Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
March 26, 2009
Top Items–
Plan to restore
San Francisco Chronicle
San Joaquin River
Contra Costa Times
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Plan to restore
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/26/09
By Kelly Zito
In one of the boldest river restorations in the Western United States, a 63-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River will be transformed from a dusty ditch into a fish-friendly waterway under legislation approved Wednesday that ends a decades-long dispute between farmers and environmentalists.
The $400 million project, approved by Congress as part of a landmark wilderness bill, will increase the amount of water released from the Friant Dam near
The 15,000 farms in the region will receive between 15 and 19 percent less water from the reserves stored behind the dam. Funds from the measure will help water districts offset that loss with new storage facilities and repairs to existing canals.
President Obama is expected to sign the legislation, sponsored by California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. It seals a settlement reached in 2006 that followed two decades of battles between environmentalists and fishing groups - who filed a lawsuit in 1988 - and agricultural interests.
Both sides praised the bill, which spells out funding for the program and authorizes a timetable for water releases beginning this fall.
"After recent dry years and a collapsing salmon fishery, passage of this bill is good news for fisherman, farmers, and the more than 22 million Californians who rely on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for their water supply," said Monty Schmitt, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the plaintiffs in the 1980s suit.
The San Joaquin River, California's second-longest behind the Sacramento River, once maintained plentiful runs of spring and fall salmon and fed pristine freshwater into the delta.
Old-timers remember when the river surged with so many salmon they were scooped up and used as hog feed. Once the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation built the 319-foot-tall Friant Dam, however, the river became a seasonal dribble.
Farms and communities - including the city of
Farmers argued that re-establishing the salmon populations would destroy their livelihood. But when it became clear that a federal judge overseeing the lawsuit could enact severe water cutbacks, the farmers came to the table.
"Having a federal court serve as a water master on our river system was disconcerting to our folks," said Ron Jacobsma, general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, which serves the 15,000 farms in the region. "The water supply certainty, money certainty and opportunity to get additional water drove our folks to stay on board with the settlement."
Of the $400 million to be doled out over the next decade, about $200 million will come from
The funds will pay for environmental studies on increasing river flows (large-scale releases are to begin in 2014), bolstering levees along the river, fixing damaged canals and recharging underground aquifers. The plans target a section of
Peter Moyle, a nationally known UC Davis professor of conservation biology, acknowledged the challenges in replenishing a river that some have compared to an agricultural drainage ditch. But he is optimistic.
"I really think this can be done," said Moyle, who has worked in the
"Think of it: A 150-mile-long river that has been dry or heavily polluted for much of its length may actually support salmon runs again," he added.
Moyle said the river bed just below the dam - where the last chinook salmon in the river spawned - is an ideal spot for the salmon's return because it has deep, cold gravel pools where the fish need to rest in between May and September before they spawn.
In the late 1940s, the last chinook spawned there after being trucked by the hundreds up the river. Their progeny died that year, Moyle said, because the Bureau of Reclamation refused a request by the state Department of Fish and Game to release more water so the fish could return to the ocean. #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/26/MNTD16N3QD.DTL
San Joaquin River
Contra Costa Times – 3/25/09
By Mike Taugher
California's second longest river is often little more than a ribbon of mud, but it now stands to get water again as part of one of the biggest public lands bills in more than a decade.
The massive bill designates two million acres in nine states as permanently off-limits to development of any kind and increases the number of river miles protected as wild and scenic by 50 percent.
In
The bill now goes to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it.
The new wilderness areas in
But the biggest feature of the bill for
"Approving the San Joaquin River Settlement, in particular, will help bring the state's second largest river back to life, improving water quality for the Bay-Delta," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.
If the bill becomes law, as expected, it would free up fees paid by water users to help fund the nearly $1 billion restoration effort and clear the way for federal agencies to start rehabilitating the river."If this did not pass, the settlement would have probably fallen apart," said Ron Jacobsma, general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents about 15,000 farmers on the east side of the
The settlement calls for constant flows of water below Friant dam by 2014, with reintroduction of salmon months earlier.
To date, implementation of the agreement has been mostly in the realm of studies and planning documents, but passage of the bill clears the way for real changes.
"The first releases of water could happen as early as this fall," said Hamilton Candee, who filed the lawsuit as an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1988. He now works in private practice.
For farmers and a couple of cities, including Fresno, that are served by Friant, the settlement was a way to make the best of a bad situation when a 2004 court decision found that the federal government was illegally depriving the San Joaquin River of water.
Rather than putting their fate in the hands of a judge with the ability to do little more than cut off water supplies to those farmers and cities, they worked out a deal with environmentalists and government agencies.
The settlement means Friant water users give up 15 percent to 20 percent of their water supply by sending it down the river but they also have a chance to get it back. The
Still, animosity toward the agreement runs strong in places.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, said the agreement would force 300,000 acres of farmland out of production.
"The officials responsible will be remembered as architects of the economic and environmental catastrophe that follows," he predicted.#
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_11994266?nclick_check=1
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