The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is responsible for management and distribution of water in California, an often contentious endeavor. The department is in charge of planning, designing, constructing and operating the state’s water delivery system of storage facilities, pumping plants, hydroelectric power plants, canals, pipelines and aqueducts known as the State Water Project. DWR, which is in the state Natural Resources Agency, also is responsible for updating the California Water Plan every five years and is the lead state agency in formulating the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
Missions and Goals (DWR website)
California’s battles over water rights date back to the Gold Rush, when miners began diverting natural streams into flumes. After gold became scarce, many of the miners turned to farming, an occupation that also requires diversion of a great deal of water. By the early 20th Century, California’s largest cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, needed water from outside their own area to meet all their residents’ needs. After World War II, these already large cities and their suburbs experienced tremendous growth. It became clear existing water supplies would not meet the needs of the large metropolitan regions that had developed.
In 1919, Lieutenant Robert Marshall of the United States Geological Survey had proposed a statewide water project to transport water from the Sacramento River to the San Joaquin Valley and over the Tehachapi Mountains to Southern California. Plans were drawn up and published in 1931 as the State Water Plan and voters approved a bond issue two years later to fund the north-south project. But by then the country was deep in the depths of the Great Depression and the bonds were unmarketable.
Post-World War II water needs caused the California Legislature to further investigate a statewide water project. It faced vehement opposition from both northern Californians who claimed the water was rightfully theirs and should not be diverted south, and from southern Californians who claimed the project was too expensive and would be futile because it lacked assurances the northerners could not rescind supply agreements. Bay Area waterways, including those in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta, would serve as a transfer point on the proposed statewide water project. Residents of this area wanted assurances their water would be protected for urban and agricultural purposes, and for the preservation of fish and wildlife.
The proposed state water project had strong support from San Joaquin Valley farmers, who mostly had to rely on groundwater that was becoming scarce and costly to pump. Although the federally-funded Central Valley Water Project had brought in some water from outside areas, it limited farmers to 160 acres. Many farms, both then and even more so now, are much larger. J.G. Boswell Company, which is still the country’s largest cotton producer and also a grower of tomatoes and other produce, began farming 200,000 acres in 1921.
The Teamsters, steel workers, construction workers and engineers also supported the proposed state water project as they would benefit financially from the jobs created by it.
Other vocal opponents were the California Labor Federation which claimed the project would benefit farmers and not farmworkers, and the Grange, an organization devoted to preserving small family farms.
The Legislature authorized an investigation of water resources in 1945, to be led by the Division of Water Resources in the Public Works Department. By 1956 the division was promoted to full-blown department status and two years later had produced “The California Water Plan.” A series of legislative initiatives in the late 1950s—including the Davis-Grunsky Act (mostly for the North) and the Delta Protection Act (for the Bay Area)—were designed to alleviate most of the opponents’ concerns, along with the Burns-Porter Act (mostly for the South), which went before the voters in November 1960 as Proposition 1.
The north-south rivalry over water rights continued, and this ballot measure was hotly contested. Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District didn’t endorse the measure until days before the election, and the San Francisco Chronicle strongly opposed the measure. Prop. 1, with 5.8 million votes cast, passed with a margin of 173,944 in favor.
The Legislature passed an emergency appropriations bill in 1957 to deal with the $200 million in damage from severe flooding the year before in northern and central California. This led to construction starting that year on the Oroville Dam on the Feather River, the northernmost end of what soon became the State Water Project. After Prop.1 passed in 1960, construction of water management facilities statewide began.
Phase 1 of the State Water Project was completed in 1973 with construction of the Perris Reservoir. The project had been underfunded with the $1.75 billion provided by Prop. 1.
Phase 1 of the project connected 444 miles of waterways, from Oroville Dam on the Feather River to the north to Perris Reservoir in Riverside County. This portion alone cost the state $1.5 billion.
Much more had been proposed for the State Water Project. Lacking funds, the department decided to scale the project back. It removed plans for elaborate visitor centers, recreational facilities, and reduced the number of pumps that would be needed to pump water out of the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta area to supply the project.
