Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
June 2, 2009
1. Top Item–
| State gets an 'incomplete' on delta progress
A panel tapped two years ago by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to revive the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta issued the administration an "incomplete" grade Monday on the progress made in completing the group's list of recommendations. The seven-member Delta Vision Foundation argued that, despite increasing pressures on the state's water system, the state has failed to start new water facilities, restore battered ecosystems or improve the 1,100 miles of earthen levees that protect scores of islands within the confluence of California's two largest rivers. At Monday's meeting in "The economy and environment are on the brink of collapse," said Sunne Wright McPeak, a member of the panel and president of the California Emerging Technology Fund. "This crisis is so great it requires immediate action." The governor has taken bold steps, namely by proposing a 20 percent reduction in statewide water use by 2020, and introducing a $9 billion-plus water bond, said Joe Grindstaff, deputy secretary for water policy. "People don't recognize the significance of the progress we've made," he said. Monday's discussion was unusual in that the Delta Vision Foundation has almost no real authority. In October, after releasing a two-years-in-the-making road map on the delta to a cabinet-level committee, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force's work ended. In a twist, the seven members decided to continue pushing their recommendations as the Delta Vision Foundation, an independent, self-appointed "watchdog" funded through 2009 by a grant from the Packard Foundation. Even though the governor's cabinet committee agreed with many of the task force's proposals, six months have passed without substantive changes, the foundation said. Among the task force's proposals: -- Make water supply and delta ecosystem restoration equal in state laws; -- Statewide target to recycle 1.5 million acre-feet of water annually by 2020; -- Develop and construct new surface and groundwater storage and conveyance facilities by 2020; and -- Enact legislation that would create a new oversight group for the delta. The ad hoc group insists this latest round of goals cannot fall by the wayside, as have many others over the past four decades. Drought, legal restraints on delta pumping, crashing fish populations and worsening water quality lend more urgency to bolstering a system that delivers water to about two-thirds of California, they argue. Some regional water officials, including Matt Moses of the Contra Costa Water District, praised the group's support of projects such as his agency's plan to expand the Los Vaqueros Reservoir. But other attendees worried that changes in the delta are moving too quickly. In addition to a controversial canal that would route water from the Barbara Daly of "The delta is a real region with churches, neighborhoods, long-term residents," she told the panel. "This process should be slowed down, not sped up."# http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/02/BALN17UVD0.DTL |
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