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May 17, 2010
"Married in haste, we may
repent at leisure."
- William Congreve, The Old Batchelour, 1693
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Prodding Interior about
Two-Gates
On Tuesday, May 11, the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks
and Wildlife got together for a second "Oversight Hearing: Delta Stewardship
Council and Bay Delta Conservation Plan Progress and Update." (The first oversight hearing was in early
March.)
Before tackling the DSC and the BDCP, the committee
considered an Assembly Joint Resolution, AJR 38, proposed by Assemblymember Caballero. This resolution would request the U.S.
Department of the Interior to complete its study of the Two-Gates Fish
Protection Demonstration Project.
Caballero said she originally thought the Two-Gates proposal
was a simple short-term way to deal with the turbidity that attracts smelt to
the export pumps. And last September,
Interior seemed interested, too. In
fact, $28 million for the project was included in the November Comprehensive
Water Package. But then Interior put the
project on hold, calling for more study of the underlying science.
This makes Assemblymembers like Caballero, Arambula, and
Fuller impatient. It makes ACWA, the San
Luis and Delta Mendota Water Agency, and the Metropolitan Water District
impatient. It makes Westlands Water District
very impatient.
In fact, Westlands' General Manager/General Counsel Tom
Birmingham himself was there to explain why, technically, Westlands doesn't
actually have junior water rights. The issue of water rights arose because two
WHEREAS's in the Resolution referred to junior water rights and to percentages
of allocations and deliveries last year.
According to Birmingham, Westlands doesn't have junior water
rights because they're just CVP contractors, and the Bureau of Reclamation is
governed by different rules. He
undertook to explain them. Chair Jared
Huffman cut him off with "You've made the point that this is complicated." But Birmingham was on a roll. He got as far as different categories of
Bureau contracts, and deliveries in periods of shortage to Level 4
Refuges. "Except," Huffman interrupted,
"refuges didn't get their Level 3 and 4 water. I know too much about this. Let's
not go there."
Speaking in opposition to the Resolution were a Contra Costa
County supervisor on behalf of the five Delta Counties, who said the State
should not take a stand in favor of a particular solution; and a representative
of the Recreational Boaters of California, who are worried about public use
restrictions of the Two-Gates project.
Huffman didn't want language in the resolution that
would accept either side's characterization of the situation in the Delta. So the committee agreed to amend the sections
referring to water rights and allocations. AJR 38 was adopted with amendments. Only Assemblymember Yamada opposed it
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When is more better?
Already behind schedule, the Committee then proceeded to
hear from four panels on the subjects of the DSC and the BDCP. Leading off with "Agency Perspectives" were
Natural Resources Agency Secretary Lester Snow and DSC Chair Phil
Isenberg.
Snow bragged about the BDCP's "aggressive public outreach" -
450 to 475 meetings if you count all the
public meetings, scoping meetings, workshops, etc. (Lots of outreach, little real input.) He described the BDCP as an "arduous effort"
to meet the high standards of an HCP/NCCP. Now they want to produce, by November, a complete draft that people can
see (and, presumably, appreciate).
Huffman and Senator Wolk thought that last year's
legislation called for reduced reliance on Delta exports, not for delivering up
to the full contract amounts. But Snow
doesn't think there needs to be any change in the BDCP's Purpose and Needs
Statement. A refresher: "The purpose of
the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is to promote the recovery of
endangered, threatened and sensitive species and their habitats in the Delta in
a way that also will protect and restore water supplies." (Emphasis added.)
We should all be relieved to know that Snow thinks, "The
Delta is a solvable problem." (Not a
place. A problem.)
Next, Isenberg gave his testimony, accompanied by DSC Vice
Chair Randy Fiorini, former ACWA president and Tulare farmer. (Chuckled Isenberg, "He's here to protect
me.")
Isenberg said that the enabling statute for the DSC called
for one meeting per month, but they'll be doing two. There's a lot to be done, and the legislation
didn't allow much time to do it. This
was a recurring theme of the day.
The short time frame justified the transfer of about 50
staff from CALFED to run the DSC. It
justified staff advertising for consultants to develop the Delta Plan and the
EIR, and doing it before the council itself was even seated. Isenberg suggested that to meet the January
1, 2012 deadline, they need an interim plan by August of this year and a first
draft of the Delta Plan by this November. That leaves time for three turnaround drafts during the comment
period. Good thing they were able to get
a consultant hired right away.
(Question: Fifty contractors responded to the RFQ. But DWR received only four bids. Why did forty-six potential bidders decline
to be considered?)
The DSC looked into the conflict of interest situation and
decided that everything is OK, since Executive Director Joe Grindstaff and DSC
council member Richard Roos-Collins have both withdrawn from the BDCP Steering
Committee. As for the decision to hire
CH2M Hill, the principal BDCP consultant, as the consultant to develop the
Delta Plan, well, ALL the consultants
who applied had had interactions with the BDCP. Hey, CH2M Hill a big company. The DSC will just ask for consultants who
haven't worked on the BDCP. They will
need dozens.
Isenberg said the DSC has a "responsible agency role" with
respect to the BDCP and also, maybe, an "appellate role" (quasi judicial). Does this remind you of the Water Board?
Huffman told Isenberg he was glad that Isenberg had been
chosen to chair the DSC, but "We hoped this council would be independent." If the schedule interfered with the DSC being
independent, Huffman said he would like to have been informed. Huffman wanted a "firewall." So RTD wonders, how did that make Isenberg a
good choice to chair the DSC?