The department also convinced the state legislature to earmark $25 million a year of its Tidelands Oil Fund for the State Water Project. Previously $14 million of this fund had subsidized higher education – the University of California, California State University and community college systems. The department put this money into a construction fund, called the California Water Fund, so that more stages of the project could be completed later.
Although the State Water Project, as it was envisioned in 1960, is still not complete the department has continued progress on it with more careful attention to cost control, such as improvements in its process of requesting project bids, and limits on change orders made to existing projects.
The department also issued more bonds, including some specifically for development of recreational facilities it had cut from Phase 1. It needed to develop recreational facilities on the reservoirs created for the State Water Project because they were attractive bodies of water that would surely have been visited whether they were managed for that purpose or not. The Perris Reservoir, for instance, is now known locally as Perris Lake, visited by more than a million people each year.
The Department of Water Resources worked with the departments of Recreation, and Fish and Game, to build these recreational facilities. It had to keep this funding separate from the State Water Project, because the water project benefited specific people, while the recreational facilities could be used by anyone. However, there was overlap, and to this day, the Department of Water Resources pays state employees to maintain and supervise these recreational facilities.
Since the 1980s, the department has placed increased focus on educating the public about water conservation. In 1987 it opened its Office of Public Information and Communications, now known as the Office of Water Education. It also, since then, has focused more of its efforts on flood control and environmental protection.
The department works more cooperatively with the federal government than it once did. Since 1995, it has shared office space with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the federal Central Valley Water Project built back in the 1930s. Ongoing efforts to improve the system in the Bay Area and Delta region will require improvements to both projects. The department also shares office space with the National Weather Service, which is a partner agency in its flood control efforts.
Construction of the State Water Project has continued throughout the years. One of its major projects, the 100-mile, $530 million coastal branch, was completed in the 1990s, taking water to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. By the end of 2001, the department had spent about $5.2 billion on the project.
Not included in that total is the department’s most recently completed part of the project, Phase 1 of the East Branch Extension. This extension, completed in 2003, takes water from Silverwood Lake through a pipeline to the San Gorgonio Pass area, which includes Yucaipa, Beaumont and several other communities in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The department began construction of a second phase of this extension in 2005 and expects to complete it in 2014. Its major benefactor, the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency, expects Phase 2 to cost $200 million.
One aspect of the State Water Project yet to be built is the Peripheral Canal. It was thought of in the planning phases of the State Water Project, as a way to prevent too much water from flowing through the project in the Bay Area, and from preventing sea water from flowing back into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region. Attempts to finance this have met with a great deal of opposition, primarily from Bay Area and Delta area residents concerned about how it would impact their water quality.
The Peripheral Canal is still kicked around by state water experts from time to time, as many now believe it would make the Delta region’s flood management system less susceptible to earthquake damage, and people are still concerned about the effects saltwater backflow could have on the Delta’s wildlife habitat. In 1982 voters rejected a ballot measure that would have financed construction of the Peripheral Canal and other water project improvements.
Voters approved a $5.4 billion bond measure for improvements in 2006, and a $3.4 billion measure in 2002. A new bond measure seeking $11.1 billion in water project improvements goes to voters on November 6, 2012. These three bond measures address the state’s need for clean and reliable water supplies.
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History of the California State Water Project (DWR website)
Interview with Harvey Banks, First Director, 1956-1961 (Internet Archive)
1985 Interview with William Gianelli, Former Director 1967-1973 (Internet Archive)
Chronological History of the Department’s Work, 1956-2001 (DWR website)
California State Water Project Today (DWR website)
California Water Bond (2012) (Ballotpedia)
The Department of Water Resources manages the State Water Project. This project conveys an average annual 2.4 million acre-feet of water in California through its 17 pumping plants, eight hydroelectric power plants, three pumping-generating plants, 29 dams and reservoirs, and 693 miles of aqueducts and pipelines. About 70% of this water goes to urban uses and about 30% to agricultural.
The department, through its Bay Delta Office, is the lead state agency in preparing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin region. The plan is a joint federal-state project that will be instrumental in shaping the direction, in coming years, of local ecosystem restoration, regional development, environmental protection and statewide water supply.
