Saturday’s top of the scroll: Divisive Delta canal now on the fast track; Fears loom that moving water south could devastate, contaminate supply

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 4, 2009 at 8:25 am

Happy Fourth of July!  May you have a safe and enjoyable holiday!  Today’s top of the scroll comes from Mike Taugher at the Contra Costa Times:

Chuck Baker grows pears on land his family has worked since 1851 and has a farmer’s sensitivity to the plagues of modern agriculture — pesticide regulations, the intrusive hand of federal regulators, the threat to private property posed by wetlands restoration — and, most of all, the need for water. So, he sympathizes with San Joaquin Valley farmers who are short of water this year, but he also has little patience for the argument being trumpeted by valley politicians: that the problems confronted by valley farmers can be reduced to the simple equation of “fish versus farmers.”

“I don’t think we’d be in this situation if they paid any attention to their own rules,” Baker said. “They’re the ones that ruined the fish. Not me, not me who’s been irrigating the same piece of land for 150 years.” The “they” Baker was referring to was not so much his kindred farmers, but the state and federal agencies that ship them Delta water. Those agencies, he said, created the ecological crisis by taking more water out of the Delta than they should have.

As Delta pumping increased in recent years, fish populations collapsed and triggered new rules to prevent fish from going extinct. Those rules will affect water deliveries for years, but so far have had a minor impact because shortages this year are mostly due to dry conditions and drawn-down reservoirs.

Now, the solution proposed to keep Delta water flowing south — a peripheral canal — poses a threat to water rights his family has held since statehood, Baker said. It is not something north Delta framers like Baker should have to worry about. They have the law, contracts and water-quality standards on their side.

But given a long record of broken promises and aborted plans, Baker and others say there is no reason to trust the government will protect their rights from the thirst of others, especially the farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. “They’re going to build this canal whether we want it or not,” he said. “The best we can do is fight them until we run out of money.”

Baker’s son, Brett, a 25-year-old UC Davis graduate who represents the sixth generation of his family to live on the same 30-acre orchard, put it this way: “This is being framed as a fish-versus-people issue, when in actuality it’s a people-versus-people issue.”

Read more from Mike Taugher at the Contra Costa Times by clicking here.

Delta advocates plan Capitol rally; Peripheral canal looms large in estuary debate

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 3, 2009 at 7:43 am

From Stockton’s Record:

Hundreds of Delta advocates plan to rally next week at the state Capitol, fearing that behind-the-scenes negotiations by legislators over the future of the estuary will shut them out of the debate until it is too late.

Earlier this week, it appeared a key committee hearing would take place next week, on Tuesday or Thursday. Grass-roots group Restore the Delta sent an alert to its members, warning that the proposed legislation - perhaps a combination of existing bills - could include authorization of a peripheral canal. That hearing is now in question as legislators grapple with the state budget. Some advocates are concerned there could be no hearing at all.

“One public hearing for a set of water policies that has far-reaching and expensive implications for the entire state is a mockery of the democratic process,” Restore the Delta director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla said in her message to members. “We are tired of the decisions being made without our consent and involvement,” she wrote.

Read more from the Record by clicking here.

Dan Bacher commentary: Peripheral Canal - Panama Canal North?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 2, 2009 at 7:27 am

From Dan Bacher, this commentary:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein, corporate agribusiness and other supporters of the peripheral canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have carefully avoided discussing what an actual canal would look like, as well as its enormous environmental impacts and budget-busting cost to the taxpayers.

However, in the size and scope of the project, it would be very similar to the Panama Canal, according to recent comments by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan on the floor on the floor when she and other legislators were asked to vote on a bill to fund a committee to develop a plan to implement the Delta Vision recommendations.

The recommendations call for a “conveyance” that will transport 15,000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs) from the Sacramento River around the Delta, according to Buchanan. This is smaller than the proposed 1982 peripheral canal that was intended to transport 22,000 cfs.

During drought years, the Sacramento River does not have 15,000 cfs. flow for over half the year. In 2007, the flow exceeded 15,000 cfs. in three months with the highest month at 22,500 cfs.

“Based on an engineering report completed in 2006, a conveyance to transport 15,000 cfs. would be between 500 and 700 feet wide requiring a 1300 foot right-of-way,” said Buchanan. “That’s the width of a 100 lane freeway! The length of the conveyance would be 48 miles. By comparison the Panama Canal is between 500 and 1000 feet wide and is 50 miles long.”

“I’m not going to vote for a plan that builds a Panama Canal down the middle of the 15th Assembly District!” concluded Buchanan.

Read more

Dan Bacher: Schwarzenegger amps up canal campaign, war on fish

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 21, 2009 at 10:05 am

From Dan Bacher, this commentary:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after protesters in Fresno Thursday accused him of not doing enough to support San Joaquin Valley growers in their battle to export more water from the imperiled California Delta, yesterday amped up his campaign to build the peripheral canal and more dams and affirmed his opposition to increased protections for salmon and other fish.

“We need to rethink the Delta, fix the Delta, and build a canal around the Delta,” said Schwarzenegger, in pushing a project that would cost an estimated $12 to $24 billion at a time when the state budget deficit is the largest in California history and thousands of teachers, health care workers and game wardens face layoffs.

Schwarzenegger, who appeared at a meeting and press conference Friday in Mendota, also emphasized the necessity to build Temperance Flat Reservoir on the San Joaquin River and Sites Reservoir on the west side of the Sacramento Valley. “Dams need to be built,” he stated. “We need above ground storage, below ground storage, new infrastructure.”

In a similiar vein, the Governor stated, “We urgently need a clean, reliable water supply, and I am committed to getting comprehensive water reform done once and for all. We must invest in our future, protect our precious resources and protect the state of California.”

He also again slammed the court ordered federal biological opinion, released on June 4, that directed the state and federal governments to change export pumping operations out of the Delta to avoid jeopardizing the continued survival of Sacramento winter run and spring run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales.

“I think the judge’s decision is wrong,” said Schwarzenegger. “If you start choosing species, and the smelt and salmon over people, I think you’re wrong. I think it’s a mistake when you see the impacts that it has.”

Schwarzenegger yet again parrotted the false claim by Westlands Water District and corporate agribusiness giants that the biological opinion chooses “fish over people.” In fact, the conflict is in reality a conflict between restoring salmon and other fish populations and the thousands of jobs they support and keeping in production drainage-impaired land in the west side of the San Joaquin, land laced with selenium that should have never been irrigated.

Read more

Board fires away at canal supporter; San Joaquin supervisors also oppose bill they say would hurt farming

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 27, 2009 at 7:52 am

From Stockton’s Record:

County policy-makers stepped into the ever-changing maelstrom of water-related bills Tuesday long enough to debate a peripheral canal proponent before voting officially to oppose one piece of developing legislation in Sacramento.

County officials have never been shy about voicing opposition to any plan to build a canal to divert water bound for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to pumps sending water to points across the state, but at their meeting Tuesday, members of the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors were able to deliver their disapproval directly to a representative of a group promoting such a canal.

They listened to Karla Nemeth, a spokeswoman for the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, lay out her presentation, including her take that the fragile estuary would sustain less damage if exported water were diverted around the Delta instead of being sucked out at pumps along with nutrients and fish. The Bay-Delta Conservation Plan proposes to balance ecological needs of the Delta with the needs of the 25million Californians who use the estuary as a source of water.

