Will California continue to exploit the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta to the max, or will we pull back and give more to the Delta ecosystem? The Sierra Club is concerned that the proposed Delta Conveyance Project (DCP), and the “Voluntary Agreements” (VA) alternative that reduces water flow requirements, will irreparably harm the Delta ecosystem and Delta communities. Funding for these efforts should be paid by the beneficiaries who receive the water, not from the State’s general fund. And those beneficiaries may balk when the cost of water continues to rise to pay for these projects.
Bay-Delta Plan and Voluntary Agreements
Bay-Delta Plan is short for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary Water Quality Control Plan, and covers the SF Bay-Delta estuary, the tributary rivers that ultimately flow into the estuary, and their associated watersheds. The Bay-Delta Plan identifies: (i) the “beneficial uses” of the Bay-Delta, (ii) “water quality objectives” for the reasonable protection of those beneficial uses, and (iii) a “program of implementation” for achieving the objectives. The Bay-Delta Plan protects water quality in the region and includes water quality objectives to protect fish and wildlife beneficial uses through required inflows to and outflows from the Delta, in addition to objectives or salinity to protect freshwater for agricultural beneficial uses in the Delta region.
The Bay-Delta Plan, when implemented, can determine the amount and timing of water entering and moving through the Delta, thus defining the framework to achieve the “coequal goals” of providing a more reliable water supply and restoring and enhancing the Delta ecosystem. Established in the Delta Reform Act, the coequal goals must be achieved in a manner that “protects and enhances the unique cultural, recreational, natural resource, and agricultural values of the Delta.”
The Voluntary Agreements alternative to the Bay-Delta Plan is basically a way for some Water Districts and Agribusiness interests (“VA Parties”) to continue diverting water that needs to be reallocated to the Delta to save endangered species. Instead, the VA Parties offer to “mitigate the damage” by creating fish habitat along some river and Delta stretches (which they select). Multiple scientific studies have shown that additional flows are needed, so habitat alone is unlikely to result in significant recovery of species.
Moreover, according to material presented at the April 2024 Board Workshop on the proposed voluntary agreements, the VAs will force the State to provide $1.4 billion (through the sale of bonds and General Funds) and allow the Public Water Agencies to “pay” an additional $588 million for the project… which again they will recover by passing the cost on to the water users. And we taxpayers and water users will not have an opportunity to vote on the project.
Delta Conveyance Project or “Delta Tunnel”
Various “peripheral canal” projects have been proposed over the years that seek to circumvent the coequal goals of the Bay-Delta Plan and the newest one, the DCP, is no exception. In brief, the Department of Water Resources (via the State Water Project) is proposing the DCP to allow withdrawal of up to 6,000 cubic feet of water per second from the Sacramento River, pass it down to a 43-mile-long tunnel under the Delta, and dump it into a “holding bay” for pumping south to the Central Valley (mostly for agribusiness) and to the Los Angeles basin. Removing that much fresh water upstream of the Delta will have major detrimental environmental impacts on wildlife, fisheries, and on the health of the Bay-Delta ecosystem in general, in addition to detrimental effects on Native American tribal cultural uses of water, and on agriculture within the Delta region.
In addition to this, the DCP represents an unprecedented and onerously expensive “solution” that again circumvents the voters and sticks ratepayers with the bill. The stated cost of the DCP keeps rising (currently estimated at $20.1 billion, up from $16 Billion in 2020). But this does NOT include financing and interest on bond debt, which has been estimated to drive the final costs up to $30-50 billion. Unfortunately, Governor Newsom and the legislature have not moved to make sure we get a chance to vote on this massive project even though we will ultimately pay for it. Instead, the State Water Project contractors (Water Districts) who receive the water will pay for the project by passing the costs on to water consumers.
It Is Not Looking Good for the Delta – What You Can Do
Environmentally both these plans are a debacle, robbing fish and other aquatic species and the Delta and riparian habits along the tributary rivers of even more fresh water. Withholding so much river water from the Delta will increase salinity in the Delta, lessen the removal of pesticides and toxins, provide less cold-water input and thus increase water temperatures in the Bay, increase the likelihood of harmful algal blooms, and provide less water in the river for salmon migration, spawning and rearing.
This dual debacle is an affront to the idea of “coequal goals” spelled out in the Delta Reform Act and an insult to the voters of California who have been disenfranchised and robbed of any say over the massive debt the Delta Conveyance Project and the Voluntary Agreements will force upon them.
We urge you to contact the Governor, your State Representatives and local Water Districts and demand they drop the DCP and Voluntary Agreement proposals or put them on the ballot to let the voters decide.
Specifically, Valley Water is a State Water Project customer and is participating in the Delta Tunnel project. The Valley Water Board of Directors will receive an update on the DCP at their meeting on June 25, 2024. The agenda will be posted on June 14th. Join the meeting to learn more about the project and tell Valley Water that the project is too expensive and too damaging to the environment.
Interested in joining and working with the Water Committee? All are welcome to participate. If you would like to join our advocacy efforts, contact the committee chair at water*lomaprieta.sierraclub.org or simply show up at our next meeting. We can also add you to your discussion list.
By Steven White and Katja Irvin
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter Water Committee