A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 16, 2007
1. Top Item
Over one-third of water from Delta may be cut
Inside Bay Area – 7/15/07
By Mike Taugher, Media News staff
The state's water supply could be cut dramatically under a plan submitted last week to address
The proposal filed in federal court sent shudders through water agencies from the Bay Area to
The state Department of Water Resources said the plan could reduce water deliveries out of the Delta by more than one-third in a year of average rain and snow.
"These impacts are dramatic," said the department's deputy director, Jerry Johns. "This is absolutely phenomenal."
If implemented, it would directly affect Bay Area water agencies serving
In
The plan is far from a done deal, but it appeared just as likely last week that the water picture would grow even bleaker rather than brighten. Government lawyers and water agencies will ask for leniency, but environmentalists are likely to argue that the plan does not go far enough.
And although the plan is meant to last about a year, water agencies are concerned that some of its provisions could last much longer if they are incorporated in new fish protection measures expected next year.
At issue is the state's reliance on a water delivery system that is at least partly to blame for a dizzying decline in the Delta ecosystem. At the forefront of that crisis is the Delta smelt, a tiny imperiled fish whose numbers have collapsed repeatedly to lower and lower levels.
In a declaration filed last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's top endangered species regulator in
Steve Thompson acknowledged other factors could also be contributing to the ecological crisis and added that evidence linking increased water deliveries and the collapse of fish populations remains circumstantial.
Nevertheless, he recommended reducing Delta water deliveries to the levels of the late 1990s. That would cut water deliveries about 500,000 acre-feet a year — enough for about 1 million households — from the current pumping level of about 6 million acre-feet per year.
State water officials said the plan actually would result in a reduction of 800,000 to more than 2 million acre-feet per year, depending on rain and snow conditions.
Among the areas that figure to be most heavily affected by pumping curtailments is the Zone 7 Water Agency, which serves 200,000 people in
Like water officials throughout the state, Zone 7 general manager Jill Duerig said last week that her staff had not yet figured out how the plan might affect customers.
The ongoing crisis deepened this spring when two judges ruled that
In April, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch determined that the larger of the two water systems, the one run by the state Department of Water Resources, lacks a permit required under the California Endangered Species Act.
That permit would specify protections for Delta smelt, salmon and steelhead from the effects of water pumping.
He ordered the state's pumps, which serve the Bay Area,
In May, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger ruled a federal permit was illegally lax.
It was issued to protect Delta smelt at both the state pumps and the smaller federal pumps supplying
By the time of Wanger's ruling, water agencies knew the smelt permit was failing and had asked for a new one. The new permit is expected in fall 2008.
With a permit ruled illegal and no new permit in sight for at least a year, Wanger asked government agencies and the environmentalists who sued them to suggest how the water system ought to be run until the permit is ready.
The federal response submitted last week was to keep the discredited permit in place and allow the agencies to use voluntary measures to protect smelt. But federal lawyers also submitted the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan as an alternative.
Environmentalists are likely to ask for even greater restrictions on pumping when they submit their plan later this month.
Wanger could rule as early as next month.
Water officials worry that elements of the Fish and Wildlife Service plan could be made permanent in the 2008 permit.
"If it becomes the status quo, it really is a serious issue. It has very, very serious ramifications," said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors. The association of agencies delivers Delta water to 25 million people from the Bay Area to
The documents filed in court last week revealed a rift between state and federal water agencies.
The federal agencies, which primarily serve
"We've been very consistent in our exports basically for the last 15 years," said Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the federal water agency, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The state argued for sharing the burden equally.
If the state water agency loses that argument, its customers in the Bay Area,
Johns, the state water resources department deputy director, said the cutbacks are the latest evidence that the Delta and
"It highlights the fact that the Delta is broken," he said. "You can't live in this kind of world on a long-term basis."
Johns' agency is seeking new reservoirs and a new way to deliver Delta water, most likely through a highly controversial canal around the Delta. #
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_6381345
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