“It’s a major challenge to restore an ecosystem in an environment like the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” she said. Rough estimates say the plan could restore at least 55,000 acres of wetlands, she said.

But county supervisors noted any canal would do nothing to create new sources of water for an increasingly thirsty state, and they were concerned a peripheral canal would harm the county’s water quality and the livelihoods of farmers who use that water.

I definitely do not want Karla Nemeth’s job! You can read more from The Record by clicking here.

Harnessing the delta: Bypass system (peripheral canal) would yield water, protect species

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 20, 2009 at 1:34 pm

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise, this commentary by Thomas Wagoner, general manager of Lake Hemet Municipal Water District:

California faces a statewide drinking water shortage and its antiquated water collection and delivery system is in need of billions of dollars worth of improvements. Water shortages have already prompted water districts and agencies to tighten belts, impose tiered rate structures and press customers to embrace conservation measures.

No one argues with the need to use water wisely. Buy why not fix the infrastructure problems that make Californians vulnerable to fluctuations in weather patterns or to the availability of water from the Colorado River or the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta? This single theme is where Californians vitally need political leadership.

In the old days, groundwater and runoff from the melting Sierra Nevada snowpack was in plentiful supply. We also were able to import more than our legal share of water from the Colorado River, partly because Nevada and Arizona didn’t use their full entitlements. It’s a different story today. Groundwater basins in western Riverside County and in many other areas of California have been overpumped and need refilling.

An even more serious problem is looming in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which supplies water to 25 million Californians, including residents of western Riverside County. A federal judge has ordered a 30 percent cutback in the pumping of water from the delta to protect the delta smelt, one of several species of fish that are believed to be at risk due to falling water levels, not to mention water flow patterns that kill them by leading them directly into water pumps.

Read more of this commentary by clicking here.

‘We’re not at the table’: State official assures local residents will have say in new Bay-Delta plan

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 12, 2009 at 7:46 am

From Lodi Sentinel:

Karla Nemeth made no bones about it when she addressed the Walnut Grove Rotary Club on Monday. She works for the Schwarzenegger administration, which wants to ship more Delta water to the southern San Joaquin Valley and to Southern California.

“A lot of people really hate this,” Nemeth told what she envisioned to be a hostile audience full of residents of the Highway 160 corridor. “I get this.”

Rotarian Larry Emery, pastor of Walnut Grove Presbyterian Church, complained about Northern Californians, and especially Delta residents, not having sufficient representation in deciding the Delta’s future. “We don’t have any representation except at these kinds of meetings (like Rotary),” Emery said. “When it comes to decision making, we’re not at the table.”

A little more at the Lodi Sentinel by clicking here; the major portion of this story apparently is only available in the print version :(

Dan Bacher commentary: Schwarzenegger looking to new Republican leader as canal partner

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 9, 2009 at 6:43 am

From Dan Bacher, this commentary:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after the election of Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo) to replace Assemblymember Mike Villines (R-Clovis) as Republican Leader of the California Assembly yesterday, issued a wildly contradictory statement attempting to enlist Blakeslee’s support as a “partner” in the Governor’s mad scheme to build a peripheral canal and more dams.

“As a fiscal hawk who works tirelessly to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent appropriately, Assemblymember Blakeslee will be a great partner in this leadership role,” said Schwarzenegger. “I look forward to working with him to tackle the important issues facing our state right now including the budget, water infrastructure and improving our state’s business climate.”

If Blakeslee is a “fiscal hawk” working “tirelessly to ensure that taxpayers dollars are spent appropriately,” how can Schwarzenegger possibly, in the same paragraph, say he is looking forward to working with him on enormously expensive and environmentally destructive “water infrastructure” including a peripheral canal and more dams?

Schwarzenegger’s canal/water bond proposal is expected to cost the taxpayers anywhere from $12 billion to $24 billion at a time when California doesn’t have enough money to pay its teachers, firefighters and game wardens. It will not only cost the taxpayers dearly, but is expected to pound the final nail into the coffin of collapsing Central Valley Chinook salmon, delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, striped bass and other Bay-Delta estuary fish populations.

Whether Blakeslee will embrace the Governor’s canal and dams proposal remains to be seen. Blakeslee and other legislators in June 2008 inserted special provisions into the state budget to prevent an end-run around the Legislature and voters to build a peripheral canal, according to an article in the San Diego Union Tribune by Michael Gardner on June 16, 2008.

Read more

Delta landowners say no to peripheral canal survey

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 7, 2009 at 6:40 am

From the Sacramento Bee:

Property owners in five counties around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are protesting plans by the state to survey their land for a controversial new water canal – opposition that has landed them in court.

The conflict marks a rocky start to the rebirth of the peripheral canal, a plan to divert the Sacramento River around the Delta rejected by voters statewide in 1982. The proposed surveys are an important first step in reviving the project, still considered by water planners an important piece of California’s plumbing.

Three dozen property owners in the Delta have refused to let researchers from the California Department of Water Resources onto their land to study soil properties and environmental conditions. As a result, state Attorney General Jerry Brown has petitioned the courts in Contra Costa, Solano, Yolo, San Joaquin and Sacramento counties to enforce access on DWR’s behalf.

“The general feeling down here is that the state, egged on by its water contractors, is just going to try to roll over the Delta,” said Tom Zuckerman, a land owner on Rindge Tract, a Delta island near Stockton, who is one of those challenging the state.

Property owners oppose the terms of access sought by DWR. But perhaps more importantly, they’re challenging the validity of the project itself, claiming the state doesn’t have authority yet to study a canal. “We don’t think they’re proceeding legally,” said Dante Nomellini Sr., a Stockton attorney representing a number of property owners. “We want to get those (questions) framed in these legal actions regardless of the outcome by the court in terms of access.”

Read more from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

DWR sues Delta landowners for “temporary entry” to study peripheral canal routes

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 5, 2009 at 3:25 pm

From Somach, Simmons & Dunn, this from Brian D. Poulson:

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has filed as many as 36 petitions for orders permitting entry and investigation of real property (Petitions) in the Superior Courts of the five counties covering the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta Estuary (Delta). The Petitions seek more than two and one-half years of access to thousands of acres of private property in the Delta in order to conduct surveys and studies purportedly related to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). Landowners have resisted DWR’s efforts and many have filed official opposition to these Petitions with the courts. Landowner opposition could create a significant hurdle to DWR as it rolls toward BDCP’s call for the construction of a new isolated conveyance facility.

Background

The BDCP is a multispecies habitat conservation plan currently under development that, if implemented, will allow certain federal, state, and local agencies to conduct activities in the Delta, including operation of the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, that might otherwise conflict with current laws pertaining to endangered and threatened species. DWR is one of the principle state agencies developing the BDCP. As part of its proposed suite of actions intended to improve ecological conditions in the Delta and shore up the reliability of Delta water supplies available to southern and central California, the BDCP calls for the construction of an “isolated conveyance” facility, or peripheral canal. DWR is currently studying and developing plans for the canal. Accordingly, it has identified thousands of acres of property in the Delta which are strategically located in the proposed canal planning areas, and therefore seeks entry to those properties to conduct its studies.

Read more of Brian’s discussion and analysis by clicking here.

Delta landowners heading to court: Dozens refuse state access for peripheral canal survey

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 4, 2009 at 7:46 am

From Stockton’s Record:

No, thank you.

Three dozen Delta landowners are headed to court after refusing state water officials’ requests to access their lands as part of a peripheral canal study.

The state Department of Water Resources in the fall sent landowners a sort of permission slip, but about half refused to sign.

