On March 20
th, a public meeting to review the first four chapters of the preliminary draft of the
Bay Delta Conservation Plan
took place in West Sacramento. It was the first chance for the public
to ask questions about the newly released documents, and with an
estimated 150 people in attendance, there were many.
Jerry Meral, Deputy Resources Secretary for the California Natural
Resources Agency, sat nearly alone at the head table, with only ICF
International
senior ecologist Dr. David Earle at his side. In front of him, a room filled to capacity with mostly Delta residents and advocates. A tough crowd indeed.
Jerry Meral began by stating that the material released is not for
official public comment; a formal public comment period will come in the
summer when the final draft Plan and environmental documents are
released. However, he’s more than happy to hear input from the public
today. Mr. Meral suggested those reviewing the documents to look for
the major issues where they think the Plan is wrong or look for things
might have been missed. Comments can be sent to the email address at
the website; however, official responses will not be prepared for the
comments received at this point, but all comments received will be read
and considered as they continue to refine the document before it is
released to for formal public review this summer, he said.
The
purpose of the meeting today is to review chapters one through four, to
hear comments and to answer questions. Chapters 5 through 7 are
scheduled to be released on March 27
th, with the next public meeting to follow on April 4
th. The remaining chapters will be released at the end of April.
Jerry Meral was joined at the table by
Dr. Chris Earle,
senior ecologist for ICF International, the lead contractor on the
project. Meral outlined the procedures for today’s meeting. The
presentation has been broken up into five segments with a public comment
and question period following each segment. And with that, the first
presentation began.
PRESENTATION FOR CHAPTER 1
Dr. Earle said that there have been significant changes since the
first administrative draft, and that he will highlight the those changes
in his presentation as well as give a general overview. It’s going to
be a rather high-level overview because the plan is quite lengthy, he
said: “
We made the mistake of printing out all the chapters a
couple weeks ago, and it was 2 feet thick. That did not include the
appendices, which adds another 4500 pages.”
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan Area
“
Chapter 1 presents the BDCP as a comprehensive conservation
strategy for the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta that is intended to
establish compliance with both the endangered species act and the
Natural Communities Conservation Planning Act, which are respectively
federal and state laws. It amounts to a very thick and complex permit
application that establishes compliance with those laws. As such, it
creates a HCP and an NCCP,” he said.
The permit applicants include the California Department of Water
Resources, the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, and a variety of state and
federal water contractors. The plan covers about 750,000 acres, and
includes the statutory Delta, Suisun Marsh and the Yolo Bypass. The
plan only covers activities that occur within this area, with most
activities not being subject to the jurisdiction of the plan, he said.
“
The plan has been designed to restore and protect ecosystem health, water supply, and water quality,” said Dr. Earle. “
The
unification of those concepts, of ecosystem health and water supply and
water quality are critical. One of the principal focuses of the plan
is the restoration of aquatic ecosystems within the Bay Delta area,
although it also covers a wide variety of terrestrial natural
communities as well.”
The plan is intended to create a stable regulatory framework and is
expected to result in long term permits and authorizations under the
state and federal endangered species acts, NCCPA. The Plan only focuses
on the operations of the State Water Project and the Central Valley
Project; other activities that also use water are not covered.
Chapter 1 also describes the 57 covered species; three have been
dropped since last year as it was determined two of them were extremely
uncommon in the plan area and the plan would have a very minor impact on
them, and the third turned out to have abundant populations outside of
the plan area.
The permit term for the plan is 50 years. There are also six other
large plans that are going on either within the Delta or in neighboring
areas that are intended for the management of sensitive species and
their habitat, and collaboration with those plans will be necessary in
order to produce regionally significant contribution to the conservation
of these species.
- Read Chapter 1 of the preliminary draft of the BDCP by clicking here.
- For a BDCP Overview and Fact Sheet, click here.
————-
Question: Does the BDCP plan to take money for habitat restoration
for non-appropriated monies which lie dormant with the DWR from the
passage of previous water bonds?
Jerry Meral answers: “
I would say no, unless it was specifically
authorized to be used for this purpose. I am not aware of a lot of
money left over in those bonds that can be used. It wouldn’t be illegal
to do that, but I am not aware of any plans to do that,” he said,
noting that conceivably if there were funds left over that were
authorized for exactly the same use, it would be legal to do, but it
would be up to the agency assigned those funds, and the legislature may
have to appropriate them as well.
Question: Isn’t it true that bundling things like habitat
restoration with the tunnels skews or stacks the deck in favor of the
tunnels? Why don’t you include those things with all the reasonable
alternatives and not add those to create a more favorable picture for
the tunnels? As Professor Jeff Michaels pointed out, those things have
nothing to do with the tunnels.
Jerry Meral answers: “
This is a habitat conservation plan. If
we want to go through section 10 of the endangered species act or the
NCCPA under state law, then we have to have a plan that covers all the
species that are affected in our plan area by our project. The
alternative you are suggesting, in a sense, is why don’t you propose to
do the tunnels under section 7 which is what’s been happening all these
years. That could be done, but the environmental benefits of doing that
would be a lot less than completing a whole plan. It’s an option … we
hope that the benefits that come out of the section 10 process, the
Habitat Conservation Plan process, will be larger than if you just did
the tunnels and associated mitigation,” he said, noting that it will
ultimately be up to public to decide whether the extra process and
expense has been worth it.”