Other programs within the department focus on preserving the environment, monitoring the safety of the dams it has constructed over the years, managing floods, conserving water and providing funding and other assistance to local agencies for their water needs.
Specific programs besides the State Water Project administered by the department are:.
California Resource Energy Scheduling Division – This division formed in 2001 when California experienced a severe power crisis. It oversees long-term contracts the department formed with private utility companies, such as Pacific Gas and Electric Company and Southern California Edison. These companies purchase power generated by the State Water Project’s hydroelectric facilities.
Division of Engineering – This division advises the department and the state water contractors on issues related to engineering, geology, construction and real estate. These engineers also serve as project managers for ongoing construction activity.
Division of Environmental Services – This division ensures the department complies with state and federal environmental regulations. It also develops strategies to avoid or reduce harm to the environment, develops criteria for building structures to protect fish, and conducts fish and wildlife studies, especially in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta area.
Division of Flood Management – This division works to prevent loss of lives and property damage during severe flooding. It monitors weather and river conditions, issues forecasts, coordinates emergency responses to floods, participates in flood control projects, and inspects dams, levees, and other flood control structures to ensure they are functioning properly. It also operates FloodSAFE, a state program that is working to improve public safety and provide better flood management on the State Water Project and Central Valley Water Project.
FloodSAFE Environmental Stewardship and State Resources Office – This office makes sure solutions FloodSAFE is developing to manage floods don’t damage the environment, by working with design teams to make sure fish and wildlife habitats are included in proposed flood control structures. It also assists local water agencies with their flood control projects. This office also administers grants.
Division of Operations and Maintenance – This division manages and repairs all of the State Water Project’s facilities, including dams, reservoirs, hydro-electric generating plants and buildings. Employees of this division work either in the main office in Sacramento, or in field offices in Oroville, Byron, Gustine, Bakersfield and Pearblossom.
Division of Safety of Dams – This division was created in 1929 when the Department of Water Resources was still itself a division of the Department of Public Works. It works with the owners of all 1,250 dams in California to ensure their safety, inspecting them at least once a year. It inspects dams under construction much more frequently to ensure they are complying with approved plans and specifications, and inspects dams after extreme conditions such as floods or earthquakes. This division also evaluates the designs of new, enlarged or repaired dams to ensure they meet state safety requirements.
Division of Statewide Integrated Water Management – This division develops and oversees flood management programs and develops water management programs. It also publishes the California Water Plan update every five years, with the next one coming in 2013. These updates, based on this division’s research, show California’s current and future water supply needs.
Division of Regional Integrated Water Management – This division helps local water management companies, providing financial assistance and advice in land and water use, recreation planning, mapping, designing and constructing new facilities, managing water distribution and environmental issues. It also collects and distributes data about water management, and administers loan and grant programs to help local agencies get the best use from surface and ground water supplies. Employees work out of offices in Sacramento, Red Bluff, Fresno and Glendale.
State Water Project Analysis Office – This office administers contracts for 29 local agencies who receive water from the State Water Project. The contracted agencies serve about 25 million Californians who depend on the State Water Project for at least some of their water supply. This office decides when water will be delivered to the agencies or transferred from one part of the State Water Project to another.
State Water Project Power and Risk Office – This office is responsible for obtaining reliable, environmentally-friendly and competitively priced services for power and water transmission resources. Power resources include renewable energy projects and natural gas plants. It also monitors greenhouse gas emissions caused by the State Water Project and attempts to reduce these. It also makes sure the project meets the requirements of the Western Energy Coordinating Council and the federal Energy Regulation Commission.
Legislative Affairs Office – The office provides advice to the administration on policy, programs and fiscal implications of water and energy-related legislation.
Division of Fiscal Services – Prepares and analyzes the department’s budget.
Office of the Chief Counsel – Provides legal representation to the department.
Internal Audit Office – Reviews all of the other division’s and offices programs to ensure they are complying with regulations.
Office of Workforce Equality – Ensures that employees and potential employees of the department do not face discrimination.
