Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
December 3, 2007
1. Top Items
Governor's panel seeks water, habitat changes in delta - Associated Press
Changes urged in moving water through Delta - Sacramento Bee
State panel calls for new California water delivery system - San Francisco Chronicle
Task force doesn't resolve Delta issue; Detailed recommendations put off until next year - Inside Bay Area
Proposals to repair delta flow outlined; New canal for water headed south urged - San Diego Union Tribune
Finding a cure to NorCal's delta problems - ABC Channel 7 (Bay Area)
Governor's panel seeks water, habitat changes in delta
Associated Press – 12/1/07
By Samantha Young, staff writer
The seven-member Delta Vision task force stopped short of saying where dams should be built or whether water should be piped around or through the delta to cities, farmers and wildlife. The report, which comes 10 months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed his task force, says the state should assess the various routes that could funnel water to Southern California and the
"These are tough political decisions," said Phil Isenberg, chairman of the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force. "Still unanswered are the basic questions how big is the size, what does it cost?"
Changing how
Drinking water for two-thirds of the state's residents passes through the delta, a tangle of rivers, canals, estuaries and islands that stretches from the foot of the Sierra Nevada to
Members of the task force as well as water experts throughout the state have said building some sort of canal or pipeline to move river water around the delta would safeguard deliveries against levee breaks, rising sea levels and wildlife needs.
Studies in the last few years have shown large parts of the delta's 1,600-mile levee system could crumble during an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 or greater. That could cut off water deliveries for several years.
Task force members will spend next year coming up with a more detailed plan for the delta, and they directed California Federal Bay-Delta Program to assess the design and cost of piping water through and around the delta. The panel gave themselves until June to make a final recommendation on the best system.
The recommendations embrace key initiatives that Republicans and Democrats have promoted in a bid to get a water bond on the February 2008 ballot. However, those talks have stalled over disputes about dams.
Schwarzenegger has promoted building two new dams and expanding a third to shore up the state's water supplies as part of his $10.3 billion water bond proposal. But his proposal lacks any money for building a canal even though he supports the concept.
The task force said dams and changes in how the state moves water must be linked.
Aaron McLear, the governor's spokesman, said Schwarzenegger's proposal requires the Department of Water Resources to consider the task force's recommendations including changes in how water is routed as it develops a statewide water plan.
"We can't afford to wait any longer to invest in new surface and groundwater storage, new conveyance facilities, conservation measures and increased regional water self sufficiency," McLear said in a statement.
Democrats have been skeptical about dedicating state money to build dams without any legislative oversight. Instead, their $6.8 billion bond proposal would allow cities and counties to compete for state money and create their own solutions, which could include building local reservoirs or pumping water into underground aquifers.
The legislative drive behind a water bond comes in part by a federal court order that will force
Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, chair of the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, said lawmakers should wait until the task force has completed its full analysis before the Legislature crafts a bond.
"They still have another year of work to do," Wolk said. "Once we have examined their vision, then we fund their recommendations."
Whatever design is selected to move water from north to south, task force members said
The report concludes that water deliveries which task force members say will be reduced in the future should no longer take priority over the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta's wildlife. Instead, the panel said both interests are of equal value.
However, exports could be increased if the delta's ecosystem is restored and a new system is put in place to send water to cities and farmers, said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors Association.
The report also discourages new housing in the floodplains of the delta, asks local and state governments to develop emergency response plans and recommends creating a new entity to govern the region.
"If there's a lesson the nation learned from Hurricane Katrina, it's the price of waiting," said task force member Raymond Seed, a civil engineer who headed a team of investigators in
http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/CA_Troubled_Delta_317673C.shtml
Changes urged in moving water through Delta
By Matt Weiser, staff writer
The Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force said there is no mythical single fix for the complex estuary, such as the "peripheral canal" rejected by
Instead, the task force calls for a study that will lead to that kind of decision by June 2008. In particular, it wants the governor to authorize an assessment of what has come to be called the "dual conveyance" approach.
This involves building an isolated canal for a portion of
Task force members said the conflict between environmental threats in the Delta and water shortages statewide makes simple solutions unrealistic.
"Everybody knows we're in a stalemate. They're looking for a way out," said task force Chairman Phil Isenberg, a former Democratic assemblyman. "The assessment we're talking about is really to compel the players to act."
