A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
January 30, 2008
3. Watersheds
DELTA ISSUES:
House panel hears of vain efforts on Delta smelt - Sacramento Bee
Water stakeholders weigh in on delta plans - California Farm Bureau
DELTA ISSUES:
House panel hears of vain efforts on Delta smelt
By Michael Doyle, staff writer
In a sobering assessment, state and federal officials told a House panel that their big investment in the smelt hasn't paid off yet. The concession comes as officials contemplate spending an additional $10 billion or more for new
"Obviously, we haven't had the success with the Delta smelt that we would have wanted," Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Robert Johnson said. "It has declined significantly."
The tiny Delta smelt found in the sprawling estuary where the
Starting in 1993, the smelt has been protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It has been a major beneficiary, although not the only one, of the 1.5 million acre-feet of
Nonetheless, the smelt's population last year was only about 2.4 percent of the population noted when it was placed under federal protection in 1993.
"The (Delta) system is still in decline," California Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow told the House water and power subcommittee.
The hearing convened by the House panel Tuesday could set the stage for federal legislation, although nothing specific has been introduced.
The hearing also follows a ruling by Fresno-based U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, who imposed tighter pumping limits in order to leave more water in the Delta for protection of the smelt.
Wanger's ruling could cut irrigation deliveries south of the Delta by between 20 percent and 30 percent annually. In keeping with the recurring theme of ambiguity Tuesday, Snow cautioned that "we don't know precisely how much water we will have year to year."
State and federal officials likewise acknowledged they didn't know precisely how much of the smelt's population decline has been caused by something other than irrigation pumping.
Repeatedly Tuesday, Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and other
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/672682.html
Water stakeholders weigh in on delta plans
By Ching Lee, Assistant Editor
Debate on how to fix the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and California's water supply problems will intensify this year as stakeholders from around the state weigh in on the best approach to protect the delta ecosystem while ensuring reliable water deliveries to the 25 million Californians and 7 million acres of irrigated farmland that depend on delta water.
To help guide the debate is a 70-page report released in December by the governor-appointed, seven-member panel known as the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force. This committee developed 12 recommendations and several near-term actions that are intended to serve as a framework for a more detailed plan due in October.
While the report's sweeping proposals attempt to address the needs and concerns of a variety of interests, stakeholders in different parts of the state remain divided over key issues that pit those who receive water directly from the Sacramento River and delta and those that depend on state and federal pumping facilities in the south delta and the state's extensive, man-made water distribution system to the south.
The panel agreed that repairing the estuary's health and maintaining a reliable water supply are equally important. To achieve these goals, it recommends that more water conservation is needed, as well as possible reductions in the amount of water taken out of the delta, or at least changes to when that water is exported.
The report also mentions the need to build new facilities to move and store water, with dual conveyance as a preferred direction. Such a system would pump water both through and around the delta, an approach that state water officials hope would protect endangered fish such as the delta smelt.
In addition, the task force recommends creating a new governing structure that would have complete authority over delta levee standards, ecosystem restoration and water diversions and exports. As proposed, this new entity would have secure funding and the power to impose user fees.
For stakeholders south of the delta, one of the biggest sticking points in the report is the notion that water diversions from the watershed may have to be reduced, particularly when one of the recommendations also calls for investments in a new multi-billion-dollar conveyance system, which south-delta stakeholders support.
"Reducing those exports means you reduce the ability to pay for the kind of infrastructure fixes recommended by the report," said Brent Walthall, assistant general manager of Kern County Water Agency. "It seems contrary to logic that you would fix the delta with a new conveyance facility that is intended to allow you to continue to export enough water to pay for that facility but then reduce the exports."
Other water groups, including State Water Contractors and Westlands Water District, also have been critical of the Delta Vision report, saying it makes premature judgments about how much water a new and improved system can deliver to its users. Both are pushing for new conveyance.
Tom Birmingham, general manager of Westlands Water District, which represents west valley growers who rely almost entirely on delta water, said in a statement that the public will not support paying for a system if they're going to wind up getting less water in the end.
"Not only is there no basis for this 'spend more to get less' assertion, from a political perspective, it would make passage of a bond issue virtually impossible," he said.
However, many stakeholders in and north of the delta are concerned that building a canal around the delta, also known as an isolated conveyance facility, could result in a water grab by the south state.