Office of Water Education – Provides information to the public about the department and general information about water conservation and management.
Public Affairs Office – This office acts as a liaison between the department and the public, and through its Media and Information Services Branch issues news releases and responds to questions.
The Department of Water Resources also provides administrative support to the California Water Commission and the Central Valley Flood Protection Board, but these two entities operate independently from the department. The nine-member commission, which is appointed by the governor, approves regulations regarding water management, advises the department on policy issues, solicits public input on water issues, helps determine the public benefit of new water storage facilities, and seeks federal funds for flood control and water management projects.
The flood protection board oversees flood control projects on the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, which are the two major rivers feeding into the State Water Project, and also on any smaller rivers, streams or other tributaries feeding into these rivers. The board also works with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Department Overview (pdf)
Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP website)
California State Water Project Today (DWR website)
The Department of Water Resources primarily gets money from bond measures, and from selling water and power from the State Water Project to 29 public water contractors and three private utility companies. It also receives money from the Tidelands Oil Fund, investment earnings, funds advanced by the contractors, recreation facility fees and federal flood control allocations.
Around 57% of its nearly $3.5 billion budget in 2011-12 was spent on California Energy Resources Scheduling, a program that purchased electric power on behalf of the state’s investor-owned utilities during the energy crisis of 2001-2002. Billions of dollars of energy purchases were made to try to insulate the state from savage and corrupt market manipulation by private corporations. The program also administers $8.3 billion in revenue bonds issued to repay the state General Fund for loans during the energy crisis.
The energy repayments were double the department’s second largest expense, a billion dollars for implementation of the State Water Project. The project provides water to 25 million Californians and 755,000 acres of irrigated farmland through 30 dams and reservoirs, 22 pumping plants, five hydroelectric power plants, and more than 660 miles of canals and pipelines
About $317.1 million was earmarked for public safety and damage prevention, primarily through flood control. Work on the 5-year California Water Plan was expected to cost about $126 million.
Funding Topics (DWR website)
3-Year Budget (pdf)
The Energy Crisis
Assembly Bill 1890 seemed like a good idea at the time. Riding the wave of market deregulation sweeping across the nation, California set up a deregulated energy market system in 1996.
From May 2000 to June 2001, the market went haywire. Electricity prices spiked and remained triple previous levels and America learned about a company called Enron. Governor Gray Davis declared a state of emergency on January 17, 2001, and amid rolling state blackouts directed the Department of Water Resources to begin emergency power purchases. One of the state’s largest utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, filed for bankruptcy.
The department created the California Energy Resources Scheduling Division (
Subsequent confirmation of market manipulation led to lawsuits and federal complaints that eventually resulted in many of the contracts being renegotiated with more favorable terms for the state.
In May 2009, Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to recover $1.9 billion from various power marketers who used “undue market power” to apply “unjust and unreasonable rates” in their sales to
DWR Keeps Power Flowing During Unprecedented Energy Crisis (DWR 50th Anniversary publication) (pdf)
The California Energy Crisis 2000-2001: Update on Post-Crisis Developments (Little Hoover Commission) (pdf)
Gov. Davis and the Failure of Power (by Arianna Huffington, Salon)
California Wants Billions of Dollars, FERC Says “Sorry, but No.” (The Green Mien)
Western Energy Crisis Chronology (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)
The Wrong Approach
The Pacific Institute—a nonprofit research and policy analysis institute that focuses on issues where environment, development and security intersect—thinks the DWR’s 5-year California Water Plan due out in 2013 is bound to be short-sighted because of a common assumption that water use will continue to increase. In a report entitled California Water 2030: An Efficient Future, a “high-efficiency” scenario is presented that argues a 20% decline in statewide water use, even with a growing population, is feasible.
Rather than focus on how the state could build new dams, a giant peripheral canal and bigger reservoirs, and reshape the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta it lays out a path to reduced urban and agricultural consumption. “We believe that this efficient future is achievable, with no new inventions or serious hardships,” the report says.
