The Delta Conservancy is the primary state agency overseeing  habitat restoration, ecosystem protection and economic well-being for the 740,000-acre Sacramento-San Joaquin estuary. The conservancy’s 13-member board works to protect and preserve agriculture, increase opportunities for tourism and recreation, and fortify the Delta against natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. The conservancy, which is in the state Natural Resources Agency, also strives to improve water quality; the Delta provides drinking water for  25 million users statewide. It works in conjunction with the Delta Stewardship Council (whose main function is creation and maintenance of the Delta Plan) and the Delta Protection Commission (which facilitates program development and legislative initiatives). The conservancy is new (2010) and once it and its fellow Delta agencies have established their plans for the future, it is expected to direct the acquisitions of land in the Delta for preservation and restoration of habitat.

2011 Interim Strategic Plan (Delta Conservancy website) (pdf)

Delta Conservancy Wants Input on Habitat, History (by Matt Weiser, Sacramento Bee)

Senate Bill No. 1 (pdf)

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is recognized as an ecological treasure and one of California’s most valuable resources within its water system. It is the largest estuary on the U.S. Pacific Coast and is one of the only inverted river deltas in the world. The Delta is a unique confluence of the state’s two largest rivers: The Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River, which flow into an inland delta. It houses over 750 species of mammals, fish, birds and plants, serves as a recreation and tourist destination, and adds billions of dollars to California’s economy. It is also supplies water to two-thirds of California’s households and millions of acres of farmland in the southern Central Valley.

Development within the Delta region started in the 1850s, when the Swamp and Overflow Land Act transferred ownership of properties from the federal government to California. The Board of Swamp and Overflowed Land Commissioners was created in 1861 and it led reclamation efforts by selling the land to private entities and using the proceeds toward reclaiming the swampland. Most of the land was in private hands by 1871 and developers, primarily using Chinese labor, began to build levees in an attempt to protect the Delta from tides and overflow. Initially the levees worked, but then faltered under the Delta’s peat soils. 

In addition to levee failures, the Delta began to experience other problems, such as water shortages and the degradation of marine life. The compression of land from the Delta “islands” began to have an indirect affect on water flow, the population of aquatic animals and water reliability. The presence of these islands also raised the water’s salinity. Increased land compression leaves many levee systems in the area prone to failure during an earthquake or flood; which, in turn, would disrupt California’s water supply for months or even years.

Water supply operations have reversed the natural flow of the rivers streaming out of the Delta. As a result, certain species of fish, such as the Delta smelt and striped bass, are on the verge of extinction.

Climate change is yet another factor that complicates efforts to protect the Delta, and according to The Nature Conservancy, “Sea-level rise is pushing more saltwater into the Delta and adding pressure to its fragile levees.” 

In order to shield the Delta from the potential risks of urbanization to agriculture, wildlife habitat, and recreation, the Delta Protection Act was signed into law by Governor Pete Wilson in 1992. Under the Act, primary and secondary zones were designated within the Delta.  It also mandated the newly appointed Delta Protection Commission to create the Land Use and Resource Management Plan specifically for the region within the Delta’s Primary Zone, which was of significant concern. Under the plan, the commission conducts background studies in areas such as agriculture and environment; it then reports its findings and offers recommendations and policies.  

But by the turn of the century it was apparent that the Delta was continuing to deteriorate as competing interests—agricultural, commercial, urban drinking water, developers—vied for advantage.  

After years of discussion, a package of new legislation was passed in 2009 that laid out a clear path of governance and the dual responsibility of providing a more reliable water supply while protecting, restoring and enhancing the Delta ecosystem. The law took effect in 2010 and established the Delta Conservancy, the Delta Stewardship Council and a reconstituted Delta Protection Commission within the Natural Resources Agency.

The conservancy is required by statute to adopt a comprehensive strategic plan within two years of hiring its executive officer. The plan must be consistent with the Delta Plan being drawn up by the Delta Stewardship Council, the Delta Protection Commission’s Resource Management Plan, the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan, the Suisun Marsh Preservation Act of 1977 and the Habitat Management, Preservation, and Restoration Plan for the Suisun Marsh. Some of the plans aren’t expected to be ready until 2012.

Meanwhile, an Interim Strategic Plan was completed February 3, 2011, and Campbell Ingram was named the first executive officer one month later. The interim plan lays out the conservancy’s vision and mission and outlines the programs and activities needed to achieve its purpose.

Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy Overview (Department of Water Resources) (pdf)

Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (Wikipedia)

Delta Subsidence in California (Geology.com)

California Legislature Passes New Delta and Water Policy Legislation (Somach Simmons & Dunn)

Delta Protection Commission (DPC website)

Experts Call for Major Reforms in California Waste Management (UC Davis)

Verging on a Solution to California’s Water Woes (The Nature Conservancy)

The Delta: A Water Source for Most Californians (The Nature Conservancy)

Simitian Delta/Water Bill Approved by Legislature, Goes to Governor for Signature (State Senator Joe Simitian press release)

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy, operating within the Natural Resources Agency, has been named the primary state agency responsible for ecosystem restoration. But its mission is two-fold: to offer environmental protection and help further the economy of the Delta region and Suisun Marsh.   

The Delta Conservancy is also responsible for habitat restoration and agriculture in the region. It is charged with creating strongholds to protect the Delta from natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods.  It partners with local agencies to create habitat conservation plans respective to troubled areas and helps implement protection and safe harbor agreements under the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the California Endangered Species Act for land owners and public entities.   

The conservancy is governed by a 13-member board elected to represent local, state and federal economic and environmental interests in the Delta region. The board was given the directive of putting forth a strategic plan to document its interaction with various local, state and regional agencies, projects and programs funded to address the needs of the region, and its own efforts to protect the Delta. In February 2011, the conservancy board unveiled its proposal, through the Interim Strategic Plan (ISP), to establish: its vision for the conservancy and mission given by Governor Jerry Brown; an assessment of its budget process, funding, and programs; guiding principles; and long-term goals for an effective organization. 

As part of the ISP, the conservancy set up workshops that provide residents, business owners and community leaders the opportunity to be involved in the process of creating a balanced program to support ecosystem restoration and economic stability in the Delta region. 

One of the stipulations of the ISP is to create a strategy in line with the Delta Plan of 2012 adopted by the Delta Stewardship Council, an independent state agency. The Delta Plan would propose new projects, such as new reservoirs, treatments plants and recreation facilities to agencies like the Delta Conservancy, in order to attain a common goal.  

The conservancy offers free grant proposal development training to create funding opportunities for Delta projects through its partnerships. The projects lend themselves to the work the conservancy does and facilitates a market for tourism and environmental education.    

Much like the Delta Protection Commission and the Delta Stewardship Council, the conservancy’s role was redefined by the 2009 Delta Reform Act. Each agency has a specific and interrelated mission: The Delta Protection Commission is called on to create balance and order in the conservation and development of Delta land resources and the Delta Stewardship Council is tasked with implementing a long-term Delta plan that guarantees reliable water supply and  ecosystem restoration goals. Each agency shares vital information and policies and programs, so that their work does not overlap; functioning in collaboration with local governments.

As a future strategy, the conservancy looks to implement adaptive management: relying on new information, while evaluating and revising the old. How successful the agency is in carrying out its goals is subject to the amount of funding it is able to secure.  Over the next three years, it will be forced to utilize the resources it currently has available. The conservancy is looking to the Safe, Clean, Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012, a ballot proposition, as a potential source of revenue, once the bill is passed. 

The conservancy receives money for most of its $1.5 million budget from the state General Fund. Its expenditures are almost evenly split between personnel costs and operating expenses. The conservancy was created in 2010 and is still developing its coordinated plans for the future with other Delta agencies. Those plans are to include establishment of a long-term funding base for the purchase of Delta land for preservation and restoration of habitat that would include grants, special funds and bond funding.

The Safe, Clean, Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012 is scheduled to be on the November 6, 2012, ballot and would authorize the state to borrow $11.1 billion for various purposes, including $2.25 billion for projects that “support delta sustainability options.”

3-Year Budget (pdf)

Summary of LAO Findings and Recommendations on the 2010-11 Budget (Legislative Analyst’s Office)

Peripheral Canal

Voters soundly rejected the idea of facilitating water shipments to Southern and Central California via a canal that skirts the Delta in 1982, turning the peripheral canal into the third rail of California politics. But the idea didn’t die and is the subtext to all discussions of grand plans for the Delta.