Question: What are you planning to do about selenium? It’s on the
valley floors, it’s on our farmland. My question is, when we have
11,500 cfs reverse flow in our Delta, when our salt water starts coming
up, how are you guys going to stop it?
Jerry Meral answers: “
The selenium question is going to be
addressed in the EIR/EIS scheduled for release this summer. Nothing in
the plan area generates selenium but it does come into the Delta. We
will have to address that. … We are not prepared to go into that
today, but we will. That will be at topic of discussion, and will be in
the EIR/EIS because it’s an environmental impact of something we’re
doing.”
Question: The second purpose of the plan is “to create a single
regulatory framework.” Is the plan itself going to do that, or are there
certain parts of the plan that will do that? What are the parts
outside of the plan that would tend to destabilize the regulatory
framework?
Dr. David Earle replied that the plan itself will receive
authorizations that establish consistency with CESA, NCCPA, and NEPA and
that by doing so, the principle avenues of contention with water
exports in the Delta will be addressed. “
For instance, in
particular the biological opinions for the operating criteria that
govern the withdrawals that occur at the SWP and CVP pumps in the south
Delta have been a point of great contention since nearly the 21st
century, and those issues would be resolved by this plan. And then
they would be resolved with a durable solution that involves the
collaboration of the permit applicants with the fish and wildlife
agencies over the next 50 years. And so that’s a relatively stable
regulatory environment compared to what we’ve been operating under.”
Jerry Meral added that there are other agencies with permitting
processes that the project will need to go through in order to proceed,
such as the Army Corps of Engineers, the State Water Resources Control
Board, and some other regulatory agencies. “
We hope not only that
we have some stability in the area of endangered species management
which we need, but also in terms of our state and federal permits for
diverting water and our operating permits for the Corps of Engineers.
There are other regulatory frameworks we hope this will help.”
Question: Will the Delta Plan being scheduled to be finalized this
summer, is the BDCP expected to be incorporated into the Delta Plan?
Jerry Meral replied yes, noting that per the Delta Reform Act, if the
BDCP is approved as an NCCP, it could be appealed to the Delta
Stewardship Council. “
They would have to make a decision as to
whether it passes muster as an NCCPA, and if so, then it would be
incorporated into the Delta Plan. So the Delta Plan, in a sense, has a
hole that will have to be filled by the approval of the BDCP, but that
would come subsequent to the work we’re doing here today and for the
next many months.”
Question: Regarding water quality … one of the concerns of a number
of people in the Delta is that the project is going to degrade water
quality. Can you be more specific about which water quality is going to
improve? What about water quality in the south Delta?
Jerry Meral replied that the EIR/EIS will discuss water quality in
detail as well as mitigations, noting that it’s a major topic that they
have been working with the agencies in the Delta to address the
concerns.
Anne Spaulding, City of Antioch: “In the background on page 1-1, the
plan says it provides substantial benefits including improving
reliability of water supplies and improving Delta water quality. So at
this stage, Antioch and others are concerned about degraded water
quality, and your plan states you will be improving water quality. So I
want to make a note of that because we don’t see that. … During the
steering committee days, we gave lots of oral and written comment, and
my question is will these comments be included in the EIR/EIS?”
Jerry Meral replied that he assumes those comments are part of the administrative record, but “
whether they are part of the EIR/EIS, I don’t know the answer.”
Osha Meserve, Local Agencies of the North Delta: “Reading Chapter 1,
reading the description of the public process, having been in the early
days of BDCP steering committee, in read like a different story than
the one I recall,” she said, noting that it was impossible to get
materials, and ‘it was just who you knew and how you could get in the
door’. A lot of really important decisions were made in those early
days, including the decision to pursue conveyance as part of this
conservation plan. “This is critical that it be a fair reflection of
what occurred and I don’t think it is a fair reflection of that right
now. … We’ve certainly seen progress and we appreciate the dialog, but I
think this section really overstates the case in terms of the job done
on public participation.”
PRESENTATION FOR CHAPTER 2
Dr. David Earle next presented Chapter 2, which discusses the
existing ecological conditions in the plan area, noting that the chapter
has not changed much since 2009. However the appendix 2A, about 900
pages long, contains biological information on each of the covered
species and has been almost completely updated since appearing in draft
form a year ago.
The chapter describes the existing historical and ecological
conditions in the plan area, and includes a summary of biological
diversity, noting that the Delta’s biodiversity includes about 40% of
the total vertebrate species and 60% of California’s native species.
The chapter also summarizes environmental conditions both upstream and
downstream of Plan Area insofar as they are relevant to what goes on the
Plan area, said Dr. Earle.
“
Appendix 2A is very important if you want to evaluate the
biological effects of the plan. It presents about 20 pages on each of
the covered species,” said Dr. Earle, noting that the appendix provides the theoretical basis for the habitat suitability models. “
There’s
also a Chapter 2 appendix on climate change implications which is new
since a year ago, and describes in general terms how climate change is
expected to influence the plan area over the course of the next 50 years,” he said.