The report recommends phasing out subsidies for the Central Valley Project, avoid “inappropriate” subsidies for new water-supply options and generally implement rate structures that encourage less water use and truly reflect the costs of services. It recommends a host of measures, including rebates for water-efficient appliances, deployment of more efficient irrigation technologies, new water-efficient standards for appliances, educational programs on water use and better protection of watersheds.
California Water 2030: An Efficient Future (Peter H. Gleick, Heather Cooley and David Groves, Pacific Institute) (pdf)
The Delta
No issue in California touches so many people so deeply and directly.
It is the critical link in the state’s water supply system; more than 25 million people drink water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The state’s largest industry, agriculture, counts on it for irrigation. Hundreds of plant and animal species call the fragile ecosystem home. And dozens of state and federal agencies, environmental groups, agricultural interests, developers, area residents and commercial interests vie for advantage there.
The DWR’s deep involvement in the region puts it in the middle of a multitude of disputes, one of which involves the officially endangered Delta smelt. Efforts to protect the species, which is seen as an indicator of the ecosystem’s health, have come in direct conflict with plans to construct a peripheral canal in the region to divert water from the Sacramento River for shipment south. A May 2007 decision by DWR Director Lester Snow to reverse his department’s protective stance on the fish set off a storm of comment.
“It's almost certainly political, because in fact it's not credible in terms of the science,” said Tina Swanson, executive director of the Bay Institute. “This is part of a larger dance.” That dance refers to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a long-term solution being cobbled together by a tentative alliance of water users, environmentalists and state agencies that may, or may not, be laying the groundwork for a Peripheral Canal.
Just a few months later, an August 2007 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California gave broad protection to the smelt by sharply cutting back water pumping in the Delta. Subsequent court rulings have adjusted pumping restrictions depending on to some extent on the graces of Mother Nature.
When Snow ended his six-year tenure as department director in 2010, his departure was celebrated by some in the Delta. “Lester Snow’s removal from the Natural Resources Agency gives me hope that Jerry Brown will work on Delta issues with an open-minded attitude,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director for Restore the Delta. “I am hoping that Snow’s termination is a sign that Delta fisheries and Delta communities will be given equal weight in the discussion of California water policies.”
Many in the Delta region, including fishing groups, Indian tribes and environmentalists, believe the department is pursuing solutions to the state’s perennial water shortage (i.e. a Peripheral Canal) to the detriment of the Delta ecology. Environmental writer Dan Bacher described Snow as having “presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, young striped bass, threadfin shad and other Delta fish species. Under his leadership, the state exported record amounts of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta from 2004 to 2006.”
Calif. Water Agency Changes Course on Delta Smelt (by Colin Sullivan, New York Times)
Brown Will Appoint New Natural Resources Secretary to Replace Lester Snow (by Dan Bacher, Alternet)
Settlement on Pumping Delta Water Reached (by Ching Lee, AgAlert)
Hetch Hetchy
Famed naturalist John Muir said of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park: “No holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.” But that was before the city of San Francisco won congressional approval in 1913 to dam the Tuolemne River and flood it for use as a reservoir and source of drinking water.
The fierce debate that accompanied the decision did not end with completion of the O’Shaughnessy Dam in 1923. But it wasn’t until 1987, following Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel’s proposal for restoration of the valley, that plans began to be readied in earnest. A U.S. Bureau of Reclamation report the following year offered encouragement for the project, but 20 years of studies and reports ensued with no action taken.
Although most of the studies generated by Hodel’s proposal concluded that Hetch Hetchy was more valuable as a water resource than a restored valley, the assessment changed as the dam aged. Later reports from Environmental Defense Fund and Restore Hetch Hetchy, as well as a Pulitzer Prize-winning series by The Sacramento Bee, produced compelling arguments for restoration.
In 2006, the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Parks and Recreation produced an exhaustive study of Hetch Hetchy that included the effects of dam removal, water and power replacement options, ecosystem restoration, costs and economic benefits. It was determined early on that restoration could not be accomplished by California state government acting alone. Cooperation would be needed from the federal government, Native American tribes, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the public for starters.
