Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
May 9, 2008
1. Top Item –
State Senate votes to eliminate entity overseeing delta repair: Questions about almost $5 billion spent on program
The Associated Press – 5/9/08
Canal could increase water supply
The Contra Costa Times- 5/8/08
Garamendi warns of how climate change may affect Delta
The
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State Senate votes to eliminate entity overseeing delta repair: Questions about almost $5 billion spent on program
The Associated Press – 5/9/08
The bill, which goes to the Assembly, would disband the California Bay-Delta Authority. The entity includes representatives from six state and six federal agencies and had been charged with implementing the California-Federal Bay-Delta Program to repair the delta.
The authority was created by a joint agreement between the state and federal governments in 2000 as the governing body for Cal-Fed as part of an effort that began several years before to end infighting between government agencies and interest groups representing farmers, fishermen, cities and environmentalists. It has been plagued ever since by bureaucratic disagreements over funding and priorities.
An investigation last year by the Associated Press found that most of the almost $5 billion that has been spent on the Cal-Fed program has gone to projects hundreds of miles from the delta.
"The delta is in worse condition today despite the authority," said Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden (
The influence of the California Bay-Delta Authority has been in decline in recent years, as court decisions, lighter snowpacks and other factors increasingly dictate the direction of water debates.
Last year, a federal judge cut water pumping from the delta by a third to protect a native fish, compounding a statewide water shortage. That decision came after the state slashed the authority's administrative budget and reassigned most of its projects and staff to other state agencies.
State Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Salinas, who represents a district in the southern delta, said he would like to see an accounting of the authority's spending.
"It just hasn't been effective," he said after the Senate voted 25-8 in favor of the bill. "I think a further in-depth look needs to happen to see exactly where all of that money went, because we certainly see the expenditures being made but no improvements being made."
Despite the Bay-Delta Authority's many problems, Machado's bill caught a key lawmaker by surprise.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, who helped craft the Cal-Fed program, said she had asked her staff to talk to the state senator about his bill.
"I'm surprised by this," Feinstein said. "I do not understand the rationale."
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is crucial to
Cal-Fed would continue under the bill passed Thursday but with its environmental programs, contracts and funding being handled by the California Resources Agency.
Lawmakers want to replace the authority after seeing recommendations later this year from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Task Force.
Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on whether he would sign the bill. But a spokeswoman for the governor said the state needs a comprehensive water plan that includes conservation, reservoirs and a canal to pipe fresh water around the delta.
"We agree that despite billions of dollars in bond money spent on fixing the delta in the last decade, the delta is in worse shape today than it was a decade ago," Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Lisa Page said in an e-mailed statement.#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/09/BAGB10JFF8.DTL
Canal could increase water supply
The Contra Costa Times- 5/8/08
By Mike Taugher
In its first study of a controversial canal around the Delta in nearly a decade,
The report suggests it can do that while better protecting fish and without substantially worsening water quality.
If true, the
But the conclusions of the study, a very early look at what state water managers want to do, are certain to be modified by state engineers and regulators and challenged by critics.
"The analysis is biased in a way that disguises the potential impacts of the scenarios they analyze," said Barry Nelson, a water policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There's absolutely no discussion here of what the Delta can accommodate and remain healthy."
The report also suggests that state water officials could seek to loosen water quality standards.
The report, posted recently on a state Web site, was requested by a panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to come up with a master plan for the Delta. The panel, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, is expected to make a recommendation next month on how best to move water through the Delta region, a subject that harkens back 26 years to one of the most divisive political battles in California history.
By taking water from the Sacramento River instead of from pumps near
It also would lower flows on the lower
The first attempt at building a canal was defeated in a 1982 referendum.
However, it has received renewed interest in recent years after Delta water deliveries hit new highs, fish populations plummeted and courts ordered water supply reductions.
In a twist, the task force and state water managers are leaning toward building a canal but using it in conjunction with the existing pumps near
The most likely version of the combo plan, called "dual conveyance," would cost $8.6 billion to $17.2 billion, according to the Department of Water Resources study.
It would increase Delta water supplies to the Bay Area,
The proposed plumbing system could do that by taking water from the Sacramento River through the 43-mile
The 39-page study suggests that state water officials could ask that current salinity standards be revisited because the original regulations were designed largely to keep small fish away from the Delta pumps. If water is being taken from the
"That's not a rationale anymore," said water resources department deputy director Jerry Johns.
The report says that if the overall salinity regulation is substantially changed, water operations could end up controlled by a regulation that protects water quality at the Contra Costa Water District's intake at Rock Slough.
If that were the case, that regulation also could be eliminated if the Contra Costa Water District agreed to participate in the dual conveyance plan.
"That's a whole lot of wishful thinking there," said Greg Gartrell, Contra Costa Water District's assistant general manager.
Johns objected to the characterization that the result of those changes would be weakened regulations, saying that the intent of those regulations would no longer apply and that regulators would insist on appropriate controls.
"It's the beginning of a long, complicated process," he said.#
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Garamendi warns of how climate change may affect Delta The By Scott Smith, Staff Writer Garamendi spoke at the San Joaquin County Bar Association's annual Law Day luncheon. He said new laws have to address climate change issues that will impact local residents whose lives are inexorably tied to the San Joaquin Delta. "Yes, Delta water has come up six inches over the last century," he said. "And if you go 56 inches, we're in deep water right here." In addition to capricious flooding and spells of drought driven by climate change, he said Attorneys have a say in how the law is shaped when they take related cases, he said. He recommended a mind-set, drawing upon his experiences in the late 1960s with the U.S. Peace Corps in Making choices that arise from climate change, people often take a short-term approach, brushing aside solutions that set a positive course for years to come, he said. "I think that's really wrong," Garamendi said, harkening back to the Ethiopian tribes of his youth. "We need to think of the generations ahead."# http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080509/A_NEWS/805090335/-1/A_NEWS | | |||
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