Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
April 10, 2007
1. Top Items
Democrats seek balance for delta; LEGISLATORS WEIGH HABITAT, WATER DEMAND - Associated Press
Dems push for Delta action; Proposed bill sets deadline for deciding how to divvy up fresh water statewide - Sacramento Bee
Water chief seeks looser rules on Delta smelt - Contra Costa Times
State officials work to avoid water shortage - Bakersfield Californian
Call for action on help for Delta; State senators say preserving estuary should be priority - Stockton Record
Court Decision Threatens California 's Water Supply; Pumping Station Killing Smelt, Salmon - ABC Channel 30 (Fresno
Democrats seek balance for delta; LEGISLATORS WEIGH HABITAT, WATER DEMAND
Associated Press – 4/10/07
By Samantha Young, staff writer
The bill highlights five possible strategies, with a mandate that the Legislature end decades of debate and select a fix-it plan for the delta by 2008.
"Let's get to work and pick one," said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.
The lawmakers seized upon a set of recycled ideas promoted earlier this year in a report by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Among the potential solutions is piping water around the delta by building a canal. That would guarantee water deliveries to farmers, cities in
The Democrats' bill is the latest attempt to address problems in a vital estuary that drains more than 40 percent of the state's land mass but is beset by trouble, from disappearing native fish to sinking islands and decade-old levees in need of repair.
Previous attempts to address delta problems have been stymied by the myriad special interests that include cities, farmers, local irrigation districts and environmentalists.
The highest profile attempt of recent years is the
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger weighed in with his own plan earlier this year, appointing a task force to study potential solutions.
"All of us have to give a little in order to make the system better," said Sen. Mike Machado, D-Stockton.
The other ideas include a proposal to fortify several levees, creating a channel to send water through the delta, and reducing the amount of exported water.
In a separate action related to delta water, the state Department of Water Resources on Monday sought authorization to operate pumps it uses to send water out of the delta to cities and farms.
The move comes two weeks after an Alameda County Superior Court judge ordered the pumps at the Harvey O. Banks plant to be shut down within 60 days unless the state complies with environmental laws designed to protect endangered fish.
The pumps are crucial for water deliveries throughout
State water officials want to avoid the time-consuming process of applying for permits. Instead, they are asking the state Department of Fish and Game to show that the pumping operations comply with the California Endangered Species Act. #
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_5632575
Dems push for Delta action; Proposed bill sets deadline for deciding how to divvy up fresh water statewide
Sacramento
By Judy Lin and Matt Weisser, staff writers
Amid judicial threats to shut down water pumps to protect endangered fish, Senate Democrats on Monday unveiled legislation that would set a deadline for consensus for how
"The Delta is going to hell in a handbasket," said Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, one of the authors of Senate Bill 27. "There are 23 million Californians who were understandably worried about water quality and water security, which they depend on. And
SB 27 sets a Jan. 1, 2008, deadline for the state Department of Water Resources to pick one of five options for water transfer put forth by a recent research paper.
The report by the Public Policy Institute of California proposed three versions of an aqueduct for channeling fresh water from the Delta to other parts of the state, and two that call for reducing water pumping and building dams near the Delta.
The bill is being pushed by the Democrat-controlled Senate at the same time as an environmental lawsuit is threatening to disrupt the state's most vital water source.
A March 23 decision by the Alameda Superior Court found that the state failed to obtain a permit under the state Endangered Species Act to kill protected salmon and Delta smelt at its Delta water export pumps near
DWR Director Lester Snow on Monday said his department has asked the state Department of Fish and Game to rule on whether its operations are consistent with the federal Endangered Species Act. Such a "consistency determination," he said, is the fastest way to comply with the court's order. Fish and Game has 30 days to rule on the request.
Meanwhile, senators on Monday described the suit as a "call to action." They said their bill could help solve a decades-old problem facing the state: how to distribute water fairly, particularly between north and south, while protecting the Delta's ecosystem.
Environmental groups commended Democrats for trying to move the discussion forward.
"We hope this bill will require fishery agencies to identify how much water fish need to be healthy," said Jonas Minton, water policy adviser for the Planning and Conservation League. "It would be a multibillion-dollar mistake to build new structures before finding out whether they will help or hurt the problem."
But SB 27 reveals division even among environmentally conscious lawmakers on how best to sustain a massive web of channels stretching 50 miles from
"Up to now, nobody has been willing to give on either side. It's been either you sacrifice, or I take and you suffer," said co-author Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden.
Machado, who represents portions of the
Simitian, however, proposed a bill last year to build a peripheral canal, or aqueduct, arguing that the state could charge water users if clean water was sent directly to more densely populated parts of the state, such as
The judge's ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Watershed Enforcers, a branch of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. Shutting down the pumps has huge economic ramifications for the state. The pumps provide water for domestic consumption to more than 24 million Californians.