——————–
Comment: Melinda Terry said that she hadn’t read the chapter yet in
its entirety, but it doesn’t sound like much has changed. “I am really
concerned about how the current conditions are being described. And I
went into great length and detail in my comments before … existing
conditions are often described in a way we would not agree with. …
It’s really concerning to me sometimes when you keep reading our
levees are falling apart and not recognizing the improvements that have
been made; subsidence is actually slowing down, and the fact that your
project could contribute to that, grading, borrow pits, and even if you
put tunnels underneath, that’s going to cause the land on top to go
under. The project may make it worse than what we’re currently
experiencing,” she said, noting that the statement that bothers her the
most are the ones about seismicity and arkstorms: “‘either of these
events could make it impossible to use the Delta as a water supply for
years or even permanently.’ I mean that’s just so outrageous in terms
of impossible. Really? Because we’ve had failures like Jones Tract and
that affected water quality. We recovered pretty quickly.” She
added: “The Delta is just one portion of the CVP and SWP. The tunnels
are 35 miles long. There is another 700 miles of aqueducts that could
fail in an earthquake and shut everything down. It’s not just here … “
Comment by Burt Wilson: Mr. Wilson began by noting that diversions
increased from 2002 to 2006 to make up for Metropolitan’s loss of
Colorado River water, and it took a federal judge to sop it. “That is
what caused the deterioration of the Delta. Now the twin tunnels are
not going to make any new water. I think the whole answer to section 2
is to put more water in the Delta and forget about the tunnels. That’s
what you need. The quality of the water will improve immensely and
everybody’s going to be happy … (applause) … and you don’t have to have
all of these make work projects for science.”
Question from internet: What are the measures being taken to
protect water interests upstream of the Delta region in conjunction with
the Delta water users and the water contractors?
Jerry Meral answers: “
We have said consistently and will say
again in the future that we don’t want to impact the water rights or the
water quality or water supplies of those upstream of the Delta, which
is the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries.
Those water rights holders are very concerned that we might adopt a
feature of the plan that would inevitably impact them in one way or
another in a bad way, and we are going to extraordinary efforts to make
sure our plan doesn’t do that. We will not ask the State Water Board to
require anyone upstream of the Delta to change their water operation in
compensation for something that we’re going to be applying for. It’s
been a consistent theme for the last several years and we’re going to
continue that.”
PRESENTATION FOR CHAPTER 3
“
Chapter 3 presents the conservation strategy for the BDCP,” said Dr. Earle. “
It’s
divided up into sections … The first section is on the methods used to
develop the conservation strategy and is supplemented by an appendix
that discusses the history of developing the strategy; then there is a
lengthy section on biological goals and objectives; these are basically
the performance standards for the plan and are the goals and objectives
the plan intends to achieve over the course of its term. And there’s
another equally lengthy discussion of the conservation measures. These
are basically programs, 21 of them, that are intended to be effective on
the ground and to be used to achieve the biological goals and
objectives.” He also noted that the chapter also discusses
important related actions occurring in the Delta, and a discussion of
adaptive management, monitoring and research.
Chapter 3 has significantly more details on Conservation Measure 1
since the February 2012 draft, and the discussion of adaptive management
and monitoring now has clear procedures: “
it describes a blueprint
for how the adaptive management program would actually work, rather than
just discussing in conceptual terms what adaptive management is,”
said Dr. Earle. There is also a new appendix describing the history of
the development of the conservation strategy, as well as an additional
new appendix that specifically lists the monitoring and research actions
that are required.
The chapter also discusses the approach to the aquatic resources
conservation strategy, a three part approach consisting of water
measures that are primarily associated with the management of water
diversions and flow within the Delta; habitat measures that are
primarily concerned with the creation of natural community types that
provide habitat for covered species; and measures that deal with a wide
variety of ecosystem stressors that have been contributing to decline of
fish species in the Delta, Dr. Earle explained.
The over 200 biological goals and objectives are detailed in the 400 page section, said Dr. Earle. “
Biological
goals are the broad biological goals that are intended to be achieved
by the plan. They are readable. Biological objectives, for the most
part, are extremely technical statements of exactly what is intended to
be accomplished. As far as possible, these are ‘SMART’ objectives: they
are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and limited by time,” he said, adding “
many of them are only attractive reading for a scientist or a lawyer.”
The objectives and goals are classified according to whether they are
landscape-scale, natural communities-scale or species scale. Landscape
goals include assembling a reserve system, restoring ecological
processes, and connecting fragmented natural communities. Natural
community goals mostly target acreage for each of 13 the natural
communities that is either going to be protected or created, as well as
address ecosystem-level objectives. Species-level goals include goals
to deal with the terrestrial species and plant species, as well as fish
species.