State Senator Lois Wolk, an original co-author of the 2009 legislation that created the Delta Conservancy, walked away from her own bill when she perceived that amendments were going to make it a “tool for water exporters.” Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said of the water legislation: “As expected, the five bills comprise a road map to a peripheral canal.” The California Progress Report referred to the bills as “poorly-conceived, fast-tracked peripheral canal legislation.” 

The canal, itself, could conceivably take different forms. Some envision an underground pipeline. Others, a thousand-foot wide unlined canal, or a massive tunnel under the western delta. Its supporters claim it would be a safeguard against catastrophic levee failure cutting off water to the south, and actually benefit the ecology by redirecting  Sacramento River water away from the Delta.

Delta preservationists fear that the estuary is at a tipping point now and that the focus should be on restoration. Adding a peripheral canal to the policy mix complicates an already desperate situation, compromises environmental solutions and could very well worse conditions. Enhancing the shipment of water south won’t benefit anyone, they say, if the source of that water is destroyed. 

The Delta Debate: Resurrecting the Canal (by Matt Weiser, Sacramento Bee)

Environmental Water Caucus Unveils California Water Solutions (by Dan Bacher, California Progress Report)

Tell the Delta Stewardship Council That They Must Protect Funding for Delta Levee Maintenance In The Delta Plan! (Restore the Delta)

Peripheral Canal Is Best Strategy for Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Waters, Report Says (by Tami Abdollah, Los Angeles Times)

Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Public Policy Institute of California) (pdf)

A Tale of Two Peripheral Canals. Or Is it Three? (by Barry Nelson, Natural Resources Defense Council blog)

A Road Map to the Peripheral Canal (by Dan Bacher, California Progress Report)

Assembly Bill 157 is the Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012 , an $11.1 billion wide-ranging water bond that would provide funding for the Delta Conservancy. It is scheduled to be on the November 6, 2012, ballot.

Assembly Bill 550 is proposed legislation that would prohibit construction of a peripheral canal in the Delta until certain conditions were met, including a feasibility study by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Assembly Bill 576 would require the Delta Stewardship Council to develop a long-term strategy by January 1, 2013, to fund the Delta Plan.

Assembly Bill 903 would require the State Water Resources Control Board to provide priority review of Delta dredging permits.

Senate Bill 34, the California Water Resources Investment Act of 2011, proposes that funds received through regional investment accounts finance water-related projects.

Senate Bill 52, based on the principle that cleaning up the Delta is of statewide benefit, would allocate $50 million from existing bond funds to provide financial assistance to the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District. The money would be used for capital improvements to the regional sewage treatment plant.

House Resolution 486 is federal legislation that establishes the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area and puts the Delta Protection Commission in charge of overseeing it. The commission would be required to submit a proposed management plan for the area to the Secretary of the Interior for approval.

Review of Legislation (Delta Conservancy website) (pdf)

What to Do With the Delta

The Delta is an ever-changing landscape, politically and geographically. It is also an area in crisis.

It has gone from being an untamed 19^th century marshland teeming with wildlife and a thriving ecosystem to a beleaguered manmade labyrinth of canals, islands and levees. And its development over the years has engendered titanic struggles between competing interests.

Environmentalists struggle to keep the vast estuary from turning into a salty, inhospitable cauldron of polluted waterways incapable of supporting a functioning ecosystem while worrying about the future effects of climate change on rising sea levels. Other local residents strive to take advantage of its recreational and commercial uses. Public safety officials worry that aged levees and other infrastructure could crumble in an earthquake. Agricultural interests covet its water, as do the two-thirds of Californians who drink from it.

The Delta Conservancy is the lead agency in yet another attempt by the state of California to forge a comprehensive plan for dealing with the region. It is the heir to a long line of failed institutions that have tried to craft a solution where perhaps none exists. 

So, how is it going this time?

We’re Getting There

Optimists point to a busy political agenda the past few years that has produced a new political infrastructure, identified priorities, set funding mechanisms in motion and brought people together in common purpose.

The federal-state Bay Delta Conservation Plan, although still a work in progress, is laying the groundwork for a water conveyance strategy. The new (2009) Delta Stewardship Council is busily crafting the Delta Plan that will incorporate the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in providing a balanced, comprehensive solution with performance goals and metrics. The reconstituted Delta Protection Commission is generating reports and studies on what it will take to preserve and restore the Delta. And the newly-created Delta Conservancy has selected its first executive director, launched interim strategic plan and is establishing itself as the lead agency for executing The Delta Plan.

