“The authority the board has,
under the federal and state Clean
Water Acts, is the strongest and most
far-reaching tool the state has to
govern this vast ecosystem,” he says,
admonishing the Water Board for
“elevating the voluntary agreements
process over discharging its regulatory
responsibilities.”
The Bay Institute was one of a hand-
ful of conservation groups, including
American Rivers, invited to participate
in the voluntary agreements process.
Bobker says he had a bit of hope at the
outset but less as the year proceeded.
Nevertheless, he is supportive
of the environmental restoration
projects in the voluntary agreements
framework. “It isn’t an either-or
question,” he says. “To save the Delta’s
ecosystem, we need to systematically
look at how we can better manage wa-
ter supplies, we need to restore more
habitat — and we need to send more
water to and through the Delta.”
To support that last claim, he points
to a 2010 study conducted by the Water
Board itself, which showed that when
considering the health of the fishery in
isolation, without balancing that need
against other “beneficial uses” such as
agriculture, the Delta would require
instream flow be increased by far more
than the Water Board’s 2018 mandate.
American Rivers’ Steve Rothert still
champions the stalled voluntary agree-
ments process. “I had a lot of hope for
the new path that it could create and
the benefits that could come from
working together with more resourc-
es,” he says. “I look forward to inte-
grating the financial resources to fund
science and habitat, and flow measures
to restore conditions.”
He admits nothing will happen
with that process until November at
the soonest, since water contractors in
the southern San Joaquin Valley, with a
powerful ally in the White House, have
no reason to consider compromise. But
he’s certain the conciliatory spirit is
not dead. Meanwhile, restoration ini-
tiatives like the Nigiri Project continue.
Hertel says she sees folks on both
sides talking past each other when
the solution is clearly somewhere in
the middle.
“I think environmentalists have lost
so much that we feel like we’re starting
from almost zero,” she says, “and so
compromising feels like you’re letting go
of the last threads you’ve got to hold on
to. My hope is that we can put down the
labels long enough to try to find solu-
tions together. One thing this COVID-19
crisis has taught me is that a true emer-
gency can bring people together.”
Eric Johnson is a freelance writer for
several Northern California publica-
tions. Before moving to Sacramento in
2017, he held senior editorial roles at
various newsweeklies and magazines in
the Bay Area for 20 years.
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