Posts Tagged: Delta
Locals want more input to Delta policy planning
The discussions were held in the five counties adjacent to the Delta -- Contra Costa, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano and Yolo. The Community Water Conversations Project aimed to provide community members with an opportunity to discuss and learn about water policy options in the state in a facilitated, non-threatening and positive environment.
The project was launched to provide Delta residents with an opportunity to discuss water issues in-depth and share their knowledge with one another, said Shelley Murdock, UC Cooperative Extension community development advisor and director for Contra Costa County, who organized the project with Carole Paterson, who was UC Cooperative Extension community development advisor for Solano County until her recent retirement.
“Residents told us that many events were held in which experts and policymakers provided their points of view, but they didn’t seem to absorb the public’s perspective,” Murdock said. “We wanted to give the residents a forum in which to be heard.”
Many participants expressed dissatisfaction with the current water allocation process and proposals to resolve water issues.
“The farther away you get from local knowledge the worse the decisions are,” one participant said.
A recurring sentiment expressed in the meetings was that power and money drive decisions about water policy. Another participant said, “Decisions are not made on science, always on politics.”
“The residents showed a high-level of knowledge about the Delta and its ecosystem, but expressed skepticism that policymakers would listen to their views,” said Jodi Cassell, UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor.
“Based on these conversations, we think that water agencies and managers should consider new models for public participation that provide community members with opportunities to share their knowledge, views and values regarding natural resources,” she said. “Through models like the Conversations Program, agencies and communities can exchange information and ideas, creating the potential for more innovative approaches to management.”
Participants said they would like to see more public education about water, including its use, reuse and conservation.
“Education is the key, for personal choices and for public policy,” said a resident. “Too many people are unaware.”
The UC Cooperative Extension team analyzed detailed notes to assess common themes among the suggestions made during the conversations. The researchers plan to share the views with policymakers and other stakeholders to increase their awareness and understanding. To summarize their findings, they produced a short report and a 13-minute video containing some of the comments made at the meetings. They can be viewed at http://ucanr.org/sites/CAH2OConversations. At this website, visitors can comment on the project, report and video.
The 10 water conversations were held in libraries in Martinez, Suisun City, Moraga, Oakley, Elk Grove, Stockton, Walnut Grove and West Sacramento between May and August of 2010 and were attended by 128 area residents. University of California Cooperative Extension cohosted the meetings with non?partisan organizations California Center for the Book, the Water Education Foundation, the California State Library, and California National Issues Forums network.
Analysis says canal could create 129,000 jobs
Supes take stand against aquatic invasives
Kyle Magin, The Union
Nevada County supervisors resolved to support an inspection program for aquatic invasive species, reports Kyle Magin for The (Grass Valley) Union. The article discusses a report by Greg Giusti, UC Cooperative Extension forest and wildlands ecology advisor, which recommends water managers in the state adopt uniform measures regarding boat inspections.
Farmers and fisherman unite to restore delta
Family farmers and fishermen, California Indian tribes and grass roots environmentalists are working together to preserve the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the fish and communities that depend on it for their livelihoods, according to a commentary by Dan Bacher published on Calitics.com.
Calitics is a "progressive online community" that provides individual Californians a platform for discussing state issues and campaigning. Anyone can sign in and contribute to the blog.
Bacher reported on the "Farms & Salmon Summit," held last month in Atwater. During the forum, farmers and fishermen urged political leaders to stop the construction of the peripheral canal, take action to restore salmon, striped bass and other runs, and protect delta and Sacramento Valley agriculture, Bacher wrote. U.S. Representatives in attendence highlighted the importance of keeping the agricultural and fisheries industries healthy.
Ideas and commentary shared at the summit:
- U.S. Rep. John Garamendi said there is a symbiotic relationship between the agricultural community and aquatic interests. "We have to work together to protect the Delta - the solution is not to export more water out of the Delta."
- Rep. Jackier Speier noted that salmon fishing and agriculture are both integral components of the California economy.
- Congressmen Mike Thompson said decisions regarding the Delta and salmon populations should be based on good science. "When science goes out the window, everything goes out the window," Thompson was quoted.
- Vineyard owner Mark Wilson suggested the state start dredging delta river channels. "This would provide material for rebuilding levees, along with restoring the capacity of the delta channels to move water," he was quoted.
- Cathy Hemley from Greene & Hemley Farms in Courtland concluded, "We need to think like a fisherman. We need to think like a farmer. We need to make California sustainable."