Cost estimates for the restoration varied widely, from the nonprofit Restore Hetch Hetchy’s $1.1 billion to the state’s $9.8 billion pricetag.
The restoration is opposed by Democratic House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dianne Feinstein, both of San Francisco, who fear that the city’s water supply would be jeopardized. After the 2006 state report was released, Feinstein said, “Draining the reservoir would be far too expensive and leave the state vulnerable to both drought and blackouts.”
The issue resurfaced in December 2011 when Republican U.S. Representative Dan Lungren of California asked the Interior Department to determine if San Francisco was tapping Tuolumne River water before exhausting local resources first. Lungren said it was a first step toward restoring the valley.
Feinstein was not happy. “Hetch Hetchy provides critical water supplies to 2.5 million people and thousands of businesses, and any effort to jeopardize that water supply is simply unacceptable,” the former mayor of San Francisco said.
Restore Hetch Hechy Executive Director Mike Marshall welcomed Lungren’s initiative, sarcastically noting “the Tuolumne River remains San Francisco's primary source of pristine Sierra Nevada water for hosing down sidewalks, tap water and flushing toilets.”
Hetch Hetchy History (Sierra Club)
Hetch Hetchy Restoration Study (Department of Water Resources) (pdf)
Can, And Should, The Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park Be Restored? (by Kurt Repanshek, National Parks Traveller)
New Polling Indicates Cost Factor ‘Critical’ To Passage Of Hetch Hetchy Initiative (by Dan Alielo, California Progress Report)
Lungren, Feinstein Spar over Hetch Hetchy Valley Restoration (by Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times)
California Water Plan
The department is required to produce a California Water Plan update every five years and the next one is due out in 2013. It is a strategic plan that guides state investments in infrastructure by presenting assessments of California’s water-dependent natural resources and evaluations of management strategies to reduce water demand, increase water supply, reduce flood risk, improve water quality and enhance environmental conditions.
Preliminary indications are that the plan will include greater emphasis on financial planning for executing the strategic plan. Reports from hydrologic regions will include a stronger linking of land use and water management, and the department will produce for the first time a companion piece before 2013 documenting the progress of the plan.
A new Tribal Advisory Committee with representatives from 34 tribes, bands and rancherias will participate in the process and a new Federal Agency Network will be tapped. A draft assumptions and estimates report will be issued in April 2012, a progress report is due in December 2012, a public review draft is due in February 2013 and a final report is due in December 2013.
California Water Plan Update 2013 (Department of Water Resources) (pdf)
California Water Plan (DWR Website)
Bay Delta Conservation Plan
It is a testimonial to the importance of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water to the state of California that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan and the Peripheral Canal could arguably be considered the most important issues facing a dozen state agencies, including the Natural Resources Agency, Department of Fish and Game, Delta Conservancy, Delta Protection Commission, Delta Stewardship Council, San Joaquin River Conservancy, SF Bay Conservation and Development Commission, Wildlife Conservation Board and, of course, the Department of Water Resources.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is the latest in a series of mostly failed attempts to come up with a comprehensive plan for the Delta that addresses the environmental needs of the region while providing reliable water supplies for the state.
The Department of Water Resources is the lead state agency in the joint federal-state endeavor. How’s it going?
Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP website)
Highlights of the BDCP (Natural Resources Agency) (pdf)
It’s a Disaster
In May 2011, the National Research Council took a look at progress on the plan and was horrified. The authors wrote: “The draft B.D.C.P. [plan] is little more than a list of ecosystem restoration tactics and scientific efforts with no clear overarching strategy to tie them together or to implement them coherently” to minimize harm and maximize restoration.”
The council specifically took to task the lack of leadership: “No one public agency, stakeholder group of individual has been made accountable for the coherence, thoroughness and effectiveness of the final product.”
Critics of the process warn that the plan is simply cover for decisions already reached by powerful interests to build a Peripheral Canal around the Delta for shuttling Sacramento River water more easily to the south. Even among some supporters of the canal is the fear that saving the heavily damaged Delta ecosystem is being given short shrift by the planners.