The Legislature produced major water legislation—the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009—that created and enhanced the programs described above and a ballot proposition raising $11.1 billion for water projects has been approved for placement on the November 6, 2012, ballot. The legislation set mandatory urban water conservation targets, required agricultural targets be set and made it state policy to reduce reliance on Delta water exports. It also required the state to identify the level of freshwater flows necessary to maintain wildlife resources in good condition.

Democratic Senator Joe Simitian, author of the 2009 reform act, sees it as a “win-win” for those dependant upon the current water system, and for locals that want reassurance that the major portion of their water will remain in the Delta. “If we do nothing, there’s a two out of three chance the Delta will collapse in the next 50 years,” Simitian said. “That’s 24 million Californians without water, and $40 billion in economic consequences.  The Delta is California’s Katrina waiting to happen. With this legislation, we are taking significant steps to prevent that from taking place.”

In addition, a handful of water bills are making their way through the Legislature that would facilitate the dual aims of environmental protection and water conveyance.

Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown have made timely, effective leadership appointments, federal and state coordination continues, and state entities like the Natural Resources Agency, Department of Fish and Game, Department of Water Resources, California Water Commission and State Water Resources Control Board have all been engaged in the process.

Simitian Delta Protection and Water Supply Bill Signed by Governor (State Senator Joe Simitian website)

Delta Plan Lacks Specifics but Sets Foundation for New Water Policy (by Mike Taugher, Contra Costa Times)

Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act (The Bay Institute)

Delta Fail

The Delta Vision Foundation, founded by former members of Governor Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, puts out a regular report card on how the state is progressing in its Delta efforts. Their 2011 grades are the kind a student would hide from inquiring parents.

The foundation gave decent marks for effort, intent and camaraderie among the various state government entities. Lots of B+’s and B’s for establishing “good foundations,” initiating “substantive efforts” and executing “strong leadership.” It gave kudos for federal and stakeholder cooperation.

But when it came to grading the status of the two essentials—the Delta ecosystem and water supply reliability—it failed the state. “The Delta ecosystem remains at critical risk of failure,” the report said, and “few significant actions have improved the long-term reliability of water supplies from the Delta.” On a scale of 1-6, with 6 being “extreme,” the state was given a grade of 5 on its two co-equal goals.

The state got a B+ for Governance, a C- for Ecosystem Restoration and Recovery, a C- for Delta Vitality and Security and a D+ for Water Supply Reliability.

A number of critics think the state is heading in the wrong direction. They view the federal-state Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) as a roadmap for building a destructive peripheral canal and the 2012 ballot proposition as its $11.1 billion funding mechanism.  

Critics point to a September 2011 memorandum of agreement to the BDCP that the U.S. Department of Interior signed off on as an example of how southern water interests are dominating the Delta conversation. The agreement was made among several water agencies and contractors, not Northern California water interests and Delta property interests. Area state Senator Lois Wolk called it “very worrisome.” Wolk had been an original sponsor of the bill that created the Delta Conservancy in 2009, but withdrew her authorship when she perceived that amendments to the legislation turned it into “a tool to assist water exporters who are primarily responsible for the Delta’s decline.”

The peripheral canal, a plan shot down in 1982 by voters that would have diverted water around the Delta to ship it south for agricultural interests and thirsty Californians, is still the third-rail of state politics and poised to become the same stumbling block to meaningful steps toward Delta restoration. 

Work is only now beginning on assessing new threats of rising sea levels from global warming; the state’s dire financial situation has not noticeably improved; political divisions still paralyze state government; and no consensus exists over how to balance competing water conveyance and restoration interests.

The state is one major earthquake away from disaster in the Delta but seems poised to muck it up even without Mother Nature’s assistance.

2011 Delta Vision Report Card (The Delta Vision Foundation) (pdf)

A Road Map to the Peripheral Canal (by Dan Bacher, California Progress Report)

Local Politicians Criticize Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (by Ross Farrow, Lodi News-Sentinel)

California’s Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan Incomplete; Needs Better Integration to be More Scientifically Credible (The National Research Council)

Sacramento River Delta Water System Plan Pits Farmer Against Farmer (by Gosia Wozniaka, Huffington Post)

Viewpoints: New Delta Plan Is Not a Responsible Solution (by Folsom Mayor Andy Morin and Pauline Roccucci, Sacramento Bee)

Wolk Withdraws Authorship of Delta Conservancy Bill (State Senator Lois Wolk website)