For most of the fish species, there are three types of goals: to
increase abundance, to improve passage, and to improve habitat. Using
the Delta smelt as an example,
“
there
is a goal for Delta smelt that is intended to increase abundance, which
says increase end of year fecundity and improve survival, and it goes
on for quite a few more words about how that exactly is going to be
achieved. For instance, for one of the objectives it says ‘to increase
fecundity of delta smelt over baseline conditions as measured through
field investigations and laboratory studies conducted for the first 10
years and refined through adaptive management.’ This is intended to
give you a sense of the language that’s used in here and the specificity
with which these objectives are set up,” Dr. Earle said, noting
that other goals and objectives include increase the quality and
availability of habitat for all life stages of Delta smelt and providing
refuge habitat where they can avoid predators and they can have better
luck foraging and generally to increase habitat quality.
Chapter 3 also discusses in detail the 22 conservation measures,
which are the actions that are implemented to meet the conservation
requirements of the ESA and the NCCPA and are the actions taken on the
ground, explained Dr. Earle. “
The conservation measures taken as a
whole are designed to meet the biological goals and objectives, but
there’s no simple mapping between the two. So the conservation measures
serve a variety of different biological objectives; some are biological
objectives are met by a single conservation measure. It’s not a simple
relationship between the two.”
The conservation measures are each defined by function, by what the
measure is intended to accomplish, the location where it happens on the
landscape, the time frame when it’s going to be implemented and for how
long, and the performance targets which are going to be measured by
monitoring, and finally by the uncertainties. “
There are research
needs connected with nearly every one of the conservation measures, and
in some cases, extensive research needs, and these are identified in the
chapter,” he said.
Conservation Measure 1 has been refined and has changed quite a bit since it was presented a year ago. “
The
purpose of the measure is to construct and operate a facility that
improves conditions for covered species and natural communities while
also improving water supply. The problems that are meant to be
addressed by this measure include reverse flows in the Old and Middle
rivers, entrainment and salvage and predation in the south Delta, the
effects of the Delta cross channel, flow modification effects that would
occur on the Sacramento River as a result of the north Delta
diversions, the effects of climate change which is expected to alter
Delta hydrology and topography appreciably over the course of the next
50 years, the effects on Delta outflow, and the recognition of the
considerable uncertainty of how these effects would work out over time,”
he
said, noting that with the possible exception of climate change, all of
these have been for many years, been important considerations in any
solution to Delta water management.
The new water facilities are now proposed to have three 3000 cfs
intakes; a year ago five were proposed. Each will have highly designed
fish screens. “
There are actually quite a variety of different
studies that are going on right now looking at existing fish screen
facilities on the Sacramento River system and at modeling and other
factors in designing these fish screens. This is very much an ongoing
process,” he said, noting that there’s not a lot of detail on that
in this draft; the details on the fish screens will be included in the
public draft that will be released later this summer.
There are 2 35-mile long tunnels that convey the water to the south
Delta facilities; the switch to gravity-fed is one thing that has
changed; it will save an enormous amount of electricity that would have
been needed to operate the pumps, he said. “
The facilities also
include a new head of old river operable gate which is intended to
address both water quality and fish migration and flow issues that are
currently associated with the operation of the south Delta pumps,” he said.
The chapter describes the criteria that determines how the facilities
would be operated. There are five different criteria, Dr. Earle
explained: Old and Middle River flows, Head of Old River gate
operations, outflow, bypass flows past the intakes in the Sacramento
River, and the export-inflow ratio, which is the ratio of water that’s
flowing into the Delta compared to the amount of water that is allowed
to be pumped out of it.
For managing outflow, we have introduced the concept of a decision tree, said Dr. Earle:
“
Basically
the decision tree recognizes that based on best available science,
there is a certain amount of Delta outflow that is necessary to support
longfin smelt based on spring outflow, and Delta smelt based on fall
outflow. However, there are considerable uncertainties in the
relationship between outflow and those two species populations. It’s
expected, since this is an active area of research, that where will be
significant improvement in available science concerning that
outflow-population relationship over the course of the years until the
north Delta intakes can become operational.”
“
During that time, it may become possible to allow a different
outflow. So in the decision tree, there is one outflow called the
default outflow, which is a very high outflow value that would occur if
in ten years, we still have the same understanding of the relationship
between outflow and species populations. And there’s another option,
which is reduced level of outflow, which would be achievable if science
shows that species populations could be maintained at that lower outflow
level,” he explained, adding that there is agreement that there
should be flow criteria that relate Delta inflows to water exports, but
those criteria are still under negotiations, so no formal numbers are
proposed in this draft of the plan.
- Read Chapter 3 by clicking here.
- To view all the documents and appendices related to Chapter 3, click here.
- Click here for a fact sheet on the biological goals and objectives.
- Click here for a fact sheet on ecosystem restoration.
- Click here for a handout regarding Conservation Measure 1.
- For further details on Conservation Measure 1, especially regarding
the decision tree to determine project exports, see Chapter 3, Section
3.4.1, which begins on page 421 of Chapter 3.
- Click here for a background document on the BDCP’s proposed operational rules.
—————————-
Question: What about the CVPIA’s doubling goals for all anadromous
fish species in the Delta? Do any of these include the doubling goals
that are mandated by federal law?
