Discussion at Council Meeting Suggests Message is Starting to be Heard

After months of hard work, it was nice to see some signs of positive movement at last Friday’s meeting of the Delta Stewardship Council.

Council members were engaged and asked the kinds of questions we’ve hoped they would ask for some time. The announcement of several upcoming workshops on important policy topics also is a good sign.

There is still a lot of work to do, however. The fifth draft of the Delta Plan has at its core some troublesome elements that we believe move us away from achieving the co-equal goals of improved water supply reliability and ecosystem health.

ACWA and other members of the Ag-Urban Coalition believe there is still time for council members to redirect this effort and craft a Delta Plan that gets us where we need to go. The seven members of the council have a choice to make, and it is important to California that they make the right one.

In our view, the council should focus on integrating and coordinating efforts across agencies with a role in the Delta to provide a better vision for meeting the co-equal goals. It should not spend its energy trying to dictate local decision making or creating new layers of micromanagement through regulatory mandates.

Representatives of Calaveras County Water District, Tuolumne Utilities District and the Mountain Counties Water Resources Association did an excellent job of sharing their stories and explaining how the draft plan in its current form would cloud local planning efforts and create economic instability.

The fifth draft is vague regarding what levels of supply water agencies might expect in the future, despite the fact that the 2009 legislation calls for “improved water supply reliability for California” as part of the bedrock of the co-equal goals. If the draft plan ultimately seeks to reduce an already-diminished water supply as the cure-all for problems in the Delta, it could severely constrain the ability of some regions – including those upstream of the Delta – to provide the water necessary for economic growth.

As council members were told on Friday, local water managers need certainty to do appropriate local planning. A Delta Plan that creates more uncertainty is the last thing California should be advancing. The local agency representatives urged the council to take another look at the Alternate Delta Plan developed by the coalition.

The workshops tentatively scheduled for September provide an excellent opportunity to further drive home our concerns and daylight some alternative approaches.

ACWA and the Ag-Urban Coalition are ready to continue working with the council to craft a Delta Plan that truly advances the co-equal goals.