What the state is asking for, one farmer said, is a double insult: to drill holes, dig pits and intrude on private property for an environmental review that could lead to construction of a canal - an endgame for the Delta, in his eyes.

“First, you’re basically letting them interrupt your farming operation, and then they come out and cut you off at the knees (with a canal). Supporting something like that runs against the grain for everyone,” said 56-year-old Steve Coldani, whose family has farmed Terminous Tract west of Lodi since the 1920s. Coldani is a trustee for Reclamation District 548, one of 13 defendants in San Joaquin County.

Read more from The Record by clicking here.

Guest commentary: Contra Costa report on peripheral canal is “utter nonsense”

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 29, 2009 at 8:21 am

From the Pasadena Sub-Rosa blog, submitted directly to Aquafornia, here’s a rebuttal commentary to the article posted earlier this week in the Contra Costa Times, titled “Peripheral Canal No Drought Lifeline, Contra Costa Water District Finds”, which says in essence, A $10 billion plan to build a canal around the Delta would not deliver significantly more water to cities and farms if it were in place this year, new data shows.Water agencies and politicians from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on down have repeatedly stressed that water shortages this year from the Bay Area to San Diego prove the need for such a canal. It would divert water around the Delta for delivery to farms and cities. But numbers developed by a state-run planning group seeking to build the canal show it would not deliver more water in dry years, the Contra Costa Water District stated this week.

This commentary was written by David O. Powell, B.S. Civil Engineering, Cal-Tech; former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, formerly California Dept. of Water Resources Chief Engineer of San Diego office; water and hydro-electric engineer with Bechtel Corporation; Assistant Chief Engineer Alameda County Water District; Vice-President and Chief of Planning for Bookman-Edmonston Engineering, Glendale, California; presently retired:

My reaction to the above-cited article is “what utter nonsense!”

First, the article is by a reporter who apparently doesn’t fully understand what he is talking about. For example. the article refers to

“… numbers developed by a state-run planning group seeking (emphasis added) to build the canal…” yet the thrust of the article is opposition to the plan. A later paragraph refers to “…Gary Bobker, program manager of The Bay Institute, an environmental group, and a member of the conservation plan’s steering committee.” Mr. Bobker is quoted as stating “If you build a very expensive facility and don’t improve water supply much, does that create more incentive for water agencies to weaken existing environmental and water quality standards?”

The article appears in a Contra Costa County newspaper, and liberally quotes representatives of Contra Costa Water District. Please bear in mind that Contra Costa Water District’s water supply is dependent on (water) diversions directly from the Delta.

The article states “according to water users’ estimates, new rules to protect the threatened fish cost 300,000 acre-feet of water this year…” Later it says ” in dry years the increase is small to nonexistent…” Three hundred thousand acre-feet per year during droughts is insignificant?!?!?!

The article makes reference to an $8.5 billion cost for the current plan. I would like to see the cost estimate leading to this figure. I do not remember the estimated cost of the Peripheral Canal when it was proposed for construction a quarter century or so ago. But I would be very surprised if that figure, adjusted for inflation, would come anywhere near $8.5 billion.

Let me add a few closing remarks outlining my views.

I would have to agree that the fact that there is not very much new water available for capture during drought periods is sort of a no-brainer. Although 300,000 acre feet a year is not insignificant. The real function of a Peripheral Canal during periods of drought is to enable the transfer southerly of supplemental water originating northerly of the Delta, whether that water is from existing storage, new storage in the Sacramento Valley, water purchased from farmers or diversions from North Coast streams.

The article indicates that larger supplies originating north of the Delta are available during wet years. The problem is that with current restrictions on pumping from the Delta imposed on the State Water Project and the Federal Central Valley Project, the ability to transfer water during wet periods is severely impaired.

Various statements in the article suggest that a major function of the proposed plan will be for the purpose of “… existing environmental and water quality standards…[and to]… conserve endangered species.” I would suspect that a Peripheral Canal for the purposes of getting water from the north side of the Delta to the south side of the Delta (without aggravating environmental conditions tot a state worse than would exist under natural drought conditions) would cost far less than $8.5 billion.

I think that the remarks about the capacity inadequacy and inability to refill existing storage downstream from the Delta are well taken.

Sub Rosa Note: As best as we have been able to find online the original cost of the Peripheral Canal, not including offsite levees, was $1.5 billion in 1982. Recalculated in today’s dollars at a 4% per year monetary inflation rate, would be about $4.3 billion.

Peripheral canal no drought lifeline, Contra Costa water district finds

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 25, 2009 at 8:13 am

From the San Jose Mercury News:

A $10 billion plan to build a canal around the Delta would not deliver significantly more water to cities and farms if it were in place this year, new data shows.

Water agencies and politicians from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on down have repeatedly stressed that water shortages this year from the Bay Area to San Diego prove the need for such a canal. It would divert water around the Delta for delivery to farms and cities.

But numbers developed by a state-run planning group seeking to build the canal show it would not deliver more water in dry years, the Contra Costa Water District stated this week. “Consequently, all the same issues would have arisen about deliveries and operations,” Greg Gartrell, district assistant general manager, wrote this week to leaders in the planning effort, called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

A spokeswoman for the conservation plan said she had not seen the memo and that participants were still working through the report containing the data. “I imagine we’ll need to address these issues,” said Karla Nemeth.

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

Schwarzenegger launches “Save Our Water” program after pushing canal at rally

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 22, 2009 at 8:37 am

From Dan Bacher, this commentary:

In yet another attempt to cast himself in the role of the “Green Governor,” Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the launch of “Save Our Water” public education program by the state Department of Water Resources and Association of California Water Agencies.

“In California, water is essential to our jobs, our schools, our families, our environment and our economy,” said Schwarzenegger. “With a drought, court-ordered water restrictions and an increasing population, the time for action is now. Making sure Californians have the water we need to keep our economy strong and our people working has never been more critical. This is what the ‘Save our Water’ campaign is all about, and I encourage all Californians to be a part of the solution.”

However, the same Governor who today called for increased water conservation last Friday joined a “March for Water” sponsored by corporate agribusiness and the Latino Water Coalition under the guise of a “farmworker” march. Schwarzenegger used his speech at San Luis Reservoir, the last stop of the march, as another opportunity to push his unsustainable proposal to build a peripheral canal and more dams.

In the eyes of Schwarzenegger and corporate agribusiness, building Temperance Flat and Sites Dams and “improving conveyance” - constructing a peripheral canal - are the “solutions” to a crisis created by massive exports of northern California water to grow cotton and other crops on land that should have never been irrigated, land filled with selenium and other toxic minerals for which no drainage solution has ever been figured out.

The march had three goals, according to the organizers:

• to temporarily and immediately relieve “severe Endangered Species Act standards” that are preventing much needed pumping from the Delta to other regions of California.

• Second, to urge state legislators to agree on one comprehensive water plan to put before voters as a bond measure in the next election.

• Third, to call for public funds for those facing remarkable hardship and federal stimulus dollars to address shovel-ready water infrastructure projects.

“This march is about opening our eyes to the reality of California’s water crisis – and the reality is that farmers do not have a reliable water supply they can count on, farm workers fear losing their jobs because crops are not being planted, and in towns across the Central Valley, unemployment is skyrocketing,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “I am determined to getting a comprehensive solution done once and for all that will update our water infrastructure, increase our water storage and restore our Delta.”

