Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA)

“Excess” tap water in Sacramento, Calif., is helping supply a new Nestlé bottling plant.

The new bottling plant initially will bottle up to 150 acre-feet of water annually, purchased from the city of Sacramento and from nearby private springs.

The bottler signed a 10-year lease with options to extend. That’s another water contract state agencies have signed continuing the process of over-committing water we don’t have.

This may have been a wet year, but has everyone forgotten the past four years of drought or the July 20th State Water Report that says the Delta needs more water flowing through it than is currently allowed due to excess water exports?

If Sacramento has excess water, why do they need four new pumps? The four new Freeport pumps near Sacramento are anticipated to go on-line in 2011. The pumps are a joint project by the Sacramento County Water Agency (SCWA) and the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) of Oakland to supply 85 million gallons of water per day from the Sacramento River to customers in central Sacramento County and the East Bay area of California.

We’re in a state water crisis! We need to be importing bottled water into California from water-rich states. There is no “excess” water here.

Even though organizations concerned about the Delta, newspapers, and others were clammoring for the legislature to NOT vote yes on AB-1265 to take the Water Bond off the ballot in November, on Monday, the Legislature voted to postpone the water bond to 2012. Said Food & Water Watch’s Elanor Starmer. “In the interest of all Californians, legislators should take this opportunity to repeal the bond and start anew, not postpone it.” However, since the backers of the water bond knew it was unlikely to pass this year, rather than revise it to provide a reasonable initiative voters could approve, they chose to remove it and hope in two years everyone forgot the issues with the measure.

The Senate backed postponement from the outset, voting 27-7. I’m happy to report that our local Senator DeSaulnier joined the always pro-Delta senator Lois Wolk in voting no. The Assembly took several votes, with Jared Huffman (Chair of the Assembly on Water) arguing to keep the measure on the ballot or pull it altogether and revise it, leaving the ballot date open. It took until 9:35 p.m. for the last Assembly holdouts, Assembly Member Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara) and Assembly Member Sandre Swanson (D-Alameda), to respond to pressure from legislative leadership and vote to postpone. Again, happily our own Joan Buchanan voted on the “NO” side.

Supporters to delay the Water Bond to 2012:

Association of California Water Agencies
California Building Industry Association
California Chamber of Commerce
California Farm Bureau Federation
California Municipal Utilities Association
Dublin San Ramon Services District
Eastern Municipal Water District
Friant Water Authority
Helix Water District
Kern County Water Agency
San Diego County Water Authority
WateReuse California
Western Municipal Water District

In our post last week, State Releases Delta Flows Report, the recent report released by the State Water Board had a key central conclusion: Significantly more water must be left to flow through the Delta. Now groups that rely on delta water are beginning to take positions on what this report means.

Those who are concerned about the Delta are pleased to have an official report on delta flow requirements. “This [report] is something that some of us have been awaiting for more than two decades,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of a trade group for commercial salmon fishermen, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. The conclusion was unsurprising to many given evidence developed during the 1980s and 1990s during similar proceedings but which were ignored under political pressure. “This doesn’t have the (regulatory force) those other two processes had, but the science has finally been liberated,” Grader said.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that water agencies sought to dismiss the report as “pie in the sky.”

• It was “an interesting theoretical exercise” and “not a useful resource” said the State Water Contractors, an association that represents the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Kern County Water Agency and a handful of water agencies in the Bay Area.
• Thomas Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District, the nation’s largest irrigated farm district, called the report “immaterial” and urged board members not to adopt it.

Although water agencies have long been able to define how much water they need, the report marks the first time specific numbers could be put on the environment’s side of the scales, said Gary Bobker, program director at The Bay Institute.

The study found that about 75 percent of the rain and snowmelt in the Delta watershed should be allowed to flow uninterrupted to the bay and ocean. Currently only about half the water flows through to the bay. To meet the report’s recommendations, Delta water use would have to be cut in half.

A great article in the SF Chronicle today

By: Elanor Starmer | August 06 2010 at 03:48 PM

Here’s an excerpt:

“Supporters of the water bond, which would cost California taxpayers $22 billion over 30 years, hope that in two years voters will forget how bad it is. That will also give bond supporters time to gather the millions of dollars needed to push their message out statewide. We shouldn’t be fooled: a vote to postpone this bad bill is a vote to keep it on life support.

“Check out the video No on AB-1265 and share it with your neighbors. “

Read the entire SF Chronical article here: click here

The article below expresses the feelings of many who have observed the Delta’s decline over the last ten years. Mr. Fitzgerald is referring to the California Water Resources Control Board draft report released last week which states that the amount exported is MUCH higher than what can be exported and still have enough water for the Delta to be healthy for fish and wildlife.

