“We’re seeing much more state-led activity on the Delta than we’ve seen in decades,” began Felicia Marcus, Chair of the State Water Board, as she opened the plenary session on the second day. “It really is heartwarming to see the leadership happening at the state level through two governors, and to see the legislature and the agencies engaging.”
The coming year looks to be a critical one for the Delta, with the first Delta Plan starting its implementation phase, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) in the final stages of development, and the update to the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan underway, not to mention numerous other smaller programs in various stages of progress. How all of these plans and the people who implement them will mesh brought state agency leaders together with conference attendees for the panel discussion.
The impetus behind this attention to the Delta began with the landmark 2009 Delta Reform Act, which made the coequal goals of restoring the Delta’s ecosystem and providing a reliable water supply overarching state policy. The Act also specified that achieving the coequal goals must be done in a manner that respects the Delta as an evolving place. In order to facilitate coordination across the numerous state and local entities with responsibilities in the Delta, the Act established the Delta Stewardship Council, charging it with developing a long-term management plan for the Delta and its resources. The Council’s first Delta Plan went into effect in September 2013.
Chris Knopp, Executive Officer of the Delta Stewardship Council, explained that the purpose of the Council and the Delta Plan is twofold: to integrate the actions and plans of multiple agencies, and to create a new form of governance that not only facilitates this integration, but also establishes an adaptive structure for science, and creates a new form of accountability by establishing performance measures related to interagency accomplishments. A committee is being convened that will bring together the leaders of local, state and federal agencies to coordinate implementation of the Plan’s 14 regulatory policies and 73 recommendations. “Balance is going to be an absolutely essential item of coordination among these plans,” said Chris Knopp. In order to break the current deadlock on Delta management, he said, participants must place the coequal goals above their own individual interests and trust that achieving a balance will result in the outcomes everyone desires. “Stakeholders need to remember that balance is the objective,” Knopp said. “But in the end, action is the requirement.”
Chuck Bonham, Director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, followed by saying while the number of individual plans and proceedings underway in the Delta is astounding, it’s not as much about the quantity of effort underway but more about how to manage through the thicket of programs. “Relationships matter,” he emphasized. “At the end of the day, my relationship with Felicia or Mark or Chris or Mr. Machado and how we want to solve problems may be more important than our individual turf or actual proceedings.”
Mark Cowin, Director of the Department of Water Resources, agreed with Bonham’s remarks, adding, “The big question is, how are these plans all going to fit together? At the end of the day, these plans aren’t going to fit together because of perfectly crafted legislative guidance or our sparkling personalities, but because we’re going to be motivated to make them work together for a common good.” Cowin said that one of the biggest signs of hope for changing course in the Delta is the Collaborative Science and Adaptive Management Program (CSAMP). CSAMP aims to stem the tide of litigation by establishing a collaborative approach towards water project operation decisions in the Delta. Carrying this collaboration forward to the BDCP is the next step and the ultimate integration of our efforts, he noted.
The BDCP is the Brown administration’s 50-year plan to secure state water supplies exported from the Delta. To get there, the plan proposes building new conveyance facilities to route water from the north Delta to the existing facilities in the south, while also restoring or protecting over 100,000 acres of habitat for native species. The core strategy of the BDCP is to recover populations of endangered species by both reducing reverse flows that under the current south Delta pumping regime harm salmon, and creating habitat for fish. At that point, the rules that control project operations could be stabilized, “providing a sustainable, foundational amount of water supply for those two-thirds of Californians that depend upon Delta water deliveries,” Cowin said. “It’s pretty simple in concept but very difficult to craft the plan.”
Cowin cautioned, however, that the BDCP won’t solve all of California’s water problems by itself. Rather, it has to be part of a strategy known as Integrated Regional Water Management, which brings together local and regional agencies and organizations to develop projects that increase regional water supplies. Over the past ten years, DWR has provided $1.4 billion in grants to seed such projects. These funds have leveraged another $3.7 billion in local investments, resulting in hundreds of local projects that have reduced demand or added an estimated 2 million acre-feet per year to available supplies through recycling, actively managing groundwater as an underground reservoir, capturing storm water, and other means. “I really do believe this evolution towards Integrated Water Management is one of the most significant advancements in California water policy over the last couple of decades,” Cowin said.