Read more

Dan Bacher: Delta farmers sue to stop Arnold’s peripheral canal; “We believe that these coequal goals violate the act. Protection of endangered species comes first - it is not a coequal goal!”

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 17, 2009 at 8:35 am

From Dan Bacher:

Delta farmers have filed a groundbreaking lawsuit charging that everyone involved with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a thinly disguised process to build a peripheral canal and increase water exports out of the California Delta, is violating numerous environmental laws protecting fish and wildlife and requiring adequate public input.

The lawsuit by the South Delta Water Agency and Central Delta Water Agency charges that state and federal government agency officials and non-governmental organizations have violated numerous provisions of the Natural Community Conservation Planning Act (NCPA), California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), NEPA, and the Bagley Keene Open Meeting Act.

The lawsuit takes place as Central Valley Chinook salmon, delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other species have crashed to record low population levels, due to massive water exports out of the California Delta and Central Valley dam operations.

Defendants include Mike Chrisman, the California Secretary of Resources, Lester Snow, the Director of the Department of Water Resources, Don Koch, the Director of Fish and Game, Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District and officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Reclamation. The California Farm Bureau, Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense, American Rivers, Natural Heritage Institute and the Bay Institute are also listed as defendants.

Dante Nomellini, lawyer for the Central Delta Water Agency, and John Herrick, attorney for the South Delta Water Agency, charge that combining federal and state environmental processes through combined CEQA/NEPA “scoping” meetings in 2008 was “procedurely flawed” and “inadequate.”

The complaint documents how the process has excluded proper public input and transparency, as required under the Bagley Keene Open Meeting Act and other laws. “There is not even a draft BDCP plan that the public can review to provide input,” said Nomellini.

Nomellini also contends that the promotion of “co-equal goals” of “ecological restoration” and “water supply” violates the state’s Natural Community Conservation Planning Act (NCCPA). The primary objective of the NCCP program, broader in its orientation than the California and Federal Endangered Species Acts, is “to conserve natural communities at the ecosystem scale while accommodating compatible land use,” according to the DFG. “How can government officials promote a plan that declares water supply and ecological protection as co-equal goals?” asked Dante Nomellini. “We believe that these coequal goals violate the act. Protection of endangered species comes first - it is not a coequal goal!”

Nomellini views the plan as a process that excludes required public input and violates regulatory procedures in order to push through a canal proposal that would be devastating to Delta fish and farms. “We think that the BDCP is a charade for promoting the peripheral canal,” said Nomellini. “It is clear that this plan will destroy the Delta estuary, including both farms and fish that need fresh water flows to be healthy.”

I applaud the farmers for joining with fishing groups, California Indian Tribes, Delta residents and grassroots environmentalists in opposition to the BDCP’s push to build a peripheral canal. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s BDCP and Delta Vision processes are nothing other than cynical attempts to cloak the plan to build the peripheral canal and destroy the California Delta with a veneer of deceptive “green” eco-babble.

These two processes stress the “co-equal goals” of “ecosystem restoration” and “water supply” when they really will only result in a gigantic water grab to serve corporate agribusiness on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side and southern California.

Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, describes the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan process as “essentially a massive hydrologic modification of the Delta masquerading as a habitat conservation plan.”

“BDCP is essentially an end run around the Endangered Species Act,” he emphasized. “It promises take permits, fifty-year guarantees and no surprises in an incredibly complex and degraded estuary while refusing to address how much water the Delta needs to maintain ecosystem integrity or to analyze the costs and benefits of various reduced or zero export scenarios.”

The canal and increased water exports will only exacerbate the imperiled state of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations. Let’s hope that the lawsuit by the Delta farmers, as well as numerous lawsuits and complaints by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and other groups, stop the insane campaign by the Governor and Senator Diane Feinstein to destroy California Delta farms and fish in order to to build a canal to export more water to corporate agribusiness.

Here is a copy of the complaint: http://www.calsport.org/4-9-09ComplaintBDCP.pdf

Farmers file lawsuit over canal; They challenge process for approving Delta plan

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 15, 2009 at 8:51 am

This lawsuit is the same one that was at the top of the scroll yesterday, but here’s the story from Stockton’s Record:

Delta farmers have fired their first shot in the battle over a peripheral canal. They have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the process by which a canal might be approved. “It’s our first effort to get the state and federal public officials to comply with the law,” said Stockton attorney Dante Nomellini, who represents the plaintiff Central Delta Water Agency.

Farmers worry a peripheral canal would siphon much of the Delta’s fresh water around the estuary to pumps that send the flows to two-thirds of California. A canal is favored by participants in the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, a huge effort that purports to meet the Delta’s ecosystem and water supply goals of the future.

Central Delta and its counterpart, the South Delta Water Agency, claim the plan’s participants - the state and federal governments, water districts and some environmental groups - have not given the public enough detailed information to solicit educated comments. The lawsuit, filed at U.S. District Court in Sacramento, names no fewer than 68 individuals, agencies and entities as defendants.

Read more from the Stockton Record by clicking here.

Delta farmers sue to block peripheral canal plan

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 14, 2009 at 8:21 am

From Mike Taugher at the Contra Costa Times:

Delta farmers have sued to block plans to build an aqueduct that would divert Sacramento River water around the Delta. It is the latest in a flurry of about a dozen active lawsuits over California’s most important and fought over source of water, but it appears to be the first to directly take on new plans to build a peripheral canal like the one voters defeated in 1982.

“This is a life-and-death struggle for us, and we’re not giving up,” said John Herrick, a lawyer for the South Delta Water Agency, one of two water districts that filed the lawsuit last week in federal court in Sacramento.

At issue is a mammoth planning effort that seeks, by the end of next year, to have a detailed plan and permit to build a peripheral canal around the Delta that would also help conserve fish and other wildlife that are in danger of extinction.

The plan, called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, would be the largest and most complex habitat conservation plan ever under state and federal endangered species laws. It is also on a schedule that would also make it one of the fastest.

The lawsuit, filed late last week in federal court in Sacramento, says the plan violates planning laws because the environmental review has begun even though there is no specific plan for critics to analyze.

Read more from the Contra Costa Times by clicking here.

Dan Bacher responds to the news:

I applaud the farmers for joining with fishing groups, Delta residents and grassroots environmentalists in opposition to the BDCP’s push to build a peripheral canal. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s BDCP and Delta Vision processes are nothing other than cynical attempts to cloak the plan to build the peripheral canal and destroy the California Delta with a veneer of deceptive “green” eco-babble.

These two processes stress the “co-equal goals” of “ecosystem restoration” and “water supply” when they really will only result in a gigantic water grab to serve corporate agribusiness on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side and southern California.

Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan process is “essentially a massive hydrologic modification of the Delta masquerading as a habitat conservation plan.”

“BDCP is essentially an end run around the Endangered Species Act,” he emphasized. “It promises take permits, fifty-year guarantees and no surprises in an incredibly complex and degraded estuary while refusing to address how much water the Delta needs to maintain ecosystem integrity or to analyze the costs and benefits of various reduced or zero export scenarios,” he added.

The canal and increased water exports will only exacerbate the imperiled state of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations.

You can find the full text of Dan Bacher’s commentary at IndyBay.org by clicking here.

State must rescue delta from crisis, says Representative Martinez & State Senator Wolk

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 12, 2009 at 7:45 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle, this commentary by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez and State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis:

California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast of the Americas, is in crisis. Multiple species of fish are in rapid decline. First the delta smelt, and then the steelhead and salmon that once migrated through the estuary by the tens of thousands. Now, even the orcas that feed on the salmon are threatened. The dominoes are falling every day.

