UPDATE: State Water Board Keeps Digging Hole to Bury Bay-Delta

Photo credit: Open Source

We were right – and we’re not happy about it. 

 Back in January, we feared that “the warning signs that [the State Water Resources Control Board] will make the wrong decision are flashing.” The decision being the update of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan (Bay-Delta Plan), which is overdue by nearly thirty years. The Bay-Delta Plan sets critically important standards for freshwater flow into and from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to San Francisco Bay, as well as other essential water quality objectives like salinity and temperature. 

 Friends of the River and its allies have spent years assembling the best scientific evidence, which shows that major increases in river and estuary flow are necessary to prevent the collapse of the Bay-Delta estuary and the communities and cultures that rely on it. If the State Water Board based the Bay-Delta plan on this science, it would prevent the extinction of native fish and wildlife species, and over time restore healthy populations, habitats and ecological processes. Flow absolutely cannot be decoupled from a healthy Bay-Delta estuary. Flow is water quality. Flow is habitat. Flow is ways of life, and life itself. 

 Evidence also shows that investments in water conservation, reuse, recycling and stormwater capture can provide millions of acre-feet of water to substitute for water we should be leaving in rivers and the estuary. The fact that these types of projects are more affordable than the mega-infrastructure projects that are currently being proposed throughout the state is an essential consideration as people struggle to make ends meet. 

 Unfortunately, the argument with the Board is no longer about exactly how much to increase flows. Instead, the Newsom Administration is pushing for adoption of so-called “Voluntary Agreements,” (VAs) a habitat-instead-of-flow swap which would barely move the needle – it’s unclear whether it would change the status quo at all or even be worse than current conditions – and pull the rug out from three decades of effort to improve Bay-Delta protections. Adopting the VAs would make it more feasible to build and operate the Delta Tunnel, Sites Reservoir, and other proposed infrastructure projects to capture and deliver even more water from the Bay-Delta and its Central Valley watershed. The VAs were initially proposed by a group of water purveyors that would otherwise be regulated by the Bay-Delta Plan (VA Parties), and have benefitted from the delay caused by the VA process. 

 The Board’s new draft of the updated Bay-Delta Plan, released in July, would accept the V As as the preferred pathway, even though the amount of flow contribution on the table is negligible. In some cases, it even credits water already being released, and habitat projects that have already been built, or would have been built in the absence of the VAs. A set of regulatory requirements is being considered for the Plan as a backstop in the event the VA Parties fail to perform, or the Agreements fall apart. However, in that event the Board would likely have to restart the standard-setting process, in essence going back to square one. As mentioned above, square one for this process started about 30 years ago. The Bay-Delta ecosystem cannot survive another protracted process without sustaining major casualties. 

 For the water users who have not already signed onto the Voluntary Agreements, the draft Plan would impose regulatory requirements for increased flow – but the already weak 55% target would be relaxed in two-thirds of all years down to as low as 35% (and to 0% on a few streams). This would mean no reduction in water deliveries for consumptive uses, despite the environmental and water quality impacts. In contrast, FOR and its allies have proposed reducing flows to the lower end of the 45-65% adaptive range only if storage requirements to preserve cold-water storage in specific reservoirs are not being met. The Board’s approach guarantees that severe flow reductions will occur most of the time. At the same time it is proposing to delay setting cold-water storage requirements until after the final Plan is adopted.  

 Other problems include that the Board: 

• Used a shifting baseline to evaluate impacts of the Voluntary Agreements 

• Added hurdles before more flow would be required (in the upper end of the 45-65% adaptive range), and 

• Added hurdles to invoking the regulatory backstop if and when the VAs fail to perform 

No wonder most water users have signed or are queuing up to sign the Voluntary Agreements – they’re a free pass for any serious obligations to improve water quality and preserve a functioning Bay-Delta ecosystem. 

 YOU CAN TAKE ACTION 

 The State Water Board needs to be told that we’re not buying what they’re selling. FOR is preparing to submit extensive comments on the inadequacies of the revised draft Plan and encourages you to add your voice to oppose this gutting of water quality standards. Comments are due September 29. 

• Send and email to: SacDeltaComments@waterboards.ca.gov 

• Subject line: “Comment Letter – Revised Draft Sacramento/Delta BayDelta Plan Updates.” 

• Tell the Board to: 

• Adopt enforceable numeric water quality standards for all water users requiring more than 55% of unimpaired runoff to flow into the Delta and out to San Francisco Bay 

• Only reduce flows to the lower end of the 45-65% adaptive range when specific storage targets to preserve cold-water storage in reservoirs are not met, and set those targets now 

• Reject the Voluntary Agreements as grossly inadequate to protect fish and wildlife and water quality, and likely to facilitate species extinctions and ecosystem collapse