By contrast, Mike Machado, immediate past executive director of the Delta Protection Commission, was highly skeptical of the Delta Reform Act and the BDCP. The Commission is charged with protecting the Delta’s overall environment, including its agriculture, habitat, and recreational values, and has gone on the record as being opposed to the BDCP. Often lost in the pursuit of the coequal goals, Machado says, are the objectives specified in the language of the Act. The objectives include protecting and enhancing the unique cultural, recreation, and agricultural values of the Delta as an evolving place, and restoring the ecosystem, including its fisheries and wildlife, as the heart of a healthy estuary. Furthermore, the safeguards established in the water code that were meant to protect areas of origin and the Delta have not always been met. The diversion of water through an isolated facility in the north Delta, Machado argued, is contrary to the concept of the “common pool” as described in the water code.
“[Where does all the] mistrust and opposition to the plan being set forth to fix the Delta [come from]? It is the failed promises of exporting water surplus to the needs of the Delta watershed from a common pool. It is the threats to the area of origin. It is hysteria over levee failure and the potential abandonment of Delta levees with an isolated facility. It is the loss of 100,000 acres of farmland for habitat, the loss of legacy farms and the effects on the Delta and its communities from the disruption of habitat from over ten years of construction of the tunnels,” Machado said.
Moderator Marcus followed with an explanation of how the State Water Board fits into the process. The Delta Reform Act details specific tasks for the board, including setting flow criteria for the Delta and updating the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan. The update to the water quality control plan will hopefully be completed by 2016, although the subsequent plan of implementation is an adjudicatory process that could take years, Marcus said. The State Water Board has been actively following the development of the BDCP and engaging in reviews of the draft documents. The Delta Reform Act also mandated that construction on the BDCP cannot begin until the Board approves adding the additional point of diversion. This water rights permit process also will require an adjudicatory, evidentiary hearing, Marcus said, a task involving a “cast of thousands.” The State Water Board is also participating in the Delta Stewardship Council interagency committee charged with implementing the Delta Plan. In addition to all of this, the governor’s office is working on a statewide California Water Action Plan that will define the administration’s priorities over the next five years. All of this adds up to more coordination and collaboration on the Delta than ever before. “What I’m fond of saying is that it’s about belts, suspenders, and flying monkeys—whatever it takes to get the job done,” she said.
During the question and answer period, panelists were asked how climate change factors into their plans. “Climate change is the big game changer,” replied Cowin. “It drives home the point that the status quo can’t be depended upon.” Knopp agreed, pointing out that significant environmental shifts are already apparent. “If we’re not looking at this in a more holistic way, I think it’s going to be very difficult to achieve a realistic balance.”
Machado pointed out that our water system is predicated on what we thought the world was like when we built the infrastructure, but that we’re going to have to adapt to a new reality. “We have a limited amount of water molecules available in this state. So what we have to do is define what molecules are available, and then determine how you live within it, not create a greater demand, and with that demand, demand more water to meet it.”
“We’re scared to death at our department” of the shifts to come with climate change, responded Fish and Wildlife’s Bonham. “What I’d ask everybody to do is take a deep breath and force yourself to rethink anything and everything you’re ever thought about the Delta. Understand that we need to stop arguing about who it matters to the most and understand it matters to all of us.”
Bay Delta Conservation Plan
Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan
Delta Plan
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
Nothing could be stranger than sitting in the dark with thousands of suits and heels, watching a parade of promises to decarbonize from companies and countries large and small, reeling from the beauties of big screen rainforests and indigenous necklaces, and getting all choked up.
It was day two of the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco when I felt it.
At first I wondered if I was simply starstruck. Most of us labor away trying to fix one small corner of the planet or another without seeing the likes of Harrison Ford, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Jerry Brown – or the ministers or mayors of dozens of cities and countries – in person, on stage and at times angry enough to spit. And between these luminaries a steady stream of CEOs, corporate sustainability officers, and pension fund managers promising percentages of renewables and profits in their portfolios dedicated to the climate cause by 2020-2050.
I tried to give every speaker my full attention: the young man of Vuntut Gwichin heritage from the edge of the Yukon’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge who pleaded with us not to enter his sacred lands with our drills and dependencies; all the women – swathed in bright patterns and head-scarfs – who kept punching their hearts. “My uncle in Uganda would take 129 years to emit the same amount of carbon as an American would in one year,” said Oxfam’s Winnie Byanyima.
“Our janitors are shutting off the lights you leave on,” said Aida Cardenas, speaking about the frontline workers she trains, mostly immigrants, who are excited to be part of climate change solutions in their new country.
The men on the stage, strutting about in feathers and pinstripes, spoke of hopes and dreams, money and power. “The notion that you can either do good or do well is a myth we have to collectively bust,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy whose state is investing heavily in offshore wind farms.