Topper van Loben Sels, a north-delta farmer who vice chairs the Delta Protection Commission and is on the board of directors of the North Delta Conservancy, said he would rather see the hydrology of the existing through-delta facility modified to better protect fish species and improve how water is routed to the pumps.
He is also in favor of building more water storage facilities so that southern users could have access to "new" water from the system. Delta stakeholders fear that a canal that bypasses the delta would allow the south state to take water from the system when there is not an adequate supply, thereby damaging the ecosystem and the delta's water quality.
"We have to create new storage upstream, more groundwater storage and more above-ground storage downstream so we can take the water out of the delta when it doesn't do damage to the ecosystem, when it doesn't do damage to the in-delta agricultural interests," van Loben Sels said.
"Without it, people are going to be faced with the court systems running the water system for the state of California, which is a very sad state of affairs," he added, referring to last year's court ruling in which a federal judge imposed limits on how much water can be pumped south through the delta due to declining fish populations.
As a farmer who also lives and recreates in the north delta, van Loben Sels said it is imperative that the Delta Vision implementation plan include strategies that would protect and enhance water quality, levees, delta recreation, upstream flood control structures and contracted water rights.
For Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors, whose 27 member agencies include a number of irrigation districts and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, that plan must also include new conveyance options for managing the delta.
"This is a key and central component for any comprehensive fix for the state's broken water system," she said. "New conveyance facilities will ensure that we have a reliable water supply for the state and will also help protect the delta's valuable ecosystem."
Whether it's going to be an isolated facility or a continued operation of a through-delta conveyance, Ryan Broddrick, executive director of Northern California Water Association, said he wants to make sure that the operating rules don't rely upon
For those in the west delta, maintaining water quality is another huge issue, said Mike Reagan, a
By not building water storage needed upstream, he said, more freshwater will be exported out of the
Another issue of concern for Reagan is the Delta Vision report's near-term recommendation to acquire development rights in floodplains to prevent urbanization. This could remove thousands of acres of prime farmland out of production, at least seasonally, to be flooded.
While it is important to encourage good land-use decisions, Reagan said the plan doesn't go far enough to mitigate impacts on neighboring farmers who would have water intrusion seepage into their properties or local governments that would experience economic losses due to farmlands being taken out of production or removed from the tax rolls.
But the one Delta Vision recommendation that has raised red flags on all sides of the debate is the idea of creating a new, independent governing body that would have total authority over management of the delta water supply. Some fear that such a "super agency" will usurp land use authority from local governments and diminish the responsibilities of many existing agencies.
"The proposed governance structure is so large and so broad that it will bring into the process many opponents who otherwise would not be in opposition to the report's recommendations," said Walthall.
Reagan characterized the idea of this new governance structure as "a can of worms" that is likely to collide with opposition from local governments.
"From a local government perspective, obviously what we have is some entity arrogating to itself land use authority over lands now managed from local government's hands," he said. "I don't see the League of Cities or the California Association of Counties rolling over for that."
The Blue Ribbon Task Force identified excessive fragmentation, duplication and lack of strong centralized authority as a fundamental obstacle to effective management of the delta. With so many existing interrelated governing bodies that have different constitutional and legislative obligations, however, Broddrick said he's not sure putting another governance structure on the top of that will resolve any conflicts.
"If you're going to establish a different governance structure and consolidate, make sure that they have both the authority and the financial wherewithal to accomplish that authority, and that authority is not dependent upon a process that is so onerous that we spend millions and millions of dollars on process and pennies on implementation," he said.
Linda Fiack, executive director of the Delta Protection Commission, also questioned the need for a new governing structure. She said she would rather see existing entities such as the Delta Protection Commission, which has diverse stakeholder representation, be used and built upon.
"Our perspective is that there are some good existing models that can be looked at without creating something new," said Fiack. "You could look at all those models and determine what's lacking and then enhance the Delta Protection Commission to accomplish a governance structure."
Despite such outstanding concerns about the Delta Vision report, Chris Scheuring, managing counsel for California Farm Bureau Federation Natural Resources and Environmental Division, said it is important to "keep moving forward to address outstanding issues and put actual detail to the concepts."
"Any solution to
http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=970&ck=89FCD07F20B6785B92134BD6C1D0FA42
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