The seven-member task force was appointed by the governor in February and charged with developing a "sustainable vision" for the 740,000-acre Delta. It is deliberating during an era of great stress in the Delta.
Fish species are crashing, and scientists have been unable to explain why. Water quality is poor. Court decisions likely will rein in state and federal pumping systems that export Delta water.
At least two-thirds of state residents depend on the Delta for a portion of their drinking water. The Delta also irrigates more than 2 million acres of farmland.
Levee failures could contaminate this water supply and jeopardize the nearly 400,000 residents of the Delta, a population growing rapidly on the floodplain.
The task force report consists of seven immediate actions and 12 core policies.
Immediate actions are needed to sustain the Delta, the task force asserts, until plumbing solutions are chosen. These seven steps include creating an emergency management plan for the region and improving the efficiency of water conveyance.
The task force also urges the governor to start buying up floodplain land and discourage further development.
"There are moments when the stars are aligned and you can make decisions people have been unwilling to make in the past," said task force member William Reilly, a partner in the Aqua International investment group and former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "We've recommended a number of things that we hope will be acted on tomorrow."
The task force report will be formally presented to Schwarzenegger later this month.
Spokesman Aaron McLear hinted the governor is prepared to act swiftly. "We can't afford to wait any longer," he said in a statement.
The 12 longer-term measures are a linked plan that the task force says should be pursued as a whole.
"This problem is not about conveyance. It's not about the estuary," said task force member Monica Florian, a former executive at the Irvine Company, a major land developer in
These policies include a recognition that water exports from the Delta probably must be reduced, or the pattern of those diversions must be changed.
A new government entity to oversee the Delta also is proposed, one with clear powers and dedicated funds. It might oversee a Delta with larger legal boundaries, to reflect the risks of flooding and higher sea levels.
The panel also places a major emphasis on water conservation. The members believe
"The state as a whole can vastly improve the efficiency with which it uses water," said Reilly. "This state has not done for water what it has done for energy."
The task force was advised by a 41-member "stakeholder group" that includes water managers, farmers and environmentalists. Several said Friday they are pleased with the overall vision statement, but not necessarily all the details.
"The task force has set itself the goal of making conservation important at every level," said Gary Bobker, program manager at The Bay Institute.
"They want to make sure whatever we pick in terms of (water) conveyance meets the needs of the larger Delta ecosystem."
Laura King-Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors, said she wanted the panel to take a more project-specific approach to studying water conveyance options.
"I think they've made a major step forward in owning the problem," she said.
"We haven't seen people do that in the political arena for a long time."
The panel next begins developing a strategic plan, which will contain specific steps to carry out the vision. That is due to the governor in October 2008. #
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/534428.html
State panel calls for new
San Francisco Chronicle – 12/1/07
By Tom Chorneau, staff writer
A state advisory panel called Friday for a new system of delivering water to urban users from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, but stopped short of backing an updated version of the peripheral canal proposed in 1982.
The much-anticipated report from the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed in February, said the current system for providing delta water to cities in the
The panel, which will undertake the job now of trying to put their plan into motion, asked state and federal water officials to assess the options for a new water-delivery system and report back to them by June.
But the panel said any new facilities aimed at fixing delivery issues must be built in concert with measures that restore the delta's ecosystem.
"The two are co-equals," said Phil Isenberg, chairman of the task force. "You cannot address the water supply issues without also addressing the restoration issues."
All water-delivery options should be considered, the panel said, including a separate diversion such as the peripheral canal. But the panel said their preferred option is a combination system - one that might operate within the delta at some points and outside in a separate channel at other points.
The panel did not endorse or reject a new form of the peripheral canal - a controversial diversion, defeated by voters in an epic 1982 campaign, that would have taken water from the
As the confluence of the
The conflicting uses sparked a federal court order in August that threatened to shut down water exports unless state officials could protect a tiny endangered fish, the delta smelt, from being ground up in two giant pumps near
While some lawmakers and water system managers might have hoped that the panel's recommendations would provide more immediate relief, most of their plan will take time and money to implement.
Most interest groups and lawmakers gave the panel's final report high marks.
