FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2025
Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org
Tribes and environmental advocates contest “voluntary agreements” and warn of ecological risks
Sacramento, Calif. — The California State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) today released the updated San Francisco Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan (“Bay-Delta Plan”), a critical rulemaking for ensuring water quality, river flows, and ecosystem protections for the state’s largest and most endangered estuary and watershed. The 3,322 pages of draft regulatory text and updated environmental analysis across 13 different documents were released one week before the holidays, an inequitable approach that effectively reduces time for advocates with limited resources and capacity to review the draft plan compared with well-resourced water districts.
Advocates warn that the updated draft plan:
- Would likely result in a net increase in water diversions and worse environmental conditions than we see today;
- Includes weak, nonbinding language on habitat restoration and monitoring;
- Could set a dangerous precedent enabling major water-infrastructure projects (such as the Sites Reservoir or the Delta Conveyance Tunnel) to circumvent regulatory flow standards;
- Advances eight years of “voluntary agreements” to determine river and estuary flows and water operations that will not protect the ecosystem
- Relies on pledges from the federal government despite new Trump rules to maximize water exports.
A key component of the plan are the State’s proposed voluntary agreements (VAs), privately negotiated deals in which powerful water districts offer limited or illusory flow commitments and funding in exchange for exemptions from stronger regulatory requirements. Tribal groups, environmental justice organizations, fishing advocates, and conservation groups say the Governor’s VA is not scientifically sound and lacks adequate, enforceable protections, especially in light of new Trump orders for Delta pumping.
The Board’s advancement of the VA framework has reignited longstanding tensions over California’s management of the Bay-Delta ecosystem. With commercial salmon fishing closed for the third consecutive year due to near-collapse of spawning populations, advocates argue the estuary cannot withstand further reductions in river flows or delays in implementing stronger protections.
State and federal fish and wildlife agencies have repeatedly warned that existing flow standards are failing to support native species, including Chinook Salmon, Longfin Smelt, and White Sturgeon. Opponents argue the revised Bay-Delta plan would exacerbate declines by increasing net water diversions while offering only vague assurances regarding habitat restoration and monitoring and would also exacerbate toxic algal bloom problems in the watershed.
Tribal and environmental justice advocates further describe the VA framework as inequitable, noting that allowing large water diverters to opt out of regulation through private agreements threatens Tribal communities, Delta residents, and the ecological health of San Francisco Bay, the Delta, and their watershed.
STATEMENTS FROM BAY-DELTA TRIBES AND ADVOCATES:
Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians:
“The Board is supposed to be a science-based agency committed to racial equity and tribal reparations. If that were true however, the Board would reject the Voluntary Agreements, which are not based on the best available science and would harm tribes and environmental justice communities. We need regulation and funding to protect the rivers and the Delta and to ensure that tribal beneficial uses of water are established quickly and given full legal force.”
Gary Mulcahy, Government Liaison with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe:
“It is clear that the SWRCB is continuing its inclusion of the Voluntary Agreements proposals despite the fact that there is a Title VI Civil Rights complaint filed against them, in part, for doing just that. The VAs have been in process now for over 9 years, and have failed to include EJ Communities, Disadvantaged Communities, and California Tribes in their planning and implementation processes. A clear violation of the civil rights of those groups who will be significantly affected by their actions. The Water Board is now saying, you need to talk to the Tribes, but that is the old term of a day late and a dollar short – 10 years after the VAs began planning.”
Vance Staplin, Executive Director, Golden State Salmon Association:
“The federal government is pumping more water to their rich farmer friends and now the state is proposing a plan that allows the feds to continue sucking the rivers and Delta dry at the expense of salmon, communities, and the fishing industry. The feds are running roughshod over the water rules at the expense of the billion dollar salmon industry and the state is about to give them a pass to let them continue doing that.”
Gary Bobker, Program Director, Friends of the River:
“Two decades after acknowledging that native fish and wildlife populations, the food web, water quality, and commercial fisheries were declining dramatically and at risk of collapsing in the Bay-Delta estuary, the State Water Board is releasing a draft plan that essentially gives up the fight and hands the keys to the water districts whose excessive diversions have been driving the ecosystem collapse in the first place. But it’s still possible for the Board members to change course and require the flows needed to save the estuary – if they are willing to step up and accept the responsibility they are charged with under state and federal law.”
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director, Restore the Delta
“We are disappointed that the concerns and needs of Tribes and Delta communities continue to be ignored by the Board in Bay-Delta Planning. With the ongoing collapse of Federal water standards, protecting communities and Tribes from disparate impacts should be the top priority of the Board — and that includes salmon protection.”
Eric Buescher, Managing Attorney, San Francisco Baykeeper:
“The most recent draft Bay-Delta plan continues the Board’s decades long and continuing failure to ensure that the state’s foundational flow and water quality requirements for the Bay-Delta are sufficient to protect fisheries, endangered species, communities, and the Bay’s ecosystem. The Board’s draft today is inconsistent with years of its own statements and analysis, and its hollow attempt to justify its failure to do its job is shameful.”
Chris Shutes, Executive Director, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance:
“It took Water Board documents 15 years to dilute large flow increases to almost none at all. Less water means less fish. Most fishing outside of reservoirs will move out of state, except for boutique fisheries available to the wealthy few.”
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