Dr. Earle answers: “
The BDCP only has the potential to influence
these fish while they are in the Plan area. Some of these fish spend
less than 1% of their lives in the Plan area; steelhead, for example.
Consequently, we cannot establish firm population goals for the salmonid
fish, although we have done so for the smelts. For the salmonid
fishes, what the plan proposes are objectives that increase the survival
of these fish during their passage through the Delta. The survival
objectives in conjunction with objectives that improve spawning success,
habitat quality in areas upstream of the Delta, would achieve the CVPIA
goals.”
Question: Our rivers are flowing at 2500 cfs, we have an 11500 cfs
reverse flow, now you are going to add another 9000 cfs reverse flow?
You guys are going to ruin the Delta. … What are you going to do if it
doesn’t work?
Jerry Meral answered that the flow criteria is a step function: “
In
no case could we ever divert more than about 30% of what is flowing in
the Sacramento River. Often it is less than that … so we can’t really
divert much more than we are now; we are changing the place of
diversion. If the question is are we going to reduce the flow of the
Sacramento so much that more salinity intrusion is going to happen or is
the river level going to drop, we couldn’t do that under the criteria
we are proposing for CM1,” he said, adding that the State Water
Board has different criteria about water quality standards and they can
impose additional conditions.
Question: I’ve always been interested in the idea that the water
facilities and operations is a conservation measure; that kind of defies
logic when the habitat and Delta is the way it is partly because so
much water has been taken out … If this is a HCP, if the State Water
Board determines that lower flows are required, would this plan require
higher flows to benefit fish?
Jerry Meral: “
It’s possible. The Water Board has, as part of its
mandate, balancing uses, so they have to balance human uses, natural
uses, outflow, and things like that, and they might decide in their
balancing process they require less outflow, then we would have to adopt
to meet the goals and objectives in the BDCP. We won’t know the answer
to that question until they finish their process and we finish ours.
We could adopt higher outflow requirements in this plan than the board
will adopt, but we won’t know for sure that the board is going to do.”
Question: Why is the BDCP going forward before the State Water Board has set the flow standards?
Jerry Meral answers: “
We are investing a quarter of a billion
dollars in this BDCP process. And in doing that, we are learning an
enormous amount about the species that we are trying to protect which is
a primary goal of the State Water Board. That is something they have
to consider is protecting the biological resources. I would venture to
say that there’s no way the Board would have been able to do the kind of
research of receive the kind of testimony that we’re going to be able
to provide to them as they go through the standards setting process.
And if we can demonstrate that we are, in fact, achieving our goals and
objectives or there is reasonable likelihood we can do that, the Board
will take that into account,” he said.
“
But they don’t have to adopt it,” he added. “
I get the
feeling that people think that if BDCP is presented to the State Water
Board, that it’s a take it or leave it situation. It is not. They have
independent discretion. … They want to see the data that we’re
developing so that they can make an informed decision; there is no way
that they would have been able to do the kind of work that we’ve done
because we’ve invested a lot of money in it and frankly they need that
kind of information to make those kinds of decisions. I would dispute
that we’re out of sync with the water Board; I think they would tell you
that we’re not, and I think their process will work better once they
see what we have to offer.”
Comment: You also made the comment that other agencies are waiting
for the data you are developing. That is kind of like the fox guarding
the hen house. You’re developing the data. What about independent
people developing the data who have differing opinions. That’s part of
the problem here. BDCP is developing the data. … The citizens of
California are not being properly represented when the only studies that
are going to be made available are yours, and not one that is produced
by a neutral party.
Jerry Meral answers: “
I understand that. The state itself in
its condition could not have afforded to pay for this, but maybe that
would have been more desirable in some ways because it would look less
biased, but I will say that the people who are examining this data have a
lot of capabilities of their own to examine our modeling and to decide
whether we are biased or slanted one way or another. It’s not a totally
one-sided affair. Beyond that, the regulators have their own
capability, so even though we indeed paid for our consultant to do this,
the regulators, the fish agencies, the water board and so on, are not
receiving funds from these interests so they have an independent
capability to examine it. And beyond that, we all know in California,
the courts make the final decision on these things. I understand your
point, but there are checks and balances.”
Question: Are the tunnels the same size as when they were first proposed?
Dr. Chris Earle answers: “
The tunnels are a larger diameter now.
That was one of the changes that accompanied the shift from pumped flow
to gravity flow. Because they don’t have pumps, the water flows
through them more slowly, so they are larger to accommodate that.”
Question: One of the objectives is to convert 5000 acres to protect fish in the south Delta. Why so much land for fish?
Jerry Meral answers: “
One of the objectives we have especially
for the salmonid species is improved floodplain … we’re seeing that if
you increase floodplain productivity, you’ll increase the likelihood of
survival of salmon, steelhead, and so on. In the south Delta, we’ve
been told by the biologists we’ve consulted with that there’s very
little floodplain habitat there, and so the fish tend to be flushed
through rather quickly and don’t have a chance to grow up, so there is
some evidence – not conclusive yet … – increased floodplain habitat in
the south Delta could result in higher productivity for the salmonid
fish.”