"The task force clearly said that the delta's ecosystem is something that is unique and needs to be protected - and that we are not protecting it," said Gary Bobker, program director at the Bay Institute of San Francisco, an environmental group active on water issues.
"They recognize that we need to plan for less water coming out of the delta," he said. "I think this is a balanced plan."
Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors, an association representing many of
"Our organization applauds the task force's recommendation to move forward with an analysis of a new water delivery system in early 2008," she said in a statement. "This is a major step forward."
Moon said, however, that she was disappointed the task force did not call for the launch of an environmental impact study of a new water-delivery system to run simultaneously with the assessment - because such a study will be needed before a canal or some other system can be built.
Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said the Republican governor has not received the final version of the report and could not comment.
The report was released as Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders continue to debate a proposed water bond measure of as much as $9 billion that could go before voters next year. Both Schwarzenegger and majority Democrats favor spending billions of dollars for delta improvement but they are stuck on the governor's plan to use as much as $5 billion more for dam construction.
Both sides agree that the estimated $4 billion cost of building a new delta water canal would be paid for largely by those who benefit from it - ratepayers in
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/01/BA0GTM7OB.DTL
Task force doesn't resolve Delta issue; Detailed recommendations put off until next year
Inside Bay Area – 12/1/07
By Mike Taugher, staff writer
New housing development should be discouraged in the Delta region and more funding is needed to increase the state's ability to store and move water, according to an independent commission charged with creating a new vision for the troubled Delta.
The Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force offered little hope for water agencies that want to restore water supplies to the record levels of recent years and did not definitively answer the most controversial, and perhaps pivotal, question before it: how to move water through or around the Delta.
Instead, the task force, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in February, said its vision lays the groundwork for more detailed recommendations next year.
"We've tried to turn the water debate on its head" by addressing the big picture of state water use and trends in the Delta before recommending specific water projects, said task force Chairman Phil Isenberg, a former legislative leader and mayor of Sacramento.
The panel wants a focused assessment of how best to move water both through and around the Delta via canals, a "dual conveyance" proposal that has been gaining support this year.
The Delta is a major source of drinking and irrigation water for the state, but it is unraveling on several fronts. The Delta ecosystem is almost literally dying, with several fish species in decline and one, delta smelt, in such bad shape some biologists are beginning to warn that it could be nearing extinction.
Water supplies, meanwhile, have been compromised as courts have stepped in to cut water supplies to save the environment. There is mounting pressure on aging levees — a risk that gained new attention after Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic flooding.
The 30-plus pages of the vision adopted Friday were short on concrete recommendations, but task force members said more specifics would be developed next year when they write an implementation plan.
The governor's office issued a statement saying it had not seen the final report but looked forward to the panel providing "a Delta management plan that reflects the critical need to fix the ailing Delta while addressing
Water user groups and environmentalists, traditional adversaries, both called the report a good first step. Water agencies were pleased with the call for an expedited study of a new water conveyance system, while environmentalists were happy about a commitment to restoring the Delta environment.
"These guys took the right tack. We can't solve
Is the Legislature prepared to embrace this?"
The task force included business leaders, legal and engineering experts, a former U.S. EPA administrator and Sunne Wright McPeak, a former
"Even an old grump like me changes his mind," said Isenberg, referring to his willingness to consider new ways of moving Delta water.
Task force members said the vision's 12 recommendations were intended to be integrated, not cherry-picked.
The report says the Delta environment should no longer be an afterthought to water deliveries and that water supplies from rivers pouring into the Delta, within the Delta and from pumps that take water out of the Delta will almost certainly shrink. It did, however, leave open a slight possibility that new water storage and conveyance projects such as dams and canals might address that.
"In our hearts, we don't expect to see diversions maintained at current levels," said Ray Seed, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the
It calls for more serious efforts to conserve water and use the resource more efficiently but it did not set specific goals.
It also called on state government to begin purchasing flood-prone land to prevent development. The task force considered recommending a crackdown on new housing, but backed off and instead said development in flood plains should be discouraged.
But it was the task force's conclusions on water conveyance that were the most highly anticipated. Members said they hope to have a more specific proposal by June.
Water conveyance has been highly controversial for decades because a large aqueduct upstream of the Delta that is built to carry water around the Delta could deplete it, leaving its waters stagnant and polluted with farm runoff.
