short-range benefits, particularly to Discovery Bay and surrounding areas, are indisputable in terms of water quality, it is the long-term effect of the project that has some viewing the proposal as little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing – and the wolf is a peripheral canal.

Reclamation 800 District Engineer Chris Neudeck is one such person. Speaking before the CSD board at a recent meeting, Neudeck urged the board and the community to see beyond the proposed scope of the Frank’s Tract Project. “Your interests in this (project) are substantial and you have much to lose,” said Neudeck. “Where you live and play could be grossly impacted.”

Read more from the Brentwood Press by clicking here.

November 14, 2008 · Filed Under Other Delta Issues, Peripheral Canal

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Dan Bacher commentary: Professor challenges PPIC report backing peripheral canal; upcoming meeting on the PPIC’s technical data next week

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 9, 2008 at 6:49 am

From Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org:

Dr. Jeffrey A. Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center and Associate Professor of the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, on October 23 published a superb study challenging the controversial PPIC report calling for the construction of a peripheral canal to “solve” the problems of the California Delta.

The report, “The Economics of Ending Delta Water Exports Versus the Peripheral Canal: Checking the Data of the PPIC,” harshly criticizes the report for using “fabricated” and “exagerrated” data to push for the construction of a peripheral canal. The data has been used by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Delta Vision Task Force to provide the “scientific” justification for building the canal.

“The issue of the peripheral canal has returned to the center of the debate about the future of the Delta,” said Michael in his summary. “The case for building the peripheral canal has recently received a major boost from a report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) that endorses the peripheral canal as the best long-run solution for the Delta. The PPIC report considers alternative strategies, most notably ending Delta water exports. They find that ending Delta water exports is significantly better for the environment than a peripheral canal, but reject the strategy because it is too costly.”

However, Michael contends that the PPIC’s cost estimates are “exaggerated.” “They depend on inaccurate assumptions that utilize outdated, undocumented, or fabricated sources. When adjustments are made to their population growth and desalination cost assumptions to reflect the best, documented sources, the cost of ending Delta exports are likely to be similar to a peripheral canal. With similar costs, ending Delta exports is the best strategy due to its superior environmental benefits,” he concluded.

More from Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org by clicking here.

Related Note:  PPIC will discuss the data behind their report in this upcoming meeting:

CALFED Science Program Workshop - Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (PPIC II): November 12th and 13th at CALFED Bay-Delta Program, Delta Room; 650 Capitol Mall, 5th Floor, Sacramento.
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has recently released an on-line edition of its report “Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.” Much of the core technical information and reasoning behind the comparison of potential futures in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is contained in appendices available with the report (http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=810).  This two-day workshop will feature presentations and question-and-answer sessions focusing on material contained within each appendix. A concluding panel featuring CALFED Science Program advisors will discuss the best use of science for the Delta’s future, given the results of the PPIC report and ongoing planning processes.

This workshop will be webcast:
November 12, 2008: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=53108
November 13, 2008: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=53111
For more information see http://www.science.calwater.ca.gov/pdf/workshops/workshop_ppic_public_notice_110308.pdf

November 9, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

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Restore the Delta commentary: A Gradual ending of Delta water exports - a potentially cost effective solution to the Delta’s water woes

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 7, 2008 at 6:36 am

From the Restore the Delta E-news, this commentary:

In a new report, Dr. Jeffrey A. Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center and Associate Professor in the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific, calls into question the findings of this summer’s Public Policy Institute Report endorsing the peripheral canal as the best long-run solution for the Delta. Dr. Michael notes that the PPIC report finds that “ending Delta water exports is significantly better for the environment than the peripheral canal, but reject the strategy because it is too costly. ” Dr. Michael then elaborates that cost estimates in the PPIC report are exaggerated because they depend on “inaccurate assumptions that utilize outdated, undocumented, or fabricated sources” in relation to future population growth and desalination costs.

In his findings, Dr Michael also asserts that:

The headline news about the PPIC report is that a group of independent academics concluded after an extensive study that the peripheral canal is the best strategy for the Delta. This is unfortunate, because there is no objective way of reaching this conclusion with their data. The PPIC report finds that ending Delta exports has higher environmental benefits (including direct economic benefits to fisheries and recreation they do not calculate) that they do not attempt to value in economic terms, whereas the peripheral canal has lower economic costs in terms of its water supply costs and benefits. To reach their conclusion, the authors most impose their own subjective value judgment that the environmental benefits of ending Delta exports is not worth the additional costs of the water supply system. However, it is quite plausible that these environmental benefits could have values in excess of $1 billion per year, and the burden is on the PPIC team to argue that the benefits are less — It is astonishing that a group of reputable academics would make such a value-laden conclusion in a research report rather than simply identify the trade-offs.

