Dr Robert Pyke has a wealth of geotechnical and water resources engineering experience from all over the world, including the Delta, and he has some sensible suggestions for addressing our water management problems.  Among them 1.  Restoration of floodplains on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries, which provides three significant benefits: stretching...Read More

The Delta Stewardship Council released this week its first draft of the Delta Plan.  We appreciate that the Council is making the drafting process available to public comment.  It is our understanding that there will be six more drafts leading to the completion of a final plan in December of this year. With that said,...Read More

We were puzzled by some statements in the press release from Congressman Devin Nunes’ office announcing proposed funding cuts affecting the biological opinions and San Joaquin River Restoration. The press release calls these cuts the first step “to replace the flawed billion dollar salmon run…”  In place of the existing restoration plan, Nunes and House...Read More

Dear Friends, On Friday, the U.S. House of Representative passed the 2011 Continuing Resolution, a must pass spending bill, to keep the Federal Government funded.  Language included in this base bill, however, would defund the implementation of biological decisions made for reduced Delta pumping, thereby allowing record level of water exports from the Delta to...Read More

The Delta Stewardship Council held its January meeting on the 27th and the 28th, before comments from two weeks of January scoping meetings could be compiled, condensed and processed for consumption.  They have a Delta Plan to complete by January 2012. On the first day of the DSC meeting, Independent Science Board Lead Scientist Cliff...Read More

On Day 2 of the DSC meeting, Dr. Richard Norgaard, chair of the Delta Independent Science Board, reported to the DSC about the ISB’s work on stressors.  Norgaard told the council that there is no scientifically objective, agreed upon method for ranking stressors.  Said Norgaard, “We’re giving you a report on addressing multiple stressors to...Read More

This week Governor Brown compared a proposed ballot measure relating to the state budget to the peripheral canal; make it bigger and you get support from those down stream, but increase the opposition at the same time – and vice versa. “The genius is in determining the size of the pipe,” he said. So far,...Read More

Senator Dianne Feinstein has been named chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. The subcommittee’s jurisdiction includes the Department of Energy, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of the Interior water programs. Feinstein said that she is honored to chair a subcommittee “tasked with funding and oversight for some of...Read More

At scoping meetings in January, the Delta Stewardship Council heard from seven California regions that will be affected by the Delta Plan, either because they are in Delta watershed areas or because they get water from the Delta.  The Proposed Planning Area for the Delta Plan Environmental Impact Report covers half the state. At the...Read More