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After years of debate over how much freshwater should be allowed to flow to the sea through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the State Water Resources Control Board has released a final draft of its regulatory plan.
The board is accepting public comments through this Friday (Sept. 18) before it considers adopting the draft Water Quality Control Plan on Oct. 28.
In the draft plan, water right holders can choose from two pathways to compliance. They can provide a minimum rate of water flow from Sacramento River tributaries, or they can voluntarily invest in habitat restoration projects with specific flow volumes in lieu of sustaining a minimum flow rate. Some stakeholders say that part of the plan hands regulatory authority over to the very groups the board is supposed to regulate.
The Delta, where water flows from the Sierra Nevada through San Francisco Bay, provides water for nearly 30 million Californians and 4 million acres of farmland. It spans more than 1,000 square miles. Streams and tributaries flow around cities and farms into lakes and wetlands that sustain some of the state’s most threatened and endangered wildlife. Those watery landscapes also help replenish groundwater storage.
In addition to environmentalists and commercial salmon fisheries, other stakeholders include Delta tribes and farmers, who depend on Delta waters to sustain their culture and livelihoods.
The Delta is the intake point for water for the State Water Project, a 700-mile system of canals that carries water to Southern and Central California. If too little freshwater flows through the Delta and into the Bay, saltwater can move farther inland, threatening ecosystems and the State Water Project’s water supply.
Regulatory plans for the Delta and Bay watershed were first established and enforced by the State Water Resources Control Board in 1978, with the most recent version done in 2018.
Two pathways to compliance
The starting point for calculating the 2026 standard is called “unimpaired flow,” said Eric Buescher, managing attorney with the environmental nonprofit San Francisco Baykeeper.
“If all of the water, the rain, and snow that landed inside the watershed moved through the rivers, without dams, without diversions, without being stopped or blocked, and went into the Delta and then out of the Delta, that would be 100% unimpaired flow,” said Buescher.
Those water agencies that choose the first compliance option can commit to maintaining 55% of unimpaired flow in the river, with adjustments for the very driest periods down to 35%.
Buescher said that although 55% unimpaired flow is not ideal, it is vastly superior to what we do today and to the second option, the Healthy Rivers and Landscape pathway to compliance.
The HRL pathway is specific to the Sacramento River and its tributaries. It centers on unique voluntary agreements to restore fish spawning and rearing habitat. Participating water agencies must commit to provide a specific volume of water in lieu of sustaining a minimum 55% flow rate.
Different volumes of water are required to flow from different tributaries, including the Sacramento River, American River, Yuba River, Feather River and Mokelumne River.
Those water volumes change according to whether it’s a wet or dry year, and they follow a monthly schedule. Commitments are legally enforceable, subject to monitoring, reporting on ecological outcomes, and State Water Board enforcement. If the board determines a water user is not meeting commitments, it can move the agency into the regulatory pathway of maintaining 55% of unimpaired flow.
About the second pathway, Buescher said the restoration requirements are mostly about shaping the land into the form of a wetland, not necessarily about making the land wet. The responsibilities outlined in the HRL agreements are to build acres of habitat, not to ensure that the habitat is in the right place or inundated at the right times by adequate water, he said.
“Now we’ve got more habitat than we need and still not enough water,” he said.
“Evidence from academia and state and federal scientific agencies that has come to light over the last 15 years all points to flow in the river as being the biggest driver of decline,” Buescher said, referring to a decline in native species.
Threatened species include salmon and other fish that must travel from the sea to upland rivers to spawn each year. They depend on surges of freshwater hitting the Bay during snowmelt and rainy periods. High water surges create a window of time for migratory species to enter and navigate the Delta river system.
The wildlife that lives in these rivers or relies on those ecosystems have evolved to adjust to those varying flow patterns, Buescher said.
“It would benefit the ecosystem to mechanically mimic the natural up-and-down hydrology,” he said.
High water flows into the Bay
Whether those water surges should be considered excess water that can be diverted into the State Water Project, or whether it is vital to let that water flow into the Bay, is a point of conflict between water agencies, commercial fisheries and environmentalists.
The Delta Conveyance Tunnel is a roughly $20 billion project backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that is moving through the permitting process. It is designed to divert water when levels are highest. The water will flow through a large concrete tube beneath the Delta, bypassing the Bay, and feed directly into the State Water Project.
Building habitat
The recently released Water Quality Control Plan is supported by the Association of California Water Agencies, which represents 470 public water agencies, and the State Water Contractors, a nonprofit association of the public water agencies that contract with DWR to receive water from the State Water Project.
Ryan Endean, spokesperson for the California Department of Water Resources, said that under the plan’s HRL program there is an obligation by water agencies to build approximately 42,000 new acres of habitat and provide between 150,000 and 825,000 acre-feet of flows per year depending on whether it is a dry or wet year.
“We can protect rivers, fish, wildlife and tribal cultural uses while building greater resilience and security for communities, farms and the state’s economy,” said Eric Oppenheimer, executive director of the State Water Board, in a statement announcing the new water plan.
Buescher said that all water usage should be subject to enforcement under the federal Endangered Species Act, which was passed in 1973 to protect plant and animal species at risk of extinction and preserve the ecosystems they need to survive.
“Nobody is enforcing the Endangered Species Act,” he said. “The federal administration has failed miserably since the prior Trump administration. We have seen three fish species added to the endangered species list in recent years at the state and federal level, because the existing rules were not adequate to prevent them from being at risk of extinction.”
Public comments can be submitted to the State Water Board at waterboards.ca.gov. The board will consider adopting the plan in a public hearing Oct. 28 to 29.
– Story by Ruth Dusseault, Bay City News Service