Environmental groups are questioning DWR's effort to get federal compliance, noting that this federal authority is a moving target: It is being challenged in a separate lawsuit, and is also being updated by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
To account for this uncertainty, DWR on Monday asked to join the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as an "applicant" in this federal update. It is also developing a habitat conservation plan for the Delta, which would satisfy both the state and federal species acts. However, it can't be completed until 2009 at the earliest.
DWR has until Wednesday to respond to the court's decision. In a conference call, Snow said the department again will argue that its existing agreements with Fish and Game satisfy state law.
"I want to make a fundamental point of how inappropriate it would be to curtail all pumping in any case, whatever the outcome," Snow said. "We're going to do everything we can to ensure that doesn't happen." #
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/152175.html
Water chief seeks looser rules on Delta smelt
Contra Costa Times – 4/10/07
By Mike Taugher, staff writer
The state should adopt the provisions of flawed federal permits meant to protect Delta fish in order to keep water flowing to farmers and 25 million Californians, the state's chief water manager said Monday.
The State Water Project contributes only partially to a severe ecological decline that has some experts worried Delta smelt could be in imminent danger of extinction, said state Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow.
Snow commented as his department prepared to fight off a looming court order that threatens to shut down the State Water Project, which is operating without state permits to kill endangered fish.
He wants water regulators to endorse federal permits that may not meet state standards.
"You could have the situation of an overreaction of curtailing all pumping that could result in literally hundreds of billions of dollars in harm to the economy, and not have any impact on Delta smelt," Snow said. "We are going to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen."
Last month, an Alameda County Superior Court judge found that the state's largest water delivery system was operating in violation of the California Endangered Species Act because it never received state permits to kill protected salmon or Delta smelt.
The proposed order would shut down the pumps near
Meanwhile, in a sign that the Delta's problems are getting more attention from legislative leaders than they have in many years, leading Senate Democrats on Monday unveiled legislation seeking a new Delta management strategy by the end of the year.
The legislation singled out options identified in a February report from the Public Policy Institute of California that, in essence, recommended either a dramatic reduction in
Snow described the potentially devastating effects of a prolonged shutdown in a separate letter Monday to Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, the chairman of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee.
By September, Snow predicted, all the reservoirs south of the Delta would likely fall far below normal operating levels, leaving users vulnerable to supply disruptions caused by quakes, levee breaks or drought.
Because of the extreme consequences of shutting off the pumps, few expect it to occur. But whether the state can resolve the problem in a way that withstands court scrutiny is unclear.
Environmental and angling groups have hinted strongly that they would not hesitate to sue state wildlife regulators if water deliveries continue unimpeded.
Rather than apply for a state permit, Snow said, his agency will ask state Department of Fish and Game to endorse federal permits to kill endangered fish at the pumps.
Fish and Game Director Ryan Broddrick described that alternative recently as "problematic," though he appeared less pessimistic in an interview Monday.
First, the federal permits were based on a legal standard that the pumps not jeopardize fish species with extinction. The state's legal standard appears to be tougher: It requires water managers to offset the deaths of every individual legally protected fish.
Second, the federal permits are widely viewed as deeply flawed. Environmentalists have sued to change them and federal agencies are rewriting them.
The permit that was supposed to be protecting Delta smelt from water operations was in effect as smelt populations plummeted.
And the federal permit to kill salmon at the Delta pumps is being rewritten because federal investigators found that higher level managers improperly rewrote restrictions favored by federal biologists.
In an interview Monday, Broddrick said provisions in the federal permits allow water operations to be modified in ways that might satisfy state regulators. As an example, he cited decisions early this year to limit the pumps' effect on two key Delta rivers.
A pumping shutdown also could deprive water supplies to protected species in other parts of the state, he said.
"Shutting down the State Water Project doesn't solve the problem for smelt or a whole host of other species," he said. "Where's the balance point?" #
http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_5633406
State officials work to avoid water shortage
By Vic Pollard, staff writer
But a spokesman for the environmental organization that filed the suit in the judge's Bay Area court said the state's action is too little, too late and likely won't halt the shutdown of the huge pumps that funnel water into the California Aqueduct.
State Water Project managers asked the state Department of Fish and Game to declare that they have essentially complied with state environmental laws in their operation of the huge pumps that lift water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and put it into the California Aqueduct.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled last month that the state cannot continue pumping without a permit that allows the pumps to kill limited numbers of endangered salmon and delta smelt under carefully regulated conditions.
He threatened to shut down the pumps within 60 days, at the height of the summer irrigation season, if the state doesn't get a permit.