No more watered down excuses

By Michael Fitzgerald Record columnist July 23, 2010 12:00 AM

State water officials are the San Joaquin Delta’s most destructive invasive species. Amazingly, at long last, they have concluded Delta fish need more water.

A lot more. Water users are taking twice as much from the Delta as they should, the state has been forced to admit. In so concluding, they indict themselves.

This is big. This is not some environmental group saying Delta fish need more water. This is not a scientific panel easy to ignore. This is the state of California itself.

The very state that brutally exploited the Delta, from its dam-it-up mentality of the 20th Century to the send-it-south policy persisting to this day.

But now, lo, the same 2009 water package that may enable a peripheral canal, or tunnel, required the State Water Control Resources Board to rise above the special interest politics that have long compromised state water policy to the point of ecological insanity and to scientifically answer the question: How much water do Delta fish need?

How much water is necessary to keep the Delta alive?

Big Ag and south-state urban users long ago figured out how much they want to take; remarkably, though, nobody in state water agencies ever figured out how much they ought to leave.

How much more have they been exporting than is biologically sound? How bad is their betrayal of the public trust, the deliberate neglect of their duty to steward the Delta’s natural resources for all, including future generations?

Any attempt to quantify the volume of wrongly exported water will be rough. Flows and exports vary with wet years and dry, and other factors. So most reports use percentages.

But I want to go with numbers. Even rough numbers paint a picture.

So. The 100-year average amount of water moving through the Delta is about 29 million acre feet a year. The takers take about 15 million acre feet a year.
To restore the Delta, they have to cut their take by half, the report says, and let 75 percent of rivers flow during certain times.

If they did, the amount returned to the rivers would be (again, roughly, as the reductions are seasonal) 7.5 million acre feet a year.

Meaning, over the last 20 years alone, the amount of water they have wrongly taken – the amount the state allowed them to hog – is, at the high end of estimates, enough to fill 22-mile-wide Lake Tahoe to its capacity of 39 trillion gallons, with enough water left over to fill giant New Melones Reservoir at its current level almost five times over.

A staggering sea of water.

You can quibble with the math. But not the minimum flow requirements.

With this minimum number, we now have a metric for the greed, a yardstick for the cynical indifference, a scale on which to weigh the state’s betrayal of the public trust.

And this time the science compiled by the state is not something Sean Hannity can spin away. It agrees with data an army of experts has provided the state again and again over decades at hearings.

But Republican governors, instead of acting responsibly, quashed scientifically sound and crucial recommendations to benefit Big Ag and Southern California cities.

Big Ag, which helped corrupt the state water regime, predictably has come out swinging.

“The draft Delta Flow Criteria Report is a purely theoretical exercise with no application in the real world,” bellowed the San Luis & Delta Mendota Water Authority. “Any attempt to apply these findings would be devastating.”

Correction, sirs: The devastation is already well under way in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Which is more than just a sponge to wring.

While this report is a welcome injection of reality, its conclusions are not binding. The restoration of Delta flows, though right and necessary, is inconceivable. If the Sacramento River runs at 75 percent, where’s the water for the Peripheral Canal?

Expect politics to distort the outcome. State officials call it “balancing.” I call it a kinder, gentler betrayal of the public trust.

Only now none can deceive. They can’t pretend fulfilling excessive water contracts – promising to deliver more water than exists – and restoring the Delta both are feasible goals. They can’t say we’ll all get better together.
The facts are out. They’ve taken up to 7.5 million acre feet too much, three New Meloneses of water, every year for decades at the Delta’s expense.
The truth may not be a game-changer. But now, at least, the game is better illuminated.

“Now we can say, ‘If you want to kill the Delta, at least be honest about it,’ ” said Bill Jennings, head of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.

Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at (209) 546-8270 or michaelf@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/fitzgeraldblog.

On July 20th, the State Water Resources Control Board California Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft Development of Flow Criteria for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Ecosystem report. According to Mike Taugher of the Bay Area News Group, “The key finding is that of all the snowmelt and rain that falls into the Delta’s watershed, which covers 40 percent of California, about 75 percent of it should be allowed to flow through the Delta into San Francisco Bay.”

“Today, only about 50 percent of the flow passes through the Delta on average as nearly all of California taps into its rivers and the Delta itself.”