This crisis didn’t happen overnight. It came after years of mismanagement by the federal and state water and wildlife agencies that ignored what the science was telling them and resisted new realities about climate change.

Fortunately, change in Washington is giving Californians new opportunities to rescue our delta from the failed policies of the past. With a new administration committed to sustainable energy and environmental policy, it is time to form a new state-federal-local partnership to save the delta.

We need this vital region - its ecosystem and its economy - to thrive. Working together, we can use new tools to meet our clean water needs, overhaul the responsible agencies, and implement a new management plan that is grounded in science - and gets results.

But first we must realize that there are no silver bullets that will solve all of California’s water woes. Suspending the federal Endangered Species Act certainly won’t do it. Nor will sprinting to commit billions of taxpayer dollars to dig a water supply ditch the size of the Panama Canal around the delta.

Read the rest of this commentary by clicking here.

Bay Area’s tricky choices about delta’s future

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 12, 2009 at 7:41 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle, this commentary by Ellen Hanak, director of research and a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, and Jay Lund, the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering and co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis:

Something must be done about the failing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Continuing to supply the Bay Area and other water users directly from the delta is the worst long-term strategy for native species and a poor strategy for California’s economy. The most promising long-term strategy for native fishes alone is to end water exports entirely, at a still greater water supply and economic cost.

The most promising strategy to restore the delta’s native fishes and ensure a reliable water supply for 22 million Californians is to build a suitable peripheral canal with substantial additional habitat investments. These are the conclusions of our recent analysis, published by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The delta - part of the largest estuary on the West Coast - is the Bay Area’s largest single water source. Since late 2007, water supplies from the delta have been reduced for many Bay Area users, due to declining populations of endangered native species, worsening the effects of a multiyear drought. Yet the current problem is small compared with the risk of a major earthquake, which would probably destroy many fragile levees, causing a rush of seawater toward the pumps that supply water to the Bay Area, Southern California and San Joaquin Valley and delta farms. The Bay Area as a whole could face a 30 percent loss of water supply for months or years.

Even if such a catastrophe is averted, the rising sea level and flooding of many islands will make the delta’s water saltier over time, reducing its suitability as a source of drinking water. These factors make current water management policies for the delta unsustainable.

Read the rest of this commentary by clicking here.

The Peripheral Canal II, storage, and the Delta – the solution is in our Sites

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 8, 2009 at 7:59 am

From the San Jose Examiner, this commentary by Jeff Burgess:

Delta locals are right to be concerned. Their way of life will likely change as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is enacted. The Delta ecosystem is so large, so impactful to the entire state, and so damaged by decades of mismanagement that it’s going to take radical, extreme changes to restore – to the extent possible – the habitat.

But Delta locals won’t agree. Their plan is simple, yet completely implausible: self-sufficiency. And it’s best delineated – from their perspective – by a local lawyer and landowner Tom Zuckerman. His idea: communities south of the Delta can be water self-sufficient, and that the best possible course of action is to turn off the pumps that feed the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project.

Talk about a non-starter.

Conservation had to be part of the solution. Both the Governor and water contractors are advancing conservation as a key tenant in the solution to California’s water crisis. However, to go from conservation to regional self-sufficiency is simply too narrow-minded.

We’re all Californians, and California’s water is a statewide resource – regardless of where we as individuals live. In fact, water is a regional and nationwide resource. As an analogy, how would we Northern Californians feel if Oregon and Washington stopped sending cheap electricity from Northwest hydropower projects to us? Would those same folks who were barking “it’s our water” at BDCP scoping meetings applaud our Northwest neighbors if they flipped the electrical export switch to OFF? Would those folks enjoy life by candlelight – embracing energy self-sufficiency?

Read more from the San Jose Examiner - including why the author thinks the Sites Reservoir should be built - by clicking here. Then, for more on the Sites Reservoir, continue on to the next post.

Dan Bacher commentary: American Rivers names Sacramento-San Joaquin River as most endangered; portrays the peripheral canal as a possible alternative to solving the problems of the Delta

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 8, 2009 at 7:31 am

From Dan Bacher:

American Rivers, a Washington-based conservation organization, has named the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, including the California Delta, as the most endangered river in the U.S.

The group released “America’s Most Endangered Rivers, 2009 Edition” today. The annual report identifies ten rivers facing uncertain futures and provides an opportunity for the public to act on their behalf. “Unless we overhaul the way we manage water supply and flood protection on the Sacramento-San Joaquin, the lives of millions of people and the entire economy of the state of California will continue to be jeopardized,” said Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers. “It’s time for 21st century solutions to restore the health of these rivers and protect the health, safety and quality of life of Californians.”

American Rivers called on the California Department of Water Resources, the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers, and other “stakeholders” to “invest in 21st century sustainable solutions that protect water supply, farms, and cities, while restoring the health of these great rivers and their estuary.”

“The future of California is joined at the hip with the Sacramento-San Joaquin River System,” said UC Davis geologist and American Rivers board member Jeff Mount. “This Most Endangered River listing should be a wake up call to our elected leaders. It’s time to get to work restoring these rivers.”

Mount was one of the authors of last year’s highly controversial PPIC report, partly funded by Bechtel Corporation co-owner Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., that endorsed the peripheral canal as a “solution” to California water supply and Delta ecosystem needs.

However, Steve Rothert of American Rivers emphasized that the organization is not endorsing the peripheral canal. “There is not enough information now available on the potential impacts and benefits of the canal to the Delta ecosystem and its tributaries for us to make an endorsement,” said Rothert.

“Some believe that we should reject the proposal out of hand and believe that it shouldn’t be studied, but we believe it should be studied as one of the options,” Rothert said.

In a policy statement on their website, the group portrays the peripheral canal as a possible alternative to solving the problems of the Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. In a careful review that I made of the group’s analysis of the peripheral dam proposal, it appears that the group is very favorable to Schwarzenegger’s and BDCP’s proposal, even though it hasn’t officially endorsed the canal.

“One alternative that has emerged in the BDCP process, as well as others, is the construction of what is known as the ‘peripheral canal,’ which would deliver Sacramento River water along the Delta’s eastern edge to the pumps, circumventing the Delta,” the statement reads. “The canal would protect water exports from the vulnerabilities of levee failure and reduce the alteration of water flows created by the current configuration of the pumps.”

“A more comprehensive and lasting solution would be to wean municipal and agricultural water interests from their reliance on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers,” the group claims. “The state must also invest significantly in ecosystem restoration projects and alternative water storage initiatives.”

Read more

New canal would not help the ‘ailing’ Delta, says commentary

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 7, 2009 at 7:31 am

From the Sacramento Bee, this commentary by Mark Wilson, Delta farmer, member of the Blue Ribbon Task Force’s stakeholder group, and appointed member of the Delta Protection Commission:

The recent Viewpoint by Jeffrey Knightlinger of the Metropolitan Water District and the Northern California Water Association’s Donn Zea (”Canal would help ailing Delta to recover,” March 20), purporting a consensus around a peripheral canal as a means to “help the Delta to recover,” and former MWD executive Timothy Quinn’s letter (”Delta left out of climate scenario,” March 20) present a one-sided view of a multifaceted situation that affects Delta residents and the entire state.