Question: But farming coexisted with the salmon for years
flourished with the farming, until the 60s and the State Water Project.
“It is not the farming, it is not the levee, it is the pumping. I can
not understand why your plan does not completely investigate the costs
and the benefits of reducing the pumping. Put that together with a
state of the art fish screen in the south Delta. $4 billion spent of
CalFED money on habitat restoration in the Delta and we still don’t have
any fish screens.”
Jerry Meral counters: “
We know that the fish screens at the state
and federal projects are really inadequate … those are faulty and could
be improved somewhat. The pumping that is having an effect … we do
know that a lot of the fish coming out of the San Joaquin River are lost
to the system, just as you describe. But one of the drivers in this is
to divert water up in the Sacramento River to avoid so much of the
diversion of the fish in the south Delta. It is a primary purpose and a
benefit of the project. One of the reason its called conservation
measure 1 is it would help conserve the salmonids in the San Joaquin
River. In so far as reduced pumping, we will have to look at
alternatives that will result in reduced pumping, and you’ll see those
in the EIR/EIS and they will be described in detail, and one of those
could be selected.”
Question: Why aren’t fish screens in the south Delta included in the plan?
Jerry Meral answers: “
There are, of course, fish screens and they
have been improved in the past, but whether or not you can improve them
enough to achieve your biological goals and objectives is pretty
doubtful. Because when you picture these fish screens in the south
Delta, the fish get down there, and let’s say they are screened out.
Well what does that get them? A life of misery in Clifton Court Forebay,
which will be a very short life. You’d have to continue trap them,
haul them, dump them in at Antioch, and it’s a bad system. There’s no
way to bypass them. The south Delta is a trap once they get down
there. You can’t bypass them, they can’t get back into the natural
channels … in the Sacramento River they can go by and head out to the
ocean.“
Comment: “My point is that the tunnels are not a conservation
measure. BDCP stands for Big Dumb Concrete Pipe. If you’re a water
contractor, for the last 30 years, what you want is to get your intakes
away from those pesky smelt in the south Delta and the other constraints
in the south Delta, and put them up near Courtland where you can pump
all the water you want. And that’s what they wanted in 1982 and that’s
what they want now and that’s what’s driving this process. What you’ve
built around this bad project, which is the tunnels, is a goodie basket
of environmental trinkets to buy off the opposition … the environmental
benefits are largely unrelated to the tunnels. We don’t need the
tunnels.”
Comment from Melinda Terry: “It’s very frustrating to hear Dr. Earle
talk about the fragmentation of natural communities and wanting to
those fix those, wanting to remediate the levee channels … those have
been in existence for over 150 years, and for 130 of those at least, we
weren’t having these fishery crashes. Our communities were farming and
not having this kind of harm, and yet now, since we’ve had the water
projects come into place, now those who have been farming and living
that way and not harming those fish are asked to bear the burden and not
do things so that others can farm somewhere else … “
Melinda Terry continues, saying there are many pages, many questions
and not much enough time to review them. Where can these questions be
answered? “This is not giving my agency, whether it’s the flood control
agencies I represent, or the north Delta water agencies enough
information about water quality and other requirements .. I have lots
of questions about the conservation measures and the effects of those,
but I am time limited here, and I just don’t know how to deal with
that.”
Delta resident comment: We talk about Katrina. I’m sorry but I
still haven’t seen a hurricane yet on this west coast, I haven’t seen 20
foot storm surges, and I don’t see a US Army Corps of Engineers’ wall
that failed here. We talk about the earthquakes and the ‘catastrophic’
failure of the levees – catastrophic is your word – in an earthquake.
There hasn’t been a levee failure due to earthquakes in the levees, ever
… we’re going to scare the hell out of everybody and make them think
we’re in dire straights but this whole thing is ludicrous, expensive and
unworthy of taxpayer dollars.
Commenter: A fellow commented earlier about the earthquake thing
and you said it didn’t come from you guys, but somewhere, somebody
started this earthquake mythology around here. There’s never been a
Delta levee failure because of an earthquake …
Jerry Meral answers: “
The idea though no earthquake has happened
to damage a Delta levee is irrelevant because we haven’t had an
earthquake of the size that we did in 1906 since the islands have
subsided and since the levees were built up … There may be a dispute
among experts; certainly Delta levee engineers believe they’ve built
good levees and we, the state, have invested over $300 million trying to
prove them right, but there is a substantial body of opinion in the
earthquake engineering community that says, in fact, those investments
will not suffice if a large enough earthquake comes along. I don’t want
to find out, so let’s hope an earthquake doesn’t come along soon. But
it’s wrong to say that there’s no respectable body of engineering
opinion that feels that those levees may fail in an earthquake. Many
respected experts think they might.”
Question: I am a little concerned about the costs of mitigation …
as I understand it, the water contractors are going to pay for
mitigation for the actual footprint of where their project is going to
be, but then all of the rest of the conservation measures, the new
habitat that is going to have to be constructed aside from that; aren’t
those going to be general obligation costs after that point?
Jerry Meral: “
Yes, that’s correct.”
Question: If you are saying because of all these constraints on the
water and all these different agencies that are controlling that, that
actually the amount of water that they want won’t actually be diverted?