Draft delta plan falls short, scientists say
UC Berkeley emeritus professor Henry Vaux Jr. chaired the panel that reviewed the plan, which has been in the works since 2006, has already cost about $150 million and involved hundreds of meetings among state and federal agencies, water districts and environmental and conservation groups.
"Given the time and expenditure of money, people could have reasonably expected to get a plan that was more complete," Vaux was quoted in the story.
AP reporter Gosia Wozniacka wrote that the panel found it unclear whether the main purpose of the plan was simply to build a canal or pipeline, or whether it is a broader plan that would restore and protect the delta ecosystem and provide a stable water supply.
"If you don't know what it is you want to do, it creates a lot of confusion, because the application of science is different depending on what you want to accomplish," Wozniacka quoted Vaux.
Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes said the review provides useful guidance as the plan continues to be developed.
New life for the delta ecosystem
The San Joaquin/Sacramento Delta and Suisun Marsh were once part of a continuous, enormously productive aquatic ecosystem that supported dense populations of fish from Sacramento perch to salmon, huge flocks of wintering waterfowl, and concentrations of mammals from beaver to tule elk. This amazing ecosystem is gone and cannot be brought back.
The once vast marshes have been turned into farmland and cities, protected by a complex system of levees. The patchy remnants of the original ecosystem are disappearing fast, as more and more native plants and animals become extinct or endangered. In their place, hundreds of alien species thrive in the altered conditions—crabs, clams, worms and fish from all over the world.
- We have a choice. We can let the ecosystem continue to slide towards being a mess of alien species that live in unsavory water flowing through unnatural pathways, or we can take charge and create a new ecosystem that contains the elements we want. Those elements include native species and clean water that flows in more natural patterns, creating a better environment for fish and people.
The State Water Resources Control Board recently supported this concept by recommending that much more fresh water flow through the estuary to the ocean to create a sustainable estuarine ecosystem. More water is only part of the recovery picture, however, because the flows must be managed in new ways and flow through restored habitats. The historical ecosystem can be used only as a model for the new system, mainly to identify conditions that favor remnant native species and have other desirable features. But the new ecosystem will be quite different in its locations, its biota, and how it works.
High variability in environmental conditions in both space and time once made the upper San Francisco Estuary highly productive for native biota, so variability is clearly a key concept for our new ecosystem (Moyle, et al. 2010). Achieving a variable, more complex estuary requires policies that create the following conditions:
- Internal Delta flows that create a tidally-mixed, upstream-downstream gradient in water quality, with minimal cross-Delta flows. At times much of the water in the present Delta flows towards the big export pumps in the South Delta. Fish trying to migrate upstream or downstream find this very confusing, often lethally so.
- Slough networks with more natural channel geometry and less diked, rip-rapped channel habitat.
- More tidal marsh habitat, including shallow (1-2 m) sub-tidal areas, in both fresh and brackish zones of the estuary.
- Large expanses of low salinity (1-4 ppt) open water habitat in the Delta.
- A hydrodynamic regime where salinities in the upper estuary range from near-fresh to 8-10 ppt periodically to discourage alien species and favor desirable species.
- Species-specific actions that reduce abundance of non-native species and increase abundance of desirable species, such as active removal of undesirable clams and vegetation.
- Abundant annual floodplain habitat, with additional large areas that flood in less frequent wet years.
- Treating the estuary as one inter-connected ecosystem, recognizing that changes in one part of the system will likely effect the other parts.
These habitat actions collectively provide a realistic, if experimental, approach to improving the ability of the estuary to benefit desirable species. Some of these goals are likely to be achieved without deliberate action as the result of sea level rise, climate change, and failure of unsustainable levees in some parts of the Delta. But in the near term, habitat, flow restoration and export reduction projects can allow creation of a more variable and more productive ecosystem than now exists, while accommodating irreversible changes to the system.
(This post first appeared on the CaliforniaWaterBlog.)
Update: The National Research Council has taken an interest in plans to conserve habitat for endangered and threatened species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while continuing to divert water for agricultural and urban use in Southern California. On May 5, the council declared the draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan incomplete, difficult to understand and still needing much work.
Further Reading:
Moyle, P.B., J.R. Lund, W. Bennett and W. Fleenor (2010), Habitat Variability and Complexity in the Upper San Francisco Estuary, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science 8(3).
Cunningham, L. (2010), A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California, Heyday Books, Berkeley.