Their fears were fanned in October 2011 when the Department of Water Resources hired the assistant general manager of the state water contractors to help shape the plan. There have been complaints throughout the long process that the public was being excluded and that documents were not being made readily available. In November, 11 members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation protesting a Memorandum of Understanding between state and federal agencies and selected water export contractors that seemed to give the contractors special early access to drafts of the document and direct control over the consultants who are writing it.
The letter further protested an “outrageous” attempt to dress up the construction of a Peripheral Canal as a Habitat Conservation Plan. It listed a series of environmental laws that the memo of understanding ignored and demanded that it be withdrawn.
In a separate letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior, five members of Congress from Northern California complained that water contractors had been given “unprecedented influence over the process.” It was only after the complaints that the Department of Water Resources agreed to take public comment on the memorandum.
California Congressman Jerry McNerney, an opponent of the Peripheral Canal, complained the next month that the “entire process has been conducted in secrecy and without the Delta region represented. . . . Much more must be done to level the playing field and ensure that the needs of the Delta communities are respected.”
Bay Delta Conservation Plan Has Major Flaws (Environmental Defense Fund)
Congressional Letter to the Bureau of Reclamation (pdf)
Can a Water Plan Work Without an Environmental Goal? (by Felicity Barringer, New York Times)
A Review of the Use of Science and Adaptive Management in California's Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (National Research Council)
California's Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan Needs Better Integration to Be More Scientifically Credible, Report Finds (Science Daily)
Local Politicians Criticize Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (by Ross Farrow, Lodi News-Sentinel)
Water Suppliers' Delta Accord Under Scrutiny (by Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle)
It’s a Long Process and Progress Is Being Made
The goal for completing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan environmental review process is the end of 2012. This is a marathon, with a multitude of participants considering myriad issues. There are literally decades of experience to draw on, as well as thousands of reports to review.
The BDCP is committed to balancing water supplies and ecosystem restoration as co-equal planning goals. There is nothing ambiguous about that. The early planning documents clearly state that the plan is being developed in compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), the California Endangered Species Act (CESA), and the California Natural Community Conservation Planning Act (NCCPA) and will be subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
There have already been 122 steering committee meetings open to the public, and 300 public meetings, workshops, and briefings with more to come. Steering committee documents, maps and other informative materials are available to the public. The BDCP is dealing with implementing changes over a 50-year horizon; changes that will be subject to environmental review every step of the way.
The Delta Independent Science Board of nationally and internationally prominent scientists is providing oversight, through periodic reviews, of the ongoing scientific research, monitoring and assessment programs.
The Delta is the largest source of drinking water in California and a key element of agricultural irrigation. Science and the Delta environment have changed dramatically since the Peripheral Canal was first rejected by voters in 1982 and its time for a reasoned review of all options available to the state. The BDCP offers that opportunity and the state can hardly afford to get caught up in internecine wars between obstinate parties.
Recipe For A Solid Bay Delta Conservation Plan (by Kate Poole, Natural Resources Defense Council staff blog)
Bay Delta Conservation Plan (State Water Contractors)
Report on California Bay Delta Conservation Plan Welcomed (Western Farm Press)
Peripheral Canal Debate Returns (by Peter Gleick, San Francisco Chronicle)
A Tale of Two Peripheral Canals. Or is it Three? (by Barry Nelson, Natural Resources Defense Council staff blog)
Secretary of Natural Resources Laird Praises Independent Science Review of Bay Delta Plan (BDCP website)
SAIC Leads California's Bay Delta Conservation Plan (SAIC website)
Lester A. Snow, 2004 -2010
Linda S. Adams, 2003-2004
Michael J. Speer, 2003 (Interim)
Thomas M. Hannigan, 1999-2003
David N. Kennedy, 1983-1999
Howard Eastin, 1983 (Interim)
Ronald B. Robie, 1975-1982
John R. Terrink, 1973-1975
William R. Gianelli, 1967-1973
William E. Warne, 1961-1966
Harvey Oren Banks, 1956-1961
List of DWR Directors (Wikipedia)
- Table of Contents
- Overview
- History
- What it Does
- Where Does the Money Go
- Controversies
- Suggested Reforms
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