From co-managing a family farming operation in the Delta that dates back to 1922, I am gravely concerned that the plans being made to benefit water exporters would negatively impact the people, economy, natural resources and ecology of the Delta.

George Orwell would grimace at the claim that a canal built through five tributary rivers to the Delta, thousands of acres of prime farmland, a national wildlife refuge, American Indian burial sites, migratory corridors and other sensitive resources, and that significantly reduces freshwater inflow into the Delta somehow helps the Delta. A canal does not create any new water and is first and foremost a new northern diversion point for those with contractual rights to Delta water.

The canal would secure better-quality water for out-of-watershed users and potentially avoid some of the endangered species problems plaguing the pumping of water from the south Delta. Yet this would be accomplished at the expense of the Delta watershed and long-standing beneficial uses.

While new intakes south of Sacramento would decrease intake of Delta smelt at the current pumps, the potential effects caused at the new diversion points are unknown. What other species may be affected by the new diversions? What effects will the resulting changes in water quality and hydrology have on existing natural and human communities in Northern California and the Delta?

Read the rest of this commentary by clicking here.

Dan Bacher commentary: Schwarzenegger tries to link wilderness bill to building peripheral canal

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 31, 2009 at 9:47 am

From Dan Bacher, this commentary:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in yet one more sickening attempt to portray himself as the “Green Governor” while continuing his unprecedented war on fish and the environment, praised President Obama’s signing of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act while incongruously linking it to an environmentally destructive peripheral canal proposal.

It shows how the Governor can give even a good bill, one that provides funds for San Joaquin River salmon and steelhead restoration and grants wild and scenic status to more California rivers, a toxic green taint!

“Preserving and restoring California’s wilderness and waterways has been a top priority of my Administration and I am pleased that our environmental goals will be furthered by many aspects of this bill, specifically the San Joaquin River Restoration Act,” claimed Schwarzenegger. “This bill preserves 700,000-plus acres of California’s pristine wilderness and also provides additional funding to supplement the millions of dollars California has already invested to restore the San Joaquin River – helping rejuvenate a critical fishery, restore a devastated habitat and improve a water-delivery network that is the lifeblood of a Central Valley farming economy all Californians depend on.”

The operative phrase is “improve a water delivery network.” When Schwarzenegger talks about “improving” water delivery, that means building a peripheral canal and more dams, a goal that he shares with Senator Dianne Feinstein and the Nature Conservancy in their Unholy Alliance to destroy the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.

Read more

Trust and the peripheral canal: Exploring why the crowd laughed at “We are a system of laws”

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 26, 2009 at 3:22 pm

In this article by Dan Bacher, posted at IndyBay.org, Dan cites this excerpt from the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance regarding the meeting in Stockton, reported on here by the Stockton Record:

Tuesday night, more than 120 people joined CSPA, environmentalists and Delta water agencies and farmers to vent their frustration at Resource Secretary Mike Chrisman and DWR Deputy Director Jerry Johns at a meeting over the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan and the proposal to construct a peripheral canal around the estuary.

Comments ripping the proposed plan were met with cheers and applause. The crowd broke into riotous laughter when Jerry Johns replied that “we are a system of laws” in response to Dante Nomellini Jr’s question of what assurances he would give that only surplus water would be diverted into the canal.

CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings observed that the “BDCP was essentially a massive water project masquerading as a Habitat Conservation Plan to circumvent the Endangered Species Act” and characterized it as “simply an illegal scheme to allow those in the South Valley, who hold junior water rights to surplus water - water they understood would not be available in certain years - to take precedence over the senior water rights and the public trust needs of Northern California.”

You can read the full text of the press release, plus Dan Bacher’s comments, by clicking here.

The article in the Stockton Record caught a few blogger’s eyes, with a really good post on the issue of trust and the peripheral canal posted at the On the Public Record blog. The blogger writes that lack of trust is the major reason why Delta residents are fighting the peripheral canal so vigorously; there’s two types of trust involved here, they write, one is delusional and the other well justified. The delusional mistrust?

They imagine that state agencies are making up data in service of a complicated land and water grab conspiracy. They don’t believe the abstract data. The evidence of their eyes and lives is stronger. They see levees every day, and those always look just like working levees. They’ve never been in island collapse floods (as evidenced by the fact that they are alive) and they will not believe something that 1. is counter to their experience and 2. means leaving the lives they know. So they choose magical thinking and believe that the islands can last.

The well justified mistrust?

One is that so long as there is no canal, the state is forced to keep islands intact so we can keep the freshwater sloughs between them delivering water to the pumps. They do not trust the state to maintain their lifestyles if we are not forced to by how we pump water to LA and the San Joaquin Valley. ….

The other mistrust that seems well justified to me is that Delta residents do not believe the Department of Water Resources will obey the laws that govern any new Peripheral Canal. I mean, the people at that meeting laughed at the notion. The environmental group Friends of the River says “plumbing is destiny”. ….

I think it is staggeringly irresponsible to have the drinking water supply for two huge cities to be as vulnerable as ours is, they write. A great post, well written and worth the click through from the On the Public Record blog: Trust and the Peripheral Canal

The distrust aspect is elaborated further in this post from the L.A. Creek Freak:

…. while all enviros deplore the state of salmon, delta smelt and other aquatic life in the Bay Delta, there are plenty of disagreements over solutions. Is the Bay Delta too saline, or not enough? Does a peripheral canal restore the Bay Delta or not? Are we screwed no matter what we do? Whose scientific charts and graphs are more convincing? The Blue Ribbon Task Force proposed a restoration vision, but there are critiques from the grassroots. Yet through much of this arguing, there is a consensus that Southern California will want its water, and has the power to get it.

But! According to an attorney speaking at the conference, only surplus water is supposed to go south. Surplus meaning that which is left over after the Bay Delta has received enough to maintain its water quality (which has declined over the years) and those with primary water rights (Sac Valley farmers) have gotten their allotments. These basic principles have been routinely breached in order to ensure that water goes south. How? By declaring states of emergency. Indeed, according to Michael Fitzgeralds at RecordNet.com, the “state and feds wrote contracts promising 130 million acre feet” of water, when the average Delta flow is 29 million acre-feet, resulting in overdrafts of Bay-Delta supplies during the 90s as water agencies in the south cut in line to enforce their entitlements.

(Right about now, my mind is swinging back and forth like an oversized ping-pong ball.)

And then it spills over into social justice issues. Some enviros have really stuck a stinky foot in the mouth, conflating water consumption in the San Joaquin Valley with immigration and crime (HUH?), while at least one politically-connected Latino organization has taken the position that when we declare emergency drought conditions, flows are restricted (just the opposite of what we heard above). They argue this means unemployment, so we need secure water exports (i.e. infrastructure) in order to keep jobs for Latinos secure. In other words, peripheral canal = environmental justice.

Read more from the L.A. Creek Freak: Discourse and distraction. In other words, California water policy.

The crowd laughing at the system of laws wasn’t missed by the Pasadena SubRosa blog, which has a decidedly different view:

Maybe those in Northern California don’t understand that the water system in California is socialized. It isn’t Northern California’s water that pours into the Sacramento Delta from the Sierra snowpack.

Contrary to the current media zeitsgeist, it isn’t markets that are failing but socialized systems that are failing, whether in banking, finance, or water. But that isn’t what is being reported.

Read more from the Pasadena SubRosa blog: Crowd laughs at “We are a system of laws”

No doubt the peripheral canal continues to be a hot topic. You can find out more - a lot more - about Delta conveyance in the current issue of Western Water. Click here to find out how you can download your copy today from the Water Education Foundation.

