WATER
On Nov. 8, 2018, representatives of
constituencies who’ve been engaged
in the fight over Delta water for years
— in some cases decades — gathered
in the main conference room of the
California Environmental Protection
Agency headquarters in Sacramen-
to. The board was scheduled to vote
on an update to the Bay-Delta Water
Quality Control Plan, something that
is supposed to happen every three
years but has not been done since
2004. The proposed update decreed
that the tributaries that feed the
San Joaquin River maintain up to 50
percent “unimpeded f low.” In some
years, that would mean state and fed-
eral dam operators on the Stanislaus,
Tuolumne and Merced rivers would
be required to release as much as 30
percent more water than currently
mandated. Instead of being stored in
reservoirs for future use by farms and
cities, that water would go back into
the rivers for the purpose of protect-
ing fisheries. A related process dealing
with the Sacramento River Basin had
yet to get underway.
The meeting had been moved into
the main conference room to accom-
modate hundreds of stakeholders,
nearly every one of whom saw the
vote as a matter of life or death — of
the king salmon, the Delta, their in-
dustry, their farm community. On the
eve of the historic meeting, however,
a curveball had arrived in the form
of a letter, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown
and the incoming governor, Gavin
Newsom, asking the board to post-
pone its vote.
The letter said state agencies,
water districts and others involved in
a process Brown had instituted early
in his administration — a framework
of “voluntary agreements” — were
close to a deal. Brown believed these
voluntary agreements were necessary,
since regulation would result in end-
less lawsuits.
Allowing the negotiations to pro-
gress without a vote to strictly regulate
surface-water usage “would result in a
faster, less contentious and more dura-
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ble outcome,” the letter stated. During
the month’s pause the lawmakers
requested, the letter concluded, “we
pledge to actively and meaningfully
engage to bring this final matter to suc-
cessful closure.”
The following morning, the board
received an unscheduled visit from
Chuck Bonham, director of the Cali-
fornia Department of Fish and Wild-
life, and Karla Nemeth, director of the
California Department of Water Re-
sources. Both pleaded with the board
No one in the room was surprised that
a problem that had been intractable for
years was not solved in a month.
Over the next six hours, a parade of
witnesses — suited lawyers, f leece-
clad environmentalists, fishermen
and farmers in jeans and f lannel —
walked up to the microphone to take
three minutes to make their case one
more time.
The board discussed the matter
for another half hour. Water Board
chair Felicia Marcus, after decrying
“Most scientists would agree
that nearly all the key indices
of ecosystem and native fishery
health are in decline — in many
cases at catastrophic levels. And
there are 8,000 water-rights holders,
a $47 billion per year agricultural
industry, and 25 million people
who rely on water that flows
into and through the Delta.”
STEVE ROTHERT
CALIFORNIA DIRECTOR,
AMERICAN RIVERS
to give them the month to complete
the voluntary agreement process they
and their teams had been working on
for years. After seven hours of public
testimony, the board agreed.
Thirty-four days later, on Dec.
12, 2018, the board reconvened, and
virtually everyone who had been at the
November meeting was present — with
the exception of Bonham and Nemeth.
the “warring narrative” that had
marked the process, indicated she
would cast a yes vote in favor of the
Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan
update. “It’s time for the talkers to get
out of the way of the people on the
ground,” she said in closing.
And then, in apparent defiance of
the current governor and incoming
governor, the board voted 4-1 to take