To browse through the entire 180 page report, click here. The report states:

“In order to preserve the attributes of a natural variable system to which native fish species are adapted, many of the criteria developed by the State Water Board are crafted as percentages of natural or unimpaired flows. These criteria include:
• 75% of unimpaired Delta outflow from January through June;
• 75% of unimpaired Sacramento River inflow from November through June; and
• 60% of unimpaired San Joaquin River inflow from February through June.

In comparison, historic flows over the last 18 to 22 years have been:

• approximately 30% in drier years to almost 100% of unimpaired flows in wetter years for Delta outflows;
• about 50% on average from April through June for Sacramento River inflows;
  and
• approximately 20% in drier years to almost 50% in wetter years for San Joaquin River inflows.

The report is not surprising to Delta scientists or even residents of the Delta. It has been obvious for years that export levels have been the key cause of the Delta crisis. The Delta needs sufficient fresh water flowing through it to flush out pollutants, to provide fresh water for fish and stream wildlife, and to maintain the quality of the water for healthy use by humans (swimming and other recreation).

Now everyone is asking what the state is going to do about it. This is not the first time this information has been provided. When the federal pumps were first installed, environmentalists sent letters of concern to the then governor Jerry Brown worrying that turning on all five pumps would destroy the Delta. Some years later the 5th pump was turned on. And we all know the crisis the Delta is in now.

See also

• Yubanet.com Delta Flows article.
• Calsport Press Release
• RestoreTheDelta.org – “Now we know how much water needs to flow” and “A purely theoretical exercise?”

For your information – The Delta Stewardship Council is inviting comments on the second draft of the Interim Plan.

They report that the Second Draft was revised substantially based on comments from the public, agencies and Council members. Once again, they are notifying people with little response time to get comments in for the next Council meeting. Email received today stated that comments on the second draft received by Monday, July 19, will be provided to Council members for discussion at the July 23 meeting.

However, comments received by August 3, will still be considered for revisions made in developing the third – and final – draft Interim Plan that will be considered for adoption by the Council at its August 26-27 meeting. Click here to read the Second Draft Interim Plan.

Schwarzenegger Seeks To Take Water Bond Off Ballot and the “No on the Water Bond Coalition” pushes to scrap it altogether.

Press Release from Sacramento —

“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to pull an $11.1 billion water bond off the November ballot after spending much of last year fighting to get it there.

The Republican governor had said improving the state’s water storage and delivery system was one of his top priorities.

On Tuesday, he said the timing was poor and wants to delay the measure until 2012.

He says putting the measure on the ballot this year, when the state faces a $19 billion budget deficit and record unemployment, would jeopardize its passage.

He says the focus in the Capitol should be on fixing the deficit, reforming government pensions and creating long-term budget reforms. The Legislature would need to agree for the measure to come off the ballot.”

It’s good news that the governor wants to postpone the bond. We’d prefer a new, different bond that really addresses the water issues and the Delta crisis. As we have heard from our local legislators, there are many problems with the bond including:

• Very little money is going directly to Delta restoration and increasing our water supply.
• Too much money is earmarked for projects for which we have no plans.
• $700 – $800 million per year will come from the general fund, at the expense of education and other critical needs.

The No on the Water Bond (Proposition 18) committee responded to the Governor’s announcement via a statement from Jim Metropulos of Sierra Club California:

“We call on the Legislature to scrap this $11 Billion bond and start over. Even if it is delayed to a future ballot it will continue to be a bad back room deal, hatched in the dark of the night and loaded up with billions of dollars in pork projects to buy off votes.”

“Even if it is delayed to a future ballot, it will still mean billions more dollars in debt for our State,” he added. “Even if it is delayed to a future ballot, it will not address the key points needed to fix our water infrastructure or create sustainable water policy. Moving the initiative to another election will not lessen our opposition!”

Addressing Profiteering in the Sale of Water

One of the comments to a recent STCDA email about the Two Gates bill AJR 38 was “Has anyone thought about putting forth a bill that would make it illegal to sell off excess water rights?”

Sounds like Assemblymember Arambula has been trying to do that with Assembly Bill AB 2049. Unfortunately, it failed to pass the assembly this week, not obtaining the votes required. The vote was AYES 38. NOES 31. (FAIL).

Opponents claim that there have been relatively few permanent agriculture to municipal use transfers and that when they do occur “they typically allow a farmer to sell water that will accommodate a different use that has an equal or higher economic value to the state of California” and that “the marketplace should be left to determine the ultimate allocation of SWP supplies.”

