Irvine Ranch Water District
http://www.irwd.com/liquid-news/news-releases/archive/the-delta-plan-process-and-overview.html
The Delta Plan Process and Overview
Published Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Contact: Shannon Reed, Public Affairs Manager
reeds@irwd.com, (949) 453-5500
Outcome Important for the IRWD Water Supply Portfolio
By: Steve LaMar, President, Irvine Ranch Water District
Most Orange County residents are not aware that the future of the state is being determined by a handful
of appointees developing a Delta Plan that will determine whether there is an adequate supply of water for California. Depending upon your location in the County, you probably receive a very significant amount of water to your home or business from the State Water Project.
In addition to your daily drinking, bathing, and lawn watering needs, however, the entire California economy, whether for chip manufacturing in the Silicon Valley, agricultural crop irrigation in the Central Valley, or biomedical research in Irvine, is just as dependent upon a reliable water supply for the state's future economic growth and development.
In the 1960's, the state developed the State Water Project (SWP) to collect and move large quantities of water from where it falls in Northern California to where it is needed, particularly in central and southern California. Most of the storage reservoirs, aqueducts, pumps and canals work very well, despite their age, but the voters' defeat of the Peripheral Canal in 1982 has required water to continue being moved exclusively through the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River Delta since.
Moving large quantities of SWP water through - rather than around - the Delta has changed the natural flow of water to the sea. When combined with the impacts of the federal Central Valley Project (CVP), the discharge of wastewater into the rivers, the introduction of invasive clam species, predatory sport fish, agricultural pesticides and urban runoff, the ecological and aquatic health of the Delta has deteriorated significantly over the last 50 years.
In September 2006, former Governor Schwarzenegger created a Delta Vision process to develop a 100-year vision of how to improve both the ecological health of the Delta as the largest estuary on the West Coast while also moving large quantities of freshwater through and around the Delta to meet California's drinking water and economic needs. I had the pleasure of serving as one of the business stakeholders on an advisory committee during that process before joining the board of IRWD.
Following the completion of the "Delta Vision" in 2008, the legislature enacted the Delta Reform Act in 2009 that created a Delta Stewardship Council of 7 appointed members to develop a Delta Plan by January 1, 2012. Their key task is to develop a plan to achieve the "co-equal goals" of Delta ecosystem restoration and improvements in water supply reliability. Though 400 miles from Orange County, the provisions of this Delta Plan will have a direct impact upon the amount of water delivered to your home and business for decades to come.
Developing a comprehensive Delta Plan for the 5-county, 700,000-acre Delta area, that includes a maze of over 1,500 miles of levees, 500,000 residents, family farms, two ports, critical energy infrastructure, the path for freshwater to the State Water Project and Central Valley Project, multiple endangered species, and over 200 local, state, and federal government agencies is an extremely difficult task. Being required by law to adopt an interim plan, the Delta Plan, with an EIR, in just two years is extremely ambitious, but that is what the Delta Reform Act requires.
The 7-person Delta Stewardship Council, chaired by former Assemblyman Phil Isenberg, established a work plan and a schedule to complete the required Delta Plan by the January 1st deadline using the best available information. Separately, SWP and CVP contractors have been working with state and federal fish and wildlife agencies for over 5 years to prepare a Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), a multispecies habitat conservation plan and Natural Communities Conservation Plan (NCCP), that will be completed in 2014.
If approved by the Department of Fish and Game as an NCCP, the Delta Stewardship Council may incorporate the Bay Delta Conservation Plan into the Delta Plan in the future. The BDCP is very important to water users because it will determine the size, location and operation of any new water conveyance facility, most likely two tunnels, from the northern Delta to the pumps at the southern end (40+ miles) at an estimated cost of $13 billion. The BDCP will also require significant habitat restoration (80-100,000 acres), river water flow standards, and pumping operational requirements to balance fish protection with water exports.
The State Water Resources Control Board is responsible for developing instream flow criteria for all of the rivers and streams tributary to the Delta to protect water quality and endangered fish species. The State Water Board also has responsibility for determining and enforcing water rights statewide, and there are significant illegal diversions of water from the Delta. The State Water Board must also improve Delta water quality by controlling pollutant and wastewater discharges into the Delta, particularly ammonia from the Sacramento Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The Delta Stewardship Council released the public review draft Environmental Impact Report on November 4 for public comment. More information and updates about the Delta Plan and the BDCP can be found on their websites. For more information about how developments in the Delta impact the IRWD water supply portfolio, please visit the IRWD website.
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