This month, the Bay Institute published a report called Collateral Damage examining effects of export pumping that are usually overlooked. The report says that estimates of fish kills based on salvage at the export pumps underestimate the problem because they don’t factor in disruptions to fish migration, reductions in the amount of non-lethal habitat available...Read More
Exporters complain about the amount of outflows fish require, calling that water “lost.” But for water that is really lost unnecessarily, we need to look at municipal waste water being discharged to the ocean after a single use: 3.5 million acre feet a year in LA, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego Counties, enough to...Read More
In our report last week on the Senate Natural Resources and Water committee hearing on the DSC and the BDCP, we described an exchange between Senator Wolk and Westlands chief deputy general manager Jason Peltier. The Senator asked if Westlands would accept a stipulation that water delivered under the BDCP would go only to continued...Read More
H.R. 1837, the “Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act” now making its way through Congress, would render the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) largely irrelevant. So it is curious that the Legislative update to the Stewardship Council last week didn’t mention H.R. 1837. Staff were more interested in a measure by Congressman Garamendi dealing with flood...Read More
Staff reported that they had separated comments received on the Fifth Draft of the Delta Plan into two types: those related to changes in the Plan’s policies and recommendations, and those related to the supporting text. Comments that suggest changes in the Plan’s policies and recommendations fell into the following categories (see this table ): covered...Read More
At this week’s California Water Commission (CWC) meeting, the Commission voted to revise twenty-one previously approved Resolutions of Necessity to incorporate new language regarding Quitclaims and Hazardous Waste Testing to make them consistent with resolutions approved since February 15, 2012. That’s what happens when you hurry. There were only three Resolutions of Necessity proposed for...Read More
Rob Davis, on voiceofsandiego.org, writes about the conflict over water rates between Metropolitan Water District and the San Diego County Water Authority, one of MWD’s member agencies. San Diego, you may recall, is balking at helping to pay for conveying Delta water to Southern California. It seems that MWD has formed a working group and...Read More
Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee Chair Fran Pavley is holding hearings on the progress of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Plan. She held one on March 13 and invited as panelists mainly representative of groups that have been involved in these processes from the beginning. But during...Read More
Twenty-six people were able to make public comments, with Pavley giving speakers 3 minutes each until the allotted hour drew to a close. Only four of them spoke in support of the planning efforts under discussion. The rest – elected officials, business people, farmers, fishing interests, and other concerned citizens – gave Pavley’s committee a...Read More
Stockton mayor Ann Johnston told Pavley’s committee that the Delta Stewardship Council is “the Coastal Commission on steroids.” In his comments later, Isenberg disagreed, saying that the Coastal Commission has direct permitting authority, whereas the Stewardship Council does not. They’re both right. What the Stewardship Council can do is to use its appellate authority to...Read More