The bill was attempting to stop the ongoing egregious money-making such as the $77 million profiteering deal by one landowner last year which was quoted in the bill itself:

“In August 2009, Sandridge Partners, a landowner within the service area of Dudley Ridge Water District in Kings County on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, agreed to permanently sell 14,000 acre feet (af) of its annual SWP entitlement to the Mojave Water Agency, in San Bernardino County, for $77 million dollars. Both the Dudley Ridge Water District and the Mojave Water Agency are SWP contractors. In news articles, Sandridge Partners was quoted as saying it intended to use part of the funding from its sale to Mojave to expand groundwater pumping as a substitute supply.”

Water is transferred from the farm use to municipal use (at a high margin for the user who received it at a reduced and/or subsidized agricultural rate) and then farmers have been pumping water from the groundwater aquifers to make up for the lack of agricultural water needed.

Concerns about the Aquifers

California’s two main river basins and the aquifers beneath its agricultural heartland have lost nearly enough water since 2003 to fill Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, new satellite data shows according to a Reuters report Dec. 14, 2009. Depleted aquifers account for two-thirds of the loss measured, most of it attributed to increased groundwater pumping for irrigation of drought-parched farmland in California’s fertile but arid Central Valley, scientists said. Satellite studies show that groundwater is being used up faster than nature can restore it.

When aquifers are drained, there is the risk of the aquifer collapsing (which has happened recently in San Jose and in the Central Valley). The problem is, when aquifers collapse, there is no way to recover this valuable storage system.

AB 2049 also addressed better monitoring, management and controls on groundwater use to stop this practice as well. Hopefully this bill will be modified and attempted again.

The Selenium Issue Continues

Then there was the May 27th “Showdown over Selenium”. A broad coalition of 18 organizations, representing fisheries, tribal and environmental interests, opposed the pollution waiver for West side farmers to clean up their selenium discharge. Waste waters from the San Luis Drain are currently 10 times the level considered safe. The coalition believes the pollution should be halted at its source, not sent downstream. See the article for pictures of the deformed embryos of the bird species Stilt collected from a single nest from a Tulare Basin evaporation pond in the Southern San Joaquin Valley in 2001. Selenium from west side San Joaquin Valley farms caused massive wildlife deformities in birds at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, exposed by federal biologist Felix Smith, in Merced County in the early 1980s.

RestoreTheDelta.org reported this week on the results of that meeting:

West side farmers just can’t make that deadline for cleaning up their irrigation water. They’ve been trying for 14 years and have spent $100 million – although not all their own money, of course. But they need more time to develop a water treatment plant to eliminate contamination from 97,000 acres between Firebaugh and Interstate 5.

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has given its approval for a 10-year extension for the Grassland Bypass Project. The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network argued that contamination will jeopardize revival of salmon runs and harm wildlife as far out as Suisun Bay. They said that a two-year extension would have been more reasonable than a full decade.

Farm representatives argue that fish pass through the river when higher flows dilute the selenium level.

Next, the matter goes to the State Water Resources Control Board, which is not known for making decisions that might inconvenience west side agriculture. They apparently still don’t view selenium as a stressor.

Click Here to read more.

Why does it take Lawyers?

I couldn’t help but wonder, when attending the Bay and Delta Conservation Plan workshop last September, when the BDCP/ex-CalFed scientist was defending his knowledge and expertise and explained that he’d spent the last 30 years studying the Delta, when CalFed was then the lead organization, why didn’t they stop the excess pumping that has now brought the Delta to crisis? Why did it take Judge Oliver Wanger to order the pumps be turned off in February because endangered Delta Smelt populations are nearing the pumps and dying. Judge Wagner reversed his ruling May 25th and said “Judge Wanger decided the impact to the endangered fish did not outweigh the needs of farmers.”

An email from Bob Morris May 19th stated that a recent California Superior Court decision ruled that those who illegally divert water from streams and rivers can be sued because the consequent lack of water downstream, with its resultant problems, constitutes a violation of the public trust. Among other things, this ruling means governmental entities that are charged with maintaining such resources can also be sued.

“This new Superior Court ruling on Monday says that anyone who diverts water must provide enough flow for downstream fish and if they don’t they can be sued by anyone,” said Chris Malan of the Livings Rivers Council in Napa. He said there are at least 286 illegal water diversions in the Napa River watershed and that many of them are by vineyards.

The ruling was regarding the City of Calistoga and Napa rivers but could have far reaching affects. It could be a factor in the Delta because local scientists who are studying the Delta crisis do not feel the biggest issue is just the number of smelt being caught in the pumps but rather the lack of sufficient fresh water flowing throughout the Delta due to over-pumping. Rulings such as this, that aren’t a total shut-down of all pumping but may bring about a better analysis of what is required for a healthy Delta, seem like the best hope for getting the state to a more balanced water approach.