Environmental Water Caucus Unveils California Water Solutions

Environmental Water Caucus Unveils California Water Solutions

by Dan Bacher

Proponents of the peripheral canal and new dams often complain that critics of these controversial water projects have no "solutions" to California's water and fishery problems.

Well, the Environmental Water Caucus (EWC), a coalition of 27 environmental groups, fishing organizations, environmental justice groups and Native American tribes, has crafted a comprehensive solution to how Californians can restore their fisheries and meet water needs at the same time.

The EWC recently presented a ground-breaking series of proposals to the Delta Stewardship Council, the newly-formed state agency that is charged with finding a balance between water reliability and Bay-Delta environmental recovery.

The caucus provided a series of recommendations on water that included an aggressive statewide water conservation program that can reduce water use by 8 million acre feet annually and the retirement of toxic farmlands that use almost 4 million acre feet of water per year, acccording to a news release from EWC. They paired their recommendations with a reduction of Delta pumping that will help restore the Bay-Delta ecology and fisheries.

"The Caucus recommendations have been boosted by the State Water Resources Control Board’s recent report that concluded that more water must be allowed to flow through the Bay-Delta in order to protect the health and public resources of this critically important watershed," EWC noted.

The recommendations by the Caucus were presented as an alternative to the pending proposals by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). The widely-criticized plan, now being discussed in secret meetings convened by the Schwarzenegger administration, is designed to construct either a tunnel under the Bay-Delta or a peripheral canal around the Delta

BDCP critics fear that the peripheral canal/tunnel, designed to facilitate water exports to corporate agribusiness and southern California, will lead to the extinction of collapsing populations of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other fish. The canal/tunnel would cost an estimated $23 billion to $53.8 billion, according to an analysis last year by economist Steven Kasower.

Bill Jennings, chairman/executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), Jim Crenshaw, president of CSPA, Bret Baker, a Delta pear farmer, biologist and Restore the Delta board member, and I disrupted a secret meeting of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in Sacramento on September 30 to protest the closed process. The 50 participants in the closed door meeting decided to leave rather than to allow the four of us listen to the proceedings (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/10/08/secret-meeting-participants-flee-from-delta-residents-fishermen).

Dr. Mark Rockwell, representing the fishing community for EWC, said, “This BDCP plan will continue the destructive water extractions from the Delta and block any hope of recovery for fisheries and the Delta environment. We have to find a new way to manage water that does not involve reliance on the Delta. The recently published EWC report, California Water Solutions Now, accomplishes this goal.”

For many years, fishermen, Tribes and environmentalists have worked relentlessly to increase the amount of water flowing through the Delta and to San Francisco Bay in order to restore and protect the health of the estuary. Large water contractors south of the Delta, led by Westlands Water District, have fought just as incessantly to increase the amount of water pumped through the Delta in order to irrigate farms and accommodate a growing population.

"It’s a classic California water battle and seems to have no end," said David Nesmith, EWC coordinator. "This battle for water must end if we are to ever achieve a balance between the State’s need for water, and our desire to have a healthy environment and save our fisheries."

“The Environmental Water Caucus has presented this alternative proposal that stresses water use reductions and avoids the multiple billions of dollars that would be needed to construct a major tunnel or canal through the Delta," said Nick Di Croce, long time water advocate and EWC consultant. "It is a non-structural alternative (no surface storage or new Delta conveyance) that can meet the needs of our growing population at least until 2050.”

This report documents numerous analyses of water efficient technologies and approaches that can save or reduce water consumption in urban areas by as much as 5 million acre-feet a year by 2030 compared with current trends – enough water to support population growth of almost 30,000,000 people.

"According to the California Water Plan Update 2009, the state’s population can be expected to increase by 22,000,000 over the next 40 years if current population trends hold," the report's executive summary states. "Clearly, a well-managed future water supply to take us to 2050 is within reach with the current supplies and with an aggressive water conservation program."

Using the Strategic Goals and Recommendations from the Environmental Water Caucus’ report, the Caucus showed in their presentation how the actions called for in the report will save or reduce enough water consumption to allow the Delta exports to be reduced, in keeping with the State Water Board’s report on Delta flows.

“In the same way that California can no longer just continue to build highways to accommodate our population growth, we must find different kinds of technological and societal solutions to protect our most valuable, limited and life-giving resource: water," said Michael Jackson, EWC steering committee member.

The Caucus closed their proposal by challenging the Delta Stewardship Council to analyze their proposal as one of the alternatives to be considered in the future Delta Plan. Additionally, they proposed a council workgroup to further develop the recommendations in the EWC report, and to bring together people from all sides to discuss how this can be implemented.

Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and an EWC member, pointed out the absurdity of claims that building a peripheral canal, as envisioned by BDCP officials, will somehow "save" the Delta.

“The peripheral canal is a big, stupid idea that doesn’t make any sense from a tribal environmental perspective,” stated Franco. “Building a canal to save the Delta is like a doctor inserting an arterial bypass from your shoulder to your hand– it will cause your elbow to die just like taking water out of the Delta through a peripheral canal will cause the Delta to die.”

The EWC report shows how California can meet its water needs and restore its imperiled fish populations without building an environmentally destructive and enormously costly peripheral canal and new dams. You can read the report and find out more about the Environmental Water Caucus at their website: http://ewccalifornia.org.