Then why would they build it?
Jerry Meral answers: “
Because they want to have a reasonable
prospect for having a stable supply of water. When you are operating a
water agency, you don’t want to have this kind of supply, because your
people want to have water every day. This plan is their best hope, I
think, of stabilizing their supply. They are not looking to double
their supply, they are not looking to radically increase their supply,
this is the best chance they have, in compliance with our state and
federal laws, to get that stable supply. It’s a little bit of a gamble
if it will work out. But it is an investment I think they’d be wise to
make because we’re facing a lot of challenges in meeting the supply
needs that we have.”
Question from Anne Spaulding, City of Antioch: What happened with
the State Water Board’s outflow alternative; has it been incorporated or
is it part of the alternatives? Are there any other alternatives that
will look at increasing not decreasing Delta outflow?
Jerry Meral answers: “
We have been asked by the State Water
Board, as one of the alternatives considered in the EIR/EIS, to consider
a much higher outflow alternative, so we will have that as a fully
analyzed alternative in the EIR/EIS.”
PRESENTATION FOR CONSERVATION MEASURES 2 THROUGH 11
Conservation Measure 2 is probably the second largest conservation measure in terms of
affected
acreage, said Dr. Earle, noting that this is a more programmatic
conservation measure than the other ones because the Yolo Bypass Fishery
Enhancement Plan is still under development, and is expected to be
completed about the fifth year following BDCP authorization. “
Essentially
the focus is on works that will increase inundation of the Yolo Bypass
because it’s potentially a fabulous place to grow fish food and ease
passage so fish can move both upstream and downstream through the bypass
and to improve the availability of food,” he said.
Some of the projects proposed in the bypass are already being
implemented out there; the continuation of those activities would be
covered under BDCP. Some of the projects might be able to proceed
without having to go through the full CEQA/NEPA compliance, while others
would have to await the completion of the CEQA/NEPA process, he
explained. “
All of these projects are to be completed by year 25 of
the BDCP with the remainder of the plan term being devoted to the
operations and maintenance.”
Melinda Terry: “There are all kinds of questions revolving around
this project that is not some day in the future … it’s starting right
now … it’s very frustrating … but I’d like to see us get on a dual
process here of talking about the biological opinion projects that are
your accelerated restoration program part of your BDCP, and get on a
schedule of talking about those today projects, because they are
happening,” she said. “Those three projects are being done as part of
the biological opinions, which goes back to the question of mitigation
versus what the public is paying for. The biops have to do with having
to do mitigation for the ESA take occurring at the south Delta pumps …
on those projects that are biops, those get counted as mitigation and in
Chapter 8 we’ll see those are being paid for by the water contractors?
or by the general public? Because to me, they are associated with their
take permit, not the greater BDCP … “
PRESENTATION ON CONSERVATION MEASURE 3:
Dr.
David Zippin from ICF took over this portion of the presentation.
Conservation Measure 3 is one of the natural community protection
measures and addresses the creation of a reserve system, he said. The
goal is 62,455 acres of habitat either restored or protected. The map
is organized by conservation zones, and there are targets that are
natural community specific, and in some cases, geographically specific.
There is a requirement to achieve all restoration and protections by
year 40 so that we have an additional ten years to make sure the
projects are succeeding.
Conservation
4 is about restoring at least 65,000 acres of the various kinds of
natural tidal communities. The timeline is to restore 16,300 acres by
year 10 and 25,975 by year 15. 10,000 of those 65,000 acres are
designed to be upland transitional communities which will accommodate
the sea level rise that we expect in these wetland communities, and
allow wetlands to migrate upslope in response to sea level rise. Right
now there is very little room for that to occur, said Dr. Zippin.
Conservation Measure 5 is about restoring 10,000
acres
of seasonally inundated areas or floodplain especially in the south
Delta to support a variety of communities. We’ll also be doing
restoration of the valley foothill riparian forest extensively in the
south Delta, mingling that with nontidal freshwater perennial emergent
wetlands, nontidal perennial aquatic, as well as flood-plain compatible
agriculture, Dr. Zippin said, noting that agriculture will not be
eliminated in the south Delta; where these restoration projects are
occur, it will look more like the Yolo Bypass does today.
Conservation Measure 6, channel margin enhancement, is much more limited in scope –
20 miles of riverbank on one side of the river; this will help if it’s done in strategic locations, Dr. Zippin explained. “
What
we’re intending to do here is where floodplain restoration is not
possible, when you’re not able to set back the levee extensively, there
would be very small setbacks to provide room for riparian areas on the
rivervine side of the levees. This is a community that has been lost or
degraded throughout the Delta and we want take a modest step to recover
some of it.”
Conservation Measure 7 is restoration of riparian natural communities
and is geared mostly towards the covered terrestrial species like the
riparian brush rabbit, riparian woodrat, and a number of covered bird
species, Dr. Zippin explained. It will benefit quite a few of our
covered species and substantially increase the amount of riparian forest
and scrub that is in the Delta today. This habitat has been lost – 90
to 95% over historic levels.