Crowd unleashes flood of comments at peripheral canal meeting in Stockton

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 25, 2009 at 8:15 am

From Stockton’s Record:

STOCKTON - Same issue, same building, different decade.

About 120 people gathered Tuesday night at the Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium for a chance to vent to the powers that be over plans to build a peripheral canal.

Fifteen years ago, some of the same folks met in the same auditorium as part of the CALFED process, which was supposed to fix the ailing Delta but today is viewed by many as a failure.

On Tuesday, state officials displayed new maps showing a proposed canal taking water from the Sacramento River and shipping it down the east side of the Delta, tunneling under the San Joaquin River at Rindge Tract, west of Stockton, on its way to the massive pumps near Tracy, and from there to the Bay Area and Southern California.

“Didn’t most of that land use to be desert anyway?” asked 25-year-old Blake Joaquin, a wakeboarder. “Why should we give them our water? I don’t understand.”

Read more of this article from The Record by clicking here.

Donn Zea and Jeffrey Kightlinger: Canal would help ailing Delta to recover

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 20, 2009 at 8:54 am

From the Sacramento Bee, this commentary by Donn Zea, president and chief executive officer of the Northern California Water Association, and Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California:

It’s been more than a quarter of a century since California last made any significant changes to the core of its water system in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But now the political window appears to be opening to find historic and lasting solutions within the Delta.

When it comes to reviving and repairing the state’s most important estuary and the heart of its water supply system, it isn’t surprising that views tend to vary. Yet the importance of the Delta to the state’s environment and economy is creating powerful motivators to find a solution.

As legislators in the coming months get further into the Delta issues, they will find something remarkable and historic among key leaders in the water community. There’s now a broad, expanding consensus on the various elements of a Delta solution, including the need to physically isolate a recovering ecosystem from the movement of water supplies to two-thirds of California’s population. Yes, that means some form of a canal.

The bottom line is that it isn’t enough to improve the Delta’s outdated water system or to restore portions of the ecosystem. There must be a plan that addresses all the Delta’s fundamental problems while honoring the water rights of Northern Californians, the needs of agriculture and the 25 million people who depend upon these water supplies. The key, in a word, is comprehensive.

Read the rest of this commentary by clicking here.

Delta conveyance: The debate continues

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 20, 2009 at 8:49 am

From the Water Education Foundation’s latest issue of Western Water:

The critical condition of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has prompted the question of how it can continue to serve as a source of water for 25 million people while remaining a viable ecosystem, agricultural community and growing residential center. Developing a “dual conveyance” system of continuing to use Delta waterways to convey water to the export pumps but also building a new pipeline or canal to move some water supplies around the Delta is an issue of great scrutiny.

Before such a proposal is imple­mented, a multitude of questions will have to be answered. How much will it cost and how will it be financed? Where will the water be drawn from? How much water is needed for a healthy ecosystem? How will right-of-way requirements be settled? Will it be an unlined canal, lined canal or a pipeline? How will it be coordinated with upstream projects and users?

Managing the Delta for the state’s water supply needs has come into focus as a series of developments have revealed the extremely poor condi­tion of several fish species that are the bellwether of the estuary’s overall well-being. In particular, the Delta smelt’s near-extinct status has been the basis of litigation and subsequent court ac­tions that have put officials on a course to find another way to manage the Delta for the many uses it serves.

“We have a tremendous problem going on in the Delta right now,” said Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). “The State Water Project is severely stressed; the Delta is in a complete state of ecological collapse – it’s astonishing in its rapidity. This supply loss will lead to mandatory conservation for much of California.”

Last year, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force – a panel of experts appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – recommended a two-pronged approach for a sustain able Delta, a process predicated on the co-equal goals of ecosystem health and water supply reliability. In addition to calling for increased surface storage and groundwater storage, the panel said Californians “need to become less dependent” on water supply from the Delta because of its fragile state.

The Schwarzenegger adminis­tration’s cabinet-level Delta Vision Implementation Committee took the Task Force’s recommendations and released a list of “fundamental actions” in December 2008. First on their list was a new system of dual water convey­ance through and around the Delta, with groundbreaking slated for 2011. That announcement took some aback and sparked the concern of an addi­tional conveyance system being built without any legislative oversight. State lawmakers balked at being left out of the equation.

Speaking at a Feb. 24 Senate Natural Resources and Water Commit­tee hearing, Joe Grindstaff, deputy sec­retary for water policy with the Natural Resources Agency, said while the state has the legal authority to construct additional conveyance, “it is clear that we want to work with the Legislature” and that “this project is not something this administration could totally imple­ment on its own.

“We are talking about the most controversial project in the history of the state,” he said. “It is clear the Legislature could stop it. We have to work together as a team to make this successful.”

Continue reading this excerpt from Western Water on the Foundation’s website by clicking here.

Canal wins few converts in Delta; Peripheral waterway plan gets harsh reception in S.J.

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 19, 2009 at 8:39 am

From Stockton’s Record:

Where’s the water?

County water leaders peppered peripheral canal proponents with questions and a few pointed comments Wednesday, saying there’s not enough water to maintain high exports to two-thirds of California while also saving the Delta. That’s precisely what the roughly $10 billion Bay-Delta Conservation Plan proposes to do: find a balance between water supply and ecosystem, in part by building a canal, plan spokeswoman Karla Nemeth told a feisty group of water commissioners.

“This is tough,” Nemeth said.

“It’s not tough, it’s impossible,” responded Commissioner John Herrick, an attorney who represents south Delta farmers.

The peripheral canal would be big enough to match the current capacity of the state and federal export pumps near Tracy; opponents fear it will siphon so much water around the Delta that farms will wither and the estuary will degrade into an inland sea.

Wednesday’s meeting, while lively, was informational only; on Tuesday, the public will have a chance to make formal comments and suggest alternatives to the plan, which would give water users authority to continue taking Delta water. “I understand there’s a lot of questions and concerns, and that’s probably putting it mildly,” Nemeth told water commissioners.

Karla Nemeth must be one tough cookie to go in there alone… Brave soul, she is …. Read more from Stockton’s Record by clicking here.

San Joaquin County board reaffirms opposition to Delta canal

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 12, 2009 at 6:01 am

From the Stockton Record:

County officials Tuesday waded deeper into state water wars, reaffirming their opposition to a peripheral canal and calling for legislative oversight over any plan to divert water bound for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Water that flows into the Delta is a prime source for much of the state, and a proposal to divert water around the Delta to pumps near Tracy is developing in a state effort to manage the Delta and its water.

State Sen. Lois Wolk has said it would be inappropriate for this Cabinet-level process to build such a canal without legislative approval. The letter to Wolk approved by the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors supports that view.

Read more from the Stockton Record by clicking here.

San Joaquin County opposes peripheral canal plans

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 11, 2009 at 9:13 am

From the Tracy Press:

At its meeting Tuesday, the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors OK’d a letter to oppose a proposed peripheral canal for the Delta.

The canal would take water around parts of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and transport it more directly to pumps that send water to Southern California and Central Valley farmers, an action that the board is against.

The canal is a proposed part of the California Department of Water Resource’s Bay-Delta Conservation Plan. Supporters say it will help heal a dying Delta, but many who live here are skeptical.

According to Terry Dermody, retired county counsel and now a special water attorney for the county, there’s a feeling of those opposed to the canal that Delta counties, not the state, should decide whether a canal is constructed.