In response to a question, Isenberg told Senator Wolk that
the DSC is not required by statute to require the BDCP to consider alternatives
to conveyance. In fact, since there is
no concurrent, comparable, funded alternative, alternatives automatically won't
get equal consideration. With the BDCP
and the DSC on parallel courses to produce documents in November, and with CH2M
Hill working on both, is there any chance that the result would be two
different conclusions? No one offered a
good answer to that question.
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Leaving the table hungry
Panel 2 provided an opportunity for BDCP Steering Committee
stakeholders to offer their perspectives on the process. North Delta Water Agency's Melinda Terry, who
also represents the Central Valley Flood Control Association, told the
committee that public safety was "barely a blip on the BDCP radar." There's no good coordination at DWR between
conveyance work and flood protection. Levees protect the co-equal goals, and
levee subvention program investments have been effective in dealing with the
regular occurrence of high water events. But having written off levees as vulnerable to earthquakes, despite
evidence to the contrary, the BDCP is ignoring the role of levees in flood
protection.
All the public outreach mentioned by Lester Snow has not,
according to Terry, resulted in local support for the BDCP because there has
been no "loop around"; the BDCP is still not addressing third-party
impacts. In fact, looking at burdens
versus benefits, there are no Delta benefits, only burdens. The Habitat Conservation Plan will need
willing seller landowners, but Terry predicts that there won't be enough
willing sellers because they have been effectively shut out of the
process. "If we don't get it right," she
noted, "it [the BDCP] will be challenged."
Terry raised the issued of reliable financing for
conveyance, including for maintenance. Metropolitan Water District can't
promise to pay for facilities because their users have not yet agreed to that.
Anne Hayden of the Environmental Defense Fund expressed
concern about the BDCP's trajectory and its tight timeline. There are still no quantifiable biological
objectives. The BDCP's water supply
objective still biases the plan toward increased exports, contrary to
legislative direction. The current
schedule doesn't allow time to evaluate matters like flow criteria or
alternative capacities.
Hayden argued for governance that would not just avoid
jeopardy but would actually allow for fishery agencies to manage the system
flexibly. She said no changes in
operations should occur until the biological objectives have been achieved.
Speaking on behalf of the State Water Contractors, Laura
King Moon said that size of conveyance, routing, operation, and amount of
diversion are all still under discussion. A wide range of options are under review, but the tunnel option needs
more focus. She said that the BDCP needs
to coordinate with existing land uses and HCPs, including Fremont Weir. Echoing Hayden, Moon noted that fisheries
agencies have suggested substantial changes in governance. And like Terry, she mentioned funding as an
issue that needs to be addressed.
Panel 3 was supposed to focus on how the BDCP is being
integrated with Delta Counties' HCP/NCCPs. According to Jim Provenza, a Yolo
County Supervisor, there are nine local HCP/NCCPs that could provide corridors
for habitat. But Kim Delfino of
Defenders of Wildlife reported that the BDCP hasn't provided a meaningful forum
for coordinating the BDCP with county efforts, and that the plan won't be able
to be permitted if coordination isn't worked out.
Don Nottoli, a Sacramento County Supervisor, Delta
Protection Commission Chair, and member of the DSC, shifted the discussion from
habitat plan coordination to other matters requiring integration between
different planning efforts. He said that
there is no funding to meet the deadline for the Delta Protection Commission to
review the primary zone as required under the recent legislation. The Delta Protection Commission is also
supposed to do an economic sustainability study, but that won't be ready in
time to inform the DSC by its November deadline. Nottoli called the schedule "very ambitious."
Assemblymember Yamada commented that it was nice to see the
counties on panels for a change instead of just making statements during the
public comment period.
By the time Panel 4 was called up, the hearing was running
overtime and the speakers were able to make only abbreviated remarks. Barry Nelson of NRDC criticized the BDCP for
focusing on a single alternative and for considering capacity but not operation. He said that he thinks the Purpose and Needs
statement is a problem, described the biological objectives as "foundational,"
and called for a more realistic timeline. He also called for a robust conversation about short- and mid-term
actions, given that conveyance will take 20 to 25 years to implement. And he called for integrating flood
management, saying that doing so would build support for the Delta Plan.
The final panelist to speak was Osha Meserve, representing
Reclamation District 999 and Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge Association. Like earlier speakers, she said affected
communities must be included in and see some benefit from the BDCP. She said the BDCP should be addressing all
major stressors instead of focusing myopically on a few. She mentioned specifically the problem of
selenium from San Joaquin run-off, which is not being addressed by the BDCP as
a stressor.
Meserve said that oversight of the BDCP is desperately
needed. She called for legislative
approval authority over any conveyance over 3000 cfs or above ground; for land
acquisition on a willing seller basis only; for in-lieu taxes to counties; and
for specific conflict-of-interest provisions.
Huffman and Yamada were still present for the few public
comments, but most of the twelve members of the oversight committee apparently
had more important things to do.
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Restore the Delta is a grassroots campaign committed to making the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable to benefit all of California. Restore the Delta - a coalition of Delta residents, business leaders, civic organizations, community groups, faith-based communities, union locals, farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists - seeks to strengthen the health of the estuary and the well-being of Delta communities. Restore the Delta works to improve water quality so that fisheries and farming can thrive together again in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
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Restore the Delta
Email: barbara@restorethedelta.org
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