But the existing method of moving water relies on pumps in the south Delta that kill millions of fish a year and alter the natural Delta flows in ways that dramatically affect fish habitat.
Dual conveyance, while untested, is gaining favor because it would modify Delta levees to reduce the impact of the pumps on habitat when used some of the time and also build an aqueduct to use at other times.
The call for an assessment of how such a system might work best "is a major step forward in the right direction," said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors, an association of water agencies that serve millions of Californians.
The vision is not the first attempt to address Delta problems. In 1994, then-Gov. Pete Wilson and then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt agreed to a joint effort that led to a 2000 plan known as CalFed, which was billed as the largest ecosystem management program and water management group in the world. #
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_7609782
Proposals to repair delta flow outlined; New canal for water headed south urged
By Michael Gardner, staff writer
However, the committee put off taking positions on where to build storage facilities and what type of plumbing project would be best to move water through or around the delta.
The Delta Vision Committee backed away from an earlier draft that proposed a moratorium on construction in flood-prone areas of the region, instead suggesting that new housing close to levees be “discouraged.”
The committee called for the creation of a new agency that would allocate water supplies and collect fees from agencies tapping the delta. The committee urged the state to begin buying land in floodways to provide a buffer zone as well as marshy habitat.
“Our recommendations are controversial. If they were not, they would be of little consequence,” the seven-member committee wrote in its draft cover letter to the governor.
The committee is expected to launch a second phase next year that could produce more defined positions on reservoirs, delivery systems and other nagging issues.
The committee, noting the importance of the delta to the entire state's well-being, went so far as to suggest that the region be renamed the “California Delta.”
Two-thirds of the state's drinking-water supply, including more than one-third of the
Moreover, the delta is a vast estuary for wildlife, including numerous rare and endangered species.
Pressure is building for the state to come to grips with the delta's many woes: large-scale water diversions, growth, pollution and invasive species. There is a court-ordered water delivery cut to protect a tiny, endangered fish. Global warming threatens to bring more floods. And there is the constant threat of a natural disaster disrupting a vital network of canals, levees, power lines and highways.
The idea of a separate canal has been a political untouchable for some time. Voters in 1982 defeated the “
But with a delta crisis at hand, the state's mood is changing, said panel chairman and former Assemblyman Phil Isenberg. The committee took a modest step by calling for an assessment that would include whether a canal would improve delivery reliability and water quality, along with cost and funding sources.
Environmentalists, this time, do not recoil at reopening the canal debate. They see the committee's work as a commitment to fixing the delta first, which could then reduce the scare factor of a new plumbing system to take water south.
The committee suggested that the state work to “improve” supplies, calling existing capacity “inadequate.” But members stopped short of endorsing any particular project. They also called for more conservation. #
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20071201-9999-1n1water1.html
Finding a cure to NorCal's delta problems
ABC Channel 7 (Bay Area) – 11/30/07
By Tomas Roman
Governor Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Panel was fine tuning its final list of 12 recommendations for the
"You have 200 different government agencies fiddling around with the delta. We're calling for one delta authority to determine questions like water flow, eco system spending, and improvements," says Phil Isenberg, Chair, Delta Vision Panel.
Former assemblyman Phil Isenberg chairs the panel. It has taken a year for this group of experts from environmental, government, conservation and legal groups to come up with how to improve the complicated 1,300 mile long levee system.
"If you don't deal with the delta's eco system and get it right, the courts will stop the diversion of water," says Isenberg.
Panel member Sunne Wright McPeak is now with the California Emerging Technology Fund. He says "you have to move forward very aggressively in the state for protection of the estuary on conservation as well as improving facilities."
One of the immediate concerns of the Delta Vision Panel is water conservation. They say without it, these plans just won't work.
The panel also wants to discourage new sub division development in the delta, saying no one should be living in flood plains so susceptible to earthquake, floods, and weak levees. The panel is also recommending new and larger water storage facilities above and below ground. The group sidestepped the issue of proposing another peripheral canal like the one defeated by voters in 1982.
"If you say will you sign up or support any delta peripheral canal, regardless of size, price, location, or cost, then the answer is no."
The panel will present its recommendations to the Governor by December 31. A strategic plan is due in one year. #
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=5804834
####
No comments:
Post a Comment