“We don’t think the administration, whether it’s Gov. (Arnold) Schwarzenegger’s administration or any other administration, has unilateral authority to just go out and build a peripheral canal,” Dermody said.

Read more from the Tracy Press by clicking here.

Not a good way to build trust for a Peripheral Canal, says Spreck Rosekranz of the EDF

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 3, 2009 at 7:54 am

From the Environmental Defense Fund’s On The Waterfront blog, this post by Spreck Rosekranz:

Last Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board ruled on the petition by Federal and State water project operators to retroactively relax standards in the Delta. The Board refused the petition but announced that there would be no “enforcement” for violating Delta outflow standards in early February.

In 1994, as part of the Bay-Delta Accord, the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project agreed to meet Delta outflow standards, known as “X2”, to provide low-salinity habitat for Delta fish. The original plan was that after three years, other water agencies in the Central Valley would share in the outflow obligations. But the projects, with support of their contractors, determined that involving others was too problematic and have agreed to continue to bear sole responsibility for meeting this obligation.

Casual conversations with project operators have indicated that they have no plans for ensuring that more such petitions will not be forthcoming in 2009 or in the future. They point out that much has changed since 1994. California’s population has grown by almost a third, and other environmental objectives have been put in place, such as increased flows on the Trinity River and the recent court ruling, followed by a new “Biological Opinion”, to minimize reverse flows in the Delta to protect endangered smelt.

Read more of this blog post from the On The Waterfront blog by clicking here.

Grass-roots call for action on Delta: Delta must be saved, say all speakers at symposium

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 1, 2009 at 7:13 am

From Stockton’s Record:

This was their day. Tired of attending agency meetings where they feel their voices are not heard, Delta farmers, anglers and environmentalists had their own symposium Saturday to seek solutions and get organized.

“It was a big call for action,” said striped bass fisherman David Scatena of Stockton.

Scatena became the latest member of the grass-roots group Restore the Delta, which hosted Saturday’s event. About 270 people attended, making it one of the largest meetings held purely for the people who live, work or play in the Delta.

No government officials dictating the agenda. None of the powerful water agencies pushing for a peripheral canal. Only a diverse cross-section of Delta interests, from farmers in their boots to water lawyers in their suits.

“Our goal is that each and every one of you becomes a Delta advocate,” Restore the Delta organizer Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla told the crowd.

Read more from the Record by clicking here.

Of course, the peripheral canal was discussed:

Several of those who spoke insisted that such a canal is a bad idea.

“Our opponents are extremely well-organized and well-funded,” said Bill Jennings, a longtime delta advocate and recipient of an award from Restore the Delta. “And they are perfectly willing to sacrifice farmers (and) fish … in order to irrigate the desert.”

Manteca farmer Alex Hildebrand also received an award, and told the audience, “Societies rise, flourish and eventually crash because they misuse their water. … As those ancient civilizations fell, they trashed their environment.”

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, who represents four of the five counties that make up the delta, including parts of San Joaquin County, spoke of her plan to create a Delta Conservancy, which would act as a conduit for funds and studies for the area.

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, was the keynote speaker and endorsed the concept if not the specifics. “We need to protect this delta, and we’re going to do that,” he told the crowd in his brief remarks. But he also sounded a vaguely conciliatory tone: “My understanding is that there’s never been a war fought in the United States over water — and we’re not going to start one now.”

But he was clear that the delta must be protected: “The time for action is now. Twenty years from now we’re going to look back on this and say, ‘We did what we had to do.’ “

Read more from the Modesto Bee by clicking here.

Details of peripheral canal emerge through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 23, 2009 at 8:01 am

From Stockton’s Record:

Piece by piece, details are emerging about a peripheral canal that could skirt water around, rather than through, the Delta.

While officials planning for the estuary’s future say no definite decisions have been made, documents under review as part of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan call for a relatively large canal that would divert anywhere from zero to two-thirds of Sacramento River flows depending on the time of year, under one scenario.

Officials are also leaning toward wrapping the canal around the east side of the Delta, rather than the west side, meaning it will likely cut through farmland in west San Joaquin County.

A new public comment period has opened and a series of meetings will be held around the state, including in Stockton on March 24.

“The good news is it’s becoming clearer. The bad news is it’s becoming clearer,” retired County Counsel Terry Dermody told San Joaquin County water commissioners last week. Dermody is watching Delta issues for the county.

The conservation plan is a complex mesh of habitat restoration, water supply and environmental goals that would ultimately give water contractors from the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California legal authority to continue diverting water.

Read more from The Record by clicking here.

Public scoping meetings for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan are being held around the state during March. To find a location near you, click here. To find out more about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, click here and here.

Note: last week, there was a ‘webinar’ on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. If you were unable to watch on that day, you can watch it now by clicking here.

Peripheral canal — What would it do to Thornton? Some residents worry it could destroy farmland

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 17, 2009 at 8:01 am

From the Lodi Sentinel:

Residents throughout San Joaquin and nearby counties are concerned that the proposed peripheral canal will remove water from, and destroy the quality of water in the Delta. However, Thornton residents have yet another concern: What would the canal do to their community?

“I’m not sure if it’s going to run through my house,” said Frances Vasques, who lives on Walnut Grove Road, just west of Interstate 5.

Recent maps released by the California Department of Water Resources indicate that the peripheral canal, if built at all, could run through farmland just west of I-5 — not far from the residential and small commercial area in Thornton. The proposed canal would transport additional water from the Sacramento River, around the Delta, and south to the southern San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

“I don’t know that much about it,” said Marlene Corbitt of the Thornton Municipal Advisory Council. “I heard it will turn farmland around here into marshland.”

It’s not only the alignment that concerns folks, but farmers in the area are worried about seepage and a higher water table:

The effect on local farm land is definitely on James Cotta’s mind. He has 110 acres of winegrapes in the area of Blossom Road and Beaver Slough.

“It’s always been the crux that the water will be above ground level,” Cotta said. “It’s really going to upset the farming on both sides of the canal. The water table would be so high that you can’t grow anything on it.”

Marshall said the canal, if it is constructed, will not cause seepage on residential property because initial plans call for the canal to be lined with clay and keep the waters under control as it is shipped south.

“If they’re going to line the ditch, that’s one thing,” Cotta said. “We’re definitely thinking about it.”

Read more from the Lodi Sentinel by clicking here.

Peripheral canal surveyors seek entrance onto Delta farmers’ land

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 1, 2009 at 7:15 am

From the Stockton Record:

State water officials are seeking “permission slips” to step onto private land in the Delta for environmental surveys that could clear the way for a peripheral canal. Allowing surveyors on their land would be a bitter pill indeed for Delta farmers, who widely oppose a canal for fear it will rob them of fresh water for their crops.

Some farm advocates call the scope of the work excessive, noting that the surveys could include digging pits up to 12 feet deep, drilling holes, netting fish from kayaks or boats and trapping animals. These “temporary entry permits” would last three years, and for each landowner could mean anywhere from one to 60 nonconsecutive days of survey work.

It’s unclear how many landowners in San Joaquin County have received these requests; Stockton water attorney Dante Nomellini said he’d heard of perhaps a half-dozen. But the Department of Water Resources sent out another batch of permits in the past couple of weeks.

“The landowners are going to have people running around on their land, and it’s hard enough to control trespassers,” Nomellini said. “The people I’ve talked to don’t want them on their property.”

Read more from the Stockton Record by clicking here.

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