COLUSA, CA (MPG) – Every year or so, the state’s strategy to improve conditions for declining fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta rears its ugly head – pitting farmers, rural government agencies, and water districts against environmentalists and the California State Water Resources Control Board.
The State Water Board’s proposal in the Bay-Delta Plan for 55% unimpaired flow of water into the Delta, could redirect significant amounts of much needed water away from the Sacramento River Basin into the Delta and then put out to the ocean without any benefit, County officials said.
The Colusa County Board of Supervisors, on Jan. 16, authorized an urgency letter be sent to Governor Gavin Newsome urging the State Water Board to identify the “Agreements to Support Health Rivers and Landscapes” as an alternative in the state approach to recover healthy fish populations without cutting water supplies and causing economic harm to rural communities.
The letter was like what the board issued in 2017 on the same plan, stating the potential impacts to Colusa County would be devastating to “both the economy and the environment.”
“It would adversely affect the availability of critical water for cities and rural communities (many of which are disadvantaged), farms, wildlife refuges, fishers, and recreation,” the letter, signed by Board Chairman Gary Evans, states. “We support a healthy Delta, but the unimpaired flow approach proposed by the State Water Board will redirect impacts upstream into the Sacramento River Basis and will likely fail to achieve its goal of protecting Delta water quality.”
The Board of Supervisors said that if the unimpaired flow approach is adopted by the state, the impacts experienced during dry years, such as in 2022, will be repeated.
“For context, the acres of crops planted which rely on annual water allocations went from 204,463 in 2021 to 56,061 acres in 2022,” Evans stated. “Most notably, the harvested rice acres went from 152,880 to 19,753.”
Evans said the board found it not only curious but disturbing that the Sites Reservoir has been touted as a priority project in Newsom administration’s 2020 water resilience portfolio, but that the evacuation of critical water from storage and the curtailment of water diversion throughout the region will significantly affect precious water supply for all purposes.
“This is particularly true in dry years like we have seen this decade, where water available in storage is critical to helping Californians get through these challenging times,” the letter states. “In other words, we will go backward under the State Water Board approach – not forward – in our efforts in developing more resilient water infrastructure to prepare for the next drought in California.”
Supervisors also believe that less surface water availability will lead to significant additional groundwater pumping, which will make the region’s collective efforts to achieve groundwater sustainability more difficult, if not impossible.
The board has asked the state to abandon the “unimpaired flow” approach and pursue an integrated approach of voluntary agreements, a comprehensive, multi-year solution that brings together water agencies with the state and federal governments to pool resources and take concrete actions to provide targeted river flows and expand habitat in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and Bay Delta.
“We believe that this 21st century approach to water management will better serve the Sacramento River Basis and, more effectively, protect Delta water quality,” the letter states.
As the California Department of Water Resources works to update the Bay-Delta plan, several lawsuits challenging the state’s unimpaired flows plan for the San Joaquin River tributaries (Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced rivers) remain pending in Sacramento County Superior Court.