By Chris Gilbert
The San Francisco Bay Delta and its tributaries are in severe decline. Salmon and other fish counts have plummeted; the commercial and recreational fishing industries are on the brink of collapse, with direct impacts on San Francisco-based businesses and jobs; farmland is becoming degraded due to excess salinity; and water quality for drinking water systems that depend on the Delta is suffering.
To address this ecological crisis, the State Water Resources Control Board developed a plan to restore the San Francisco Bay Delta — the largest freshwater estuary on the Pacific coast of the Americas. The plan, developed through a decade of research and extensive public outreach, would increase fresh water flows through the Lower San Joaquin River and its tributaries, including the Tuolumne River, from which San Francisco gets its water.
Shockingly, San Francisco's water agency has sided with the Trump administration to oppose the Bay-Delta restoration plan — even though the science is clear that we can protect water supplies for San Francisco and revive our waterways.
After years of work by dozens of environmental, fishing, labor and other groups, including the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors finally weighed in on the State Water Board’s Bay-Delta Plan to require increased freshwater flows. On October 30th, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, with co-sponsors Mandelman, Kim, and Brown, put forward a resolution in support of the Bay-Delta Plan. In consultation with the SFPUC, the resolution was amended to allow the agency to negotiate with the State Water Board over the City’s water allocations. The supervisors then approved the resolution unanimously.
But the celebration didn’t last long, as Mayor London Breed was quick to veto the resolution, saying she “wouldn’t support a state river restoration plan that would mean giving up some of the city’s pristine Hetch Hetchy water” and that “the SFPUC should not be handicapped by environmental concerns,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. It could be possible to override the veto, but it would require eight of the eleven supervisors.
The State, for its part, has again delayed its decision on whether to adopt the Bay Delta Plan — this time postponing a vote to December 12th. In a letter to Water Board chairwoman Felicia Marcus, Governor Brown and Governor-elect Newsom asked the Board to postpone their decision, originally scheduled for November 7th, so that voluntary negotiations can progress. They wrote, “A short extension will allow these negotiations to progress and could result in a faster, less contentious and more durable outcome [...] During this time, we pledge to actively and meaningfully engage to bring this vital matter to a successful closure.”
It is very concerning that one of the five members of the Board, who is thought to be sympathetic to backing the Bay-Delta Plan, left the Board mid-November. Who will replace him will undoubtedly affect the final decision.
Meanwhile, several moves by the federal government with regard to the Bay-Delta Plan have caused particular concern within the environmental community. These include President Trump’s original campaign promise to Central Valley agricultural interests to “solve all your water problems,” and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s more recent meetings with San Joaquin legislators where he was asked to step in to make sure that California agriculture gets the California water it requests, unimpeded by California’s own environmental laws.
Unfortunately, Trump and Zinke have now made good on their intentions to solve agriculture’s perceived water problems with an order to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to rescind its flow recommendations and instead embrace Central Valley water agencies’ misguided proposal based on non-peer-reviewed “science” commissioned by the water agencies themselves. No matter that the USFWS’s own scientists had determined that increased flows were called for to satisfy the Bay Delta Plan “co-equal” priorities of water for both the environment, and cities and farms. Politics trumps science again.
What You Can Do:
If you live in SF: Please send Mayor Breed an email at MayorLondonBreed@sfgov.org expressing your disappointment in her veto of the resolution in support of the Bay-Delta Plan. Contact your Supervisor and ask them to override Mayor Breed’s veto.
Chris Gilbert is co-chair of the Bay Chapter's Water Committee
Photo: Delta Smelt in hand. (USFWS/Peter Johnsen)