“Climate change isn’t just about risks, it’s about opportunities,” said Blackrock sustainable investment manager Brian Deese.
But it wasn’t all these fine speeches that started the butterflies. Halfway through the second day of testimonials, it was a slight white-haired woman wrapped in an azure pashmina that pricked my tears. One minute she was on the silver screen with Alec Baldwin and the next she taking a seat on stage. She talked about trees. How trees can solve 30% of our carbon reduction problem. How we have to stop whacking them back in the Amazon and start planting them everywhere else. I couldn’t help thinking of Dr. Seuss and his truffala trees. Jane Goodall, over 80, is as fierce as my Lorax. Or my daughter’s Avatar.
Analyzing my take home feeling from the event I realized it wasn’t the usual fear – killer storms, tidal waves, no food for my kids to eat on a half-baked planet – nor a newfound sense of hope – I’ve always thought nature will get along just fine without us. What I felt was relief. People were actually doing something. Doing a lot. And there was so much more we could do.
As we all pumped fists in the dark, as the presentations went on and on and on because so many people and businesses and countries wanted to STEP UP, I realized how swayed I had let myself be by the doomsday news mill.
“We must be like the river, “ said a boy from Bangladesh named Risalat Khan, who had noticed our Sierra watersheds from the plane. “We must cut through the mountain of obstacles. Let’s be the river!”
Or as Harrison Ford less poetically put it: “Let’s turn off our phones and roll up our sleeves and kick this monster’s ass.”
by Isaac Pearlman
Since California’s last state-led climate change assessment in 2012, the Golden State has experienced a litany of natural disasters. This includes four years of severe drought from 2012 to 2016, an almost non-existent Sierra Nevada snowpack in 2014-2015 costing $2.1 billion in economic losses, widespread Bay Area flooding from winter 2017 storms, and extremely large and damaging wildfires culminating with this year’s Mendocino Complex fire achieving the dubious distinction of the largest in state history. California’s most recent climate assessment, released August 27th, predicts that for the state and the Bay Area, we can expect even more in the future.
The California state government first began assessing climate impacts formally in 2006, due to an executive order by Governor Schwarzenegger. California’s latest iteration and its fourth overall, includes a dizzying array of 44 technical reports; three topical studies on climate justice, tribal and indigenous communities, and the coast and ocean; as well as nine region-specific analyses.
The results are alarming for our state’s future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.
For the first time, California’s latest assessment dives into climate consequences on a regional level. Academics representing nine California regions spearheaded research and summarized the best available science on the variable heat, rain, flooding and extreme event consequences for their areas. For example, the highest local rate of sea level rise in the state is at the rapidly subsiding Humboldt Bay. In San Diego county, the most biodiverse in all of California, preserving its many fragile and endangered species is an urgent priority. Francesca Hopkins from UC Riverside found that the highest rate of childhood asthma in the state isn’t an urban smog-filled city but in the Imperial Valley, where toxic dust from Salton Sea disaster chokes communities – and will only become worse as higher temperatures and less water due to climate change dry and brittle the area.
According to the Bay Area Regional Report, since 1950 the Bay Area has already increased in temperature by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit and local sea level is eight inches higher than it was one hundred years ago. Future climate will render the Bay Area less suitable for our evergreen redwood and fir forests, and more favorable for tolerant chaparral shrub land. The region’s seven million people and $750 billion economy (almost one-third of California’s total) is predicted to be increasingly beset by more “boom and bust” irregular wet and very dry years, punctuated by increasingly intense and damaging storms.
Unsurprisingly, according to the report the Bay Area’s intensifying housing and equity problems have a multiplier affect with climate change. As Bay Area housing spreads further north, south, and inland the result is higher transportation and energy needs for those with the fewest resources available to afford them; and acute disparity in climate vulnerability across Bay Area communities and populations.
“All Californians will likely endure more illness and be at greater risk of early death because of climate change,” bluntly states the statewide summary brochure for California’s climate assessment. “[However] vulnerable populations that already experience the greatest adverse health impacts will be disproportionately affected.”
“We’re much better at being reactive to a disaster than planning ahead,” said UC Berkeley professor and contributing author David Ackerly at a California Adaptation Forum panel in Sacramento on August 27th. “And it is vulnerable communities that suffer from those disasters. How much human suffering has to happen before it triggers the next round of activity?”
The assessment’s data is publicly available online at “Cal-adapt,” where Californians can explore projected impacts for their neighborhoods, towns, and regions.