We have a situation going on in California right now that will tell us whether the State Water Resources Control Board can manage the state’s water resources for the benefit of the whole state rather than for the benefit of south San Joaquin Valley agriculture worth less than one-half of one percent of the state’s...Read More

Then, earlier this month, the State Water Resources Control Board sent a notice to Diverters of Surface Water alerting them to lower-than-average storage levels in reservoirs resulting from two years of record dry and warm conditions.  “For 2013,” they note, “the combined total precipitation for the months of January through May is the driest in...Read More

No.  Despite the suggestion that water is being reserved for releases to meet Delta water quality standards, water project operators have asked the Water Board to change this year’s classification from dry to critical because they expect to violate Delta outflow and salinity standards.   The Water Board justified this violation of standards by arguing...Read More

No.  The effect of reduced water quality and flows on salmon could be dire in a year when a record number of salmon are expected to return to spawn. “We’re only in a second dry year, not even a declared drought, and the system is fundamentally broken,” according to Bill Jennings of CSPA.  “The State...Read More

One of the many gargantuan problems with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is that it makes poorly-supported assumptions about available Sacramento River flows.  As the Bureau of Reclamation said in its comments on the BDCP’s environmental impact statement (EIS), “The current BDCP analysis assumes no operation impacts to upstream reservoir operations.”  But Sacramento River...Read More

What do we do in California to avoid making hard choices about sharing a limited resource? We build something bigger to store or move water. The Bureau of Reclamation wants to add 18.5 feet to the top of Shasta Dam, a project that would, it is claimed, increase storage capacity 14 percent, provide drinking water...Read More

While Bay Delta Conservation Plan consultants have been telling the general public what is in the Administrative Draft of the BDCP HCP – habitat conservation plan documents (the tunnels plus “other” conservation measures, along with potential funding, costs/benefits to the exporters, and so on), state and federal agencies have been studying the 18,000 page Administrative...Read More

Before looking at the agency comments on the environmental documents, we wanted to share this interesting little inconsistency. We found the following in a tiny footnote related to the Preferred Alternative (the 9,000 cfs tunnels) in the BDCP EIR/EIS Administrative Draft (page 3-16, a): “The Dual Conveyance water delivery system would consist of the new...Read More

The Delta Stewardship Council isn’t rubber-stamping BDCP’s environmental documents. Council staff note, for example, that: the chapters need opening summaries and readable comparisons of the environmental impacts of alternatives. all alternatives should be analyzed at similar levels of detail. (Right now, only the Peripheral Tunnels alternative is analyzed in detail.) the EIR/EIS should at least...Read More

Thanks to Maven’s Notebook, here a summary of what the Water Board wants to see in the BDCP environmental documents. Identification of all changes to water quality objectives, water rights, and other approvals that BDCP needs.  Details on the scientific basis for changes that the Water Board can review independently. A discussion of impacts on...Read More