State Board Outlines Schedule for Next Phase of Bay-Delta Plan Review

State Water Resources Control Board staff provided an update Feb. 21 on the next phase of a process to determine whether new Delta outflow and inflow requirements should be adopted as part of a review of a 2006 water quality control plan for the Bay-Delta.

During an informational item on the review and its implementation, Board staff outlined a schedule that calls for a scoping meeting on May 16 and a workshop in June.

Representatives of state and federal water contractors submitted a letter urging the State Board to coordinate its review with ongoing parallel efforts to improve the Delta, including the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan. The letter also recommended a schedule with a series of workshops and hearings to allow detailed presentations on the latest science and enable stakeholders to provide information on the impacts that some proposed approaches would have on other beneficial uses of water.

The letter notes that a coalition of water and power agencies has developed information showing that flow objectives, if patterned after “flow criteria” developed by State Board staff in 2010, could severely affect salmon populations and significantly reduce hydropower generation.

“Balancing of these considerations needs to be brought into the administrative record through a public process. The workshops / hearings serve that need well,” the letter said. The workshops and hearings also “can act as a forum to bring the most current science and analyses, such as that which is being relied upon in the BDCP process, before the State Board.”

As part of its review, the State Board has indicated it will consider issues highlighted in a 2009 staff report on the 2006 plan as well as information from a 2010 staff report that identified new flow criteria to protect aquatic resources in the Delta. The flow criteria, developed in response to comprehensive water legislation enacted in 2009, did not consider impacts on water supply or other beneficial uses and did not attempt to balance public trust resource protection with other public interest needs for water.

A notice issued by the State Board in 2009 indicated the review could be completed in four stages and would include both a review and update of water quality objectives, including flow objectives, and changes to water rights and water quality regulations to implement new objectives.