Kern County Water Agency officials said that could hit local farmers with millions of dollars in unexpected costs to keep their crops alive. More than one gallon of water out of every five used or drunk in
Other areas of the state that depend on the aqueduct, including the
In a conference call with reporters, Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources said such an action could "lay waste to the entire economy of the state of
Jim Beck, general manager of the
"We feel that the State Water Project has an excellent record of providing assets that meet all the environmental goals of the project," Beck said.
But Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which sued the state, said he has strong doubts that a declaration of consistency issued by one department of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration to another would satisfy his organization or Judge Roesch.
"We're disappointed to see the Department of Water Resources continue to play the shell game of denial" in its resistance to the need for a permit,
Department of Fish and Game Director Ryan Broddick insisted that his department will exercise "due diligence" in making sure that the water project complies with applicable environmental laws.
"It won't be pro forma," he said. But at a similar conference call with reporters in March, Broddick strongly supported Snow's contention that the project has long complied with environmental requirements.
Snow said the project will also apply for the permit the judge wants to see, but that will take well into next year, and it is also planning an even more comprehensive species protection plan that will take years to complete.
But whatever happens, Beck said he fears this is just the latest in long series of court cases and other actions that will take more water away from farmers and other users of environmental programs.
"We continually experience long-term incremental losses of water in
Beck and other local officials believe the solution is construction of a controversial canal to route water around the periphery of the delta so that the pumps will not kill so many fish.
What it means
A Bay Area judge’s threat to shut down the State Water Project in 60 days could devastate much of
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/115747.html
Call for action on help for Delta; State senators say preserving estuary should be priority
By Hank Shaw, staff writer
Backed by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, a trio of influential state senators announced Monday that they think it's time for the Legislature to save the Delta - or take the heat for failure.
Decades have been spent grinding through proposal after scenario after study after analysis of the Delta, but precious little actually has been done to protect the primary source of drinking water for 25million Californians.
A recent attempt by a coalition of federal, state and local agencies failed. Now Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has told the state Department of Water Resources to fix the problem, and he has created an advisory group to help. It is supposed to release its recommendations in January.
Monday's event signaled the Senate's full-scale entry into the debate. Sens. Michael Machado, D-Linden; Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento; and Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, said that when the administration's proposals emerge, they will do their bit to make them a reality by the end of 2008.
Simitian had sponsored the peripheral canal bill, and Machado had vowed to kill it; Steinberg, who chairs the Natural Resources Committee, was caught between them.
The nascent compromise gelled around a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California, which outlined five plausible futures for the Delta. Two of those include some form of peripheral canal - an idea that is anathema to those living in the
Machado, a veteran of more than a decade of water wars, said it is time for all sides to sacrifice a bit for the greater good of the estuary, which has been dying at an alarming rate.
"All of us have to give a little in order to make this situation better," Machado said.
Monday's announcement began what is expected to be a busy week in the water world.
Senate and Assembly committees are scheduled to debate legislation today that would refine the state's flood-control efforts, require local land-use planning to reflect historic flood plains and guide how $5billion in recently passed flood-control bond money will be spent.
In addition, Steinberg's Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to hear an update this morning on the lawsuit that threatens to shut down the state water pumps near
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070410/A_NEWS/704100317
Court Decision Threatens California
ABC Channel 30 (Fresno
Noel Cisneros
Apr. 9 - KGO - The clock is ticking on a court decision that has tremendous consequences for
The reason? The pumping station is violating the Endangered Species Act by killing smelt and salmon.
The Harvey Banks pumping station outside
An Alameda County Superior Court judge has ruled the operation is illegal, a violation of the Endangered Species Act, a killer of smelt and salmon.
Rep. George Miller, (D)
Red-handed because the state Department of Water Resources was pumping without proper permits from the Department of Fish and Game.
Carl Pope of the Sierra Club says the ruling forces all the stakeholders back to the negotiating table.
Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director: "This decision basically says to people who manage the water system, 'you don't have a choice. You have to work together.' It's a very big wake-up call."
The judge will give the Department of Water Resources 60 days to get its permits right or face cutoff of water supplies to 24 million Californians from San Jose to Los Angeles. It would be a multi-billion dollar hit to the
Lester Snow, California Department Of Water Resources: "Even if he were right, his remedy of shutting off the pump in 60 days is just not acceptable."
The director of Department of Water Resources has asked the judge for 30 days to get the green light from Fish and Game -- something Fish and Game has not committed to. It's a technicality to be sure, but a technicality with teeth.
Lester Snow: "We want to respond to the judge to show we're in compliance but also show that there's a bigger picture out there that needs to be dealt with." #
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=state&id=5192488
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