Since the release of the PPIC report this summer, Restore the Delta has questioned the report’s incomplete economic analysis and the lack of value that it ascribes to Delta agriculture, fisheries, and communities, while promoting the economic value of another region in California. What is particularly disturbing is that the PPIC reports promoting the peripheral canal have been considered an important source for decision making by the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, leadership at the Department of Water Resources, and those promoting the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. What we find in Dr. Michael’s analysis is that the second PPIC report is truly an incomplete and inaccurate source for making such important water policy decisions.

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November 7, 2008 · Filed Under Other Delta Issues, Peripheral Canal

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Dan Bacher commentary: Canal controversy continues; Task force proposes peripheral canal in the Sacramento Delta

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 6, 2008 at 6:00 am

From the Sacramento News & Review:

Last month, a special task force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a controversial strategic plan recommending the construction of more dams and an updated version of the peripheral canal to address the “co-equal” goals of water supply and ecosystem restoration.

“If we don’t fix the Delta, we are headed for a water crisis,” said Phil Isenberg of Sacramento, the chairman of Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force. “The Delta as we know it today is not sustainable. Our plan is designed to meet the needs of California’s growing population, from north to south, east to west.”

While water-agency representatives and some environmentalists praised the plan, fishing groups and the Winnemem Wintu tribe blasted the task force for pushing the peripheral canal at a time when they believe the reduction of water exports and the retirement of drainage-impaired lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley are what is truly needed to restore collapsing Central Valley chinook salmon and Delta fish populations.

Read more from the Sacramento News & Review by clicking here.

November 6, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

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Contra Costa supervisors talk strategy on canal around Delta

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 5, 2008 at 5:55 am

From the San Jose Mercury News:

With 2009 shaping up as a pivotal one for the Delta, the Contra Costa County supervisors on Tuesday took steps toward developing a political strategy to influence decisions affecting the West Coast’s largest estuary and a key source of water.

Contra Costa has a lot at stake because the way water is delivered through, or around, the Delta could affect fisheries, recreation and drinking-water quality in the county. The Delta, which forms a triangle with corners at Antioch, Tracy and Sacramento, is a source of water for two-thirds of Californians and the sole source of tap water for 550,000 county residents. Perhaps the biggest decision that might be made next year is how to continue delivering Northern California water to regions south of the Delta, including parts of the East Bay, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

An aqueduct proposed to carry that water is under serious consideration. An earlier version of such an aqueduct, known as a peripheral canal, was defeated by voters statewide in 1982 with political opposition centered in Contra Costa.

“There’s an objective — a canal — that has been identified as a solution,” said Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho, whose father, the late state Sen. John Nejedly, was a key leader in the earlier fight against the canal.

Read more from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.

November 5, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

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Final Delta Vision Report is now posted online

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 3, 2008 at 4:45 pm

The final Delta Vision Strategic Plan of the Governor’s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force has been completed and is now posted to the Delta Vision website at http://deltavision.ca.gov/StrategicPlanningDocumentsandComments.shtml.

The report is the result of a 20-month-long process to develop a new plan for the Delta. The plan has been sent to committee and is scheduled to be presented to Governor by years end.

November 3, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Vision Task Force

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Spreck Rosekrans commentary: The delta’s wake-up call

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 3, 2008 at 7:24 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle, this commentary by Spreck Rosekrans of the Environmental Defense Fund:

Wake up, California. Do not hit the snooze button again!

It’s been clear for decades that the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary is in peril. The largest estuary on the West Coast is suffering - from ever-increasing water diversions, pollution and invasive species - to the point where scientists talk openly about the extinction of entire fish species. It is clear that potential failure of the delta’s fragile levee system threatens delta communities and could disrupt the water system that supplies part of the drinking water to 23 million Californians and much of California’s agricultural lands as well.

Last Friday, the governor’s Delta Vision Task Force released its strategic plan addressing the bay-delta’s ecosystem and water-supply problems. The plan represents a clear-eyed break with the past. The task force recognizes that protecting the environment of the delta is just as important as providing reliable water supplies to cities and farms. The task force urges California to base its water future in the reality that water is a limited resource, that enormous water diversions have adverse consequences, and that ecosystem collapse is not an acceptable option.

The Delta Vision report offered by the task force emphasizes the urgent need for expanded habitat and freshwater flows to restore salmon and other decimated fisheries. Its recommendations for improving water-use efficiency, eliminating disincentives for sustainable groundwater management and encouraging sales of water between willing buyers and sellers, so long as local communities are not harmed, are long overdue.

Read more of Spreck Rosekrans’ commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.

November 3, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Vision Task Force

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