New delta report adds to eventual master document

The release of a 2,200-page draft environmental impact report by the Delta Stewardship Council last week added to a flurry of reports, discussions and hearings resulting from legislative directives intended to improve water supply reliability and restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem.

As they review the reports and monitor the progress of the delta planning efforts, farm and water organizations say the plans have not yet resolved conflicts involving California's chronic water supply problems, conversion of thousands of acres of farmland to marsh habitat, and impacts on the delta agricultural economy.

The Delta Stewardship Council executive director, Joe Grindstaff, said the council's new environmental report forms one part of an overall Delta Plan.

"The important thing is the Delta Plan itself, which includes deadlines for completing projects to improve state water supply reliability and the delta ecosystem, based on 12 policies that will become regulations and 61 recommendations," Grindstaff told reporters and bloggers during a discussion last week at the council's Sacramento offices.

The plan will include the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, a habitat restoration plan, when it is completed, plus updated delta flow standards, as well as plans for protecting designated areas in the delta from future development. It will also include final plans for protecting floodplains from encroachment and building set-back levees, and revamped flood protection plans.

As a master document, the Delta Plan is intended to lay the foundation for the investment of billions of dollars and provide a roadmap for water delivery in California for the rest of the century. It also calls for the flooding of more than 100,000 acres of farmland for habitat purposes and, if voters do not approve a $11.14 billion bond measure on the 2012 general election ballot, that might mean much higher costs and fees for those who rely on the delta for water supplies.

The plan would require those who use delta water to implement local plans to diversify supplies and require transfers of delta water to be open and transparent. It includes recommendations to address toxics, nutrients and invasive species, and calls for modifications as new science or circumstances warrant.

"We recommend financing be based on beneficiary-pays, but also on stressor-pays principles," Grindstaff said. "That's based on the idea that all parties have responsibility."

Council members said the final plan will be ready for adoption at the end of March 2012 and then the regulatory process will proceed.

Council Chairman Phil Isenberg said "the other big plans the Legislature hoped might be finished"—the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan and the Central Valley Flood Management Plan—will take several more years to complete.

"We simply have to advance and do as best we can," he said.

Earlier this month, a draft began circulating of the Central Valley Flood Management Plan, which was authorized by the Legislature in 2007 after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. The legislation requires 200-year flood protection for urban areas in the Central Valley and a final management plan by July 2012.

When completed, the plan will guide investment of $13 billion to $16 billion in proposed improvements and modifications to the existing state and federal flood-control infrastructure along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers during the next 25 years. That will include work on levees, weirs, bypasses and flood control reservoirs operated by state, federal and local agencies, as well as private property owners—and could lead to flooding and habitat restoration on up to 40,000 acres of Central Valley farmland.

Another piece of the planning puzzle is a delta Economic Sustainability Plan. A draft economic plan was completed in October by the Delta Protection Commission, with the goal for it to be adopted into the larger Delta Plan.

During last week's discussion with the media, Isenberg said, "there are so many plans out there that people are pursuing, if you waited for all plans to be completed, you'd do nothing for a very long time. Our direction from the Legislature is to adopt a legally enforceable delta plan and that's what we're trying to do."

Once completed, the various plans will be updated every five years, said Randy Fiorini, a Turlock farmer and Delta Stewardship Council member, calling the overall plan "a document that will evolve over time."

California Farm Bureau Federation environmental policy analyst Justin Fredrickson said the water management plans "are in preparation for the larger issue of building infrastructure to move water through the delta to urban and agricultural users in the south."

Fredrickson noted that the Delta Planning Commission position on "economic sustainability" in the delta is that agriculture is fundamental to the delta economy and levees are critical to protecting that economy.

"There's also agreement that any significant salinity increases due to construction of a large delta conveyance system, and the BDCP's proposed conversion of thousands of acres of farmland into tidal marsh, would likely negatively impact the delta's ag-based economy," he said. "These possible conflicts must be addressed as part of any delta economic sustainability plan, and we're not seeing that result yet."

In addition, Fredrickson said, "we're not seeing clear signs of the more reliable water supplies all of this is supposed to get us and, in fact, many people fear we're headed the other way."

Information on the Delta Plan is online at www.deltacouncil.ca.gov.

(Kate Campbell is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at kcampbell@cfbf.com.)

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item.