| More than 200 organizations, representing an astonishing cross-section of the environmental, fishing, tribal and environmental justice communities, have taken aim at the Delta Stewardship Council's draft Delta Plan, according to Bill Jennings, Chairman/Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA). You can find the letter by the groups on CSPA's website at http://www.calsport.org.
"In order to recover the health of the Bay-Delta ecosystems and its fisheries, scientifically developed criteria that would allow increased flows through the Delta must be established," according to the groups. "Water exports from the Delta must be decreased and current federal and state water contract levels must be reduced in keeping with a safe, healthy, and reliable supply."
"It's become clear that the Delta Plan is little more than CalFed in another costume and CalFed's 'getting better together' has been reconstituted as the 'co-equal goals,'" said Jennings. "The Council simply can't bring itself to define the 'co-equal goals' or acknowledge that, in an over-appropriated watershed where protection of public trust resources requires more water, someone will have to make do with less water. Consequently, the state is addressing its water crisis and the collapse of the Bay/Delta ecosystem in the same manner it addresses its budget crisis; though smoke and mirrors."
The letter was issued as the Brown and Obama administrations are fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal to export more Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta water to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies. The canal's construction would lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other imperiled species.
The letter's release is also underscored by the setting of two disturbing "records" on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as the water year ended on September 30.
First, 9 million Sacramento splittail were "salvaged" at the state and federal Delta pumps near Tracy in 2011. The previous record salvage number for the splittail, a native minnow found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, was 5.5 million in 2006 (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/09/09/over-11-million-fish-salvaged-in-delta-death-pumps-since-january-1).
Second, the water projects pumped a record 6.5 million acre-feet of water from the Delta in 2011, according to government data compiled by Spreck Rosecrans at Environmental Defense. The previous record was 6.3 million acre-feet in 2005.
I applaud the 200-plus conservation, environmental justice, tribal, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations for coming together to challenge the plan!
"It is seriously deficient; it does little more than maintain the status quo; it will not achieve the "co-equal" goals of the enabling legislation; and it will cost the state billions of dollars more than we need to spend; and it does nothing to balance public trust values - one of the foundations of state water management policy," the groups summed up.
The complete press release is below. The letter can be found at http://www.calsport.org or http://www.ewccalifornia.org. "I would urge you read pages 7-11 of the letter, as we're prepared to go to war over the failure to address or balance the public trust," emphasized Jennings.
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, September 30, 2011
HISTORIC RECOMMENDATIONS PRESENTED TO THE DELTA STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL
The Delta Plan, recently produced by the Delta Stewardship Council, will affect virtually every citizen and every part of our state, and it will largely shape the water landscape of California for decades to come. It will guide the path to restoring one of the world's great estuaries or write its obituary. It will determine the future abundance of our fisheries and the quality of our waters from the Sierra to the Sea and from the Oregon to the Mexican borders.
An astonishing array of more than 200 environmental, environmental justice, tribal, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations has responded to the Plan: It is seriously deficient; it does little more than maintain the status quo; it will not achieve the "co-equal" goals of the enabling legislation; and it will cost the state billions of dollars more than we need to spend; and it does nothing to balance public trust values - one of the foundations of state water management policy.
This massive coalition of grassroots organizations has responded in a formal letter to the Delta Stewardship Council with these and other recommendations, which are included in the Environmental Water Caucus' ground-breaking report: California Water Solutions Now.
· In order to recover the health of the Bay-Delta ecosystems and its fisheries, scientifically developed criteria that would allow increased flows through the Delta must be established. Water exports from the Delta must be decreased and current federal and state water contract levels must be reduced in keeping with a safe, healthy, and reliable supply.
· In order to compensate for reduced exports from the Delta, the state must sponsor a long-term, aggressive water efficiency program state wide that would apply to both urban and agricultural users. The favorable economics of water efficiencies and water recycling have been proven and would be billions of dollars less expensive for the state than constructing major new conveyance facilities through the Delta or major new storage dams.
· In order to further reduce the export pressures on the Delta, thousands of acres of impaired and pollution-generating farmlands south of the Delta must be retired from irrigation and turned into more sustainable and profitable uses, such as solar energy generation.
· Delta levees must be improved beyond the current US Army Corps of Engineer standards in order to address potential earthquake and future sea level rise concerns. The reinforcement of core levees beyond current standards is estimated to cost $1 to $2 billion and is orders-of-magnitude less expensive that major conveyance projects that are currently being contemplated by state and federal planners.
· The Delta ecosystems and wildlife cannot be restored without major reductions of pollutants that are currently being poured into the Delta or without a significant program of habitat improvements for the Delta.
The coalition's Comments Letter on the Fifth Draft of the Delta Plan, which includes the names of the 200 plus supporters and their logos as well as the full set of recommendations, can be viewed at the Environmental Water Caucus web site: http://www.ewccalifornia.org.
Contacts:
· Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta, Barbara [at] restorethedelta.org, 209 479-2053
· Jonas Minton, Planning and Conservation League, jminton [at] pcl.org (916) 719-4049
· Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Deltakeep [at] me.com, 209-464-5067
· Dr. Mark Rockwell, Endangered Species Coalition, Federation of Fly Fishers, mrockwell [at] stopextinction.org, 530 432-0100
· Debbie Davis, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Debbie [at] ejcw.org, 916 743-4406
· Tom Stokely, California Water Impact Network, tstokely [at] att.net, 530-524-0315
· David Nesmith, Environmental Water Caucus, ewc [at] davidnesmith.com, 510-893-1330
· Nick Di Croce, Lead Author: California Water Solutions Now, troutnk [at] aol.com |