Conservation Measure 8 focuses on grassland natural community
restoration, which focuses on terrestrial species exclusively with 2000
acres of grassland restoration in areas on the fringes of the plan area
where it is feasible. Conservation Measure 9 provides for 15 acres of
vernal pool and alkali seasonal wetland areas, a modest amount in part
because the plan area itself doesn’t have very much of these
communities, Dr. Zippin said, and we have a limited ability within the
plan area to do this type of restoration. Conservation Measure 10
provides for 1200 acres of nontidal marsh restoration, which is
important for the garter snake and western pond turtle, among others.
Conservation Measure 11 is about how we manage these communities we are protecting and restoring. “
You
can’t just restore something and walk away, you can’t protect the land
in easement and walk away. You have to manage it actively,” he said
———————
Question
from the internet: How does BDCP’s planned rate of restoration for the
next decade compare to the rate of restoration over the past decade?
Jerry Meral answers: “
If you look around the San Francisco Bay
Area, you will see tens of thousands of acres of restoration in the
north bay, the south bay, a lot of places. If you look at a comparable
map of the Delta, you will see nothing, because there has never been a
planned active restoration project anywhere in the Delta. It’s not
entirely for lack of trying; there’s the Dutch Slough project and a
couple of others that have been attempted, but they are still not
completed. You do see restoration projects created by nature like
Liberty Island, but not really planned, and so the planned rate of
restoration is dramatically greater than the historic one.”
Part 2 of the internet question: Assuming the BDCP’s planned rate of
restoration is greater than the historical rate (yes), how does BDCP
propose to accomplish this, given how hard it is to ‘touch the water’ in
the Delta and Corps projects are described as ‘multi-generational’?
Jerry Meral answers: “
The questioner has put their finger on
something important. It’s very hard to get projects permitted in the
Delta because it is such a developed place. We have pipelines, we have
power lines, everyone and their brother is worried about what will be
the impact on a neighboring island or on water quality. These projects
are very hard to carry out. The Yolo Ranch project … will be an
interesting test of whether we can actually carry out these restoration
projects. Still, given the fact that we’ve done tens of thousands of
acres in San Francisco Bay, it’s hard to imagine we can’t do it in the
Delta, but it is extraordinarily difficult, so I appreciate the question
and we’ll be challenged by that, I’m sure.”
Question: In regards to restoration in the South Delta, the plan is
looking to restore 5,000 acres. There are no landowners who own more
than 3000 acres, and most of them much less than that … what if you
cannot find enough willing landowners?
Jerry Meral answers: “
We’re pretty confident we can find willing
landowners to participate in this; it’s going to take a while. There
are values beyond agriculture that we’re trying to preserve here … but
if anyone thinks we’re going to undertake all of these habitat projects
and not have any conversion of land from agriculture to habitat, that’s
just not possible. We think we can do it by approaching willing
landowners and making arrangements with them.”
Response to Jerry: I am from the south Delta, and people there
don’t think that one acre of their land should be traded so that someone
can have a permit to pump water off the Sacramento River and put it in
tunnel. All I can say is 50 years won’t be enough.
Another question: What if there are no willing landowners?
Jerry Meral answers: “
We’re not going to completely abandon the
possibility of condemnation as any other public works project does.
The highway department has never said we’ll only deal with willing
sellers because you can’t have a highway that stops here and starts
again there. … We’re not going to commit to not using that tool because
we may have to, but we don’t want to, and we think we can do without it.”
PRESENTATIONS ON OTHER STRESSORS CONSERVATION MEASURES
The other stressor conservation measures are not about restoration of
habitat or natural communities but are instead focused on aquatic
ecosystems, said Dr. Earle.
Conservation Measure 12 concerns methylmercury management, which is
from a legacy from historical activities that occurred upstream in the
watershed, he explained. “
Most of the mercury that is out there in
Delta soils came down along with sediment during the course of hydraulic
mining over 100 years ago. And when wetlands are created out there,
bacteria in the wetlands tend to take up the mercury in the sediment and
turn it into methylmercury, which is biologically active – it’s the bad
form of mercury. This has been recognized for years, and in fact there
is a SWRCB strategy called a methylmercury TMDL to deal with that, and
basically BDCP has agreed in the siting and operation of these
restoration sites to be compliant with that TMDL regulation,” also noting that restoration sites will be preferentially selected for minimal risk.
Conservation Measure 13 deals with invasive aquatic vegetation
control, another long standing problem in the Delta, Dr. Earle said.
Existing aquatic invasive vegetation control programs will be continued
and expanded under BDCP. “
We’ve done some analysis that indicates
that a significant elevation in the current rate of control could
essentially wipe out these weeds in the Delta in a relatively short time
span of 5 to11 years, after which only small and localized efforts will
be needed to keep those plants in control.”
Conservation measure 14 concerns dissolved oxygen levels in the Stockton Deep Water Ship Channel. “
Dissolved
oxygen levels were seasonally reduced to the point that it was a
passage barrier and couldn’t be transited by salmon due to the extremely
low DO levels out there. In mitigation for that, a dissolved oxygen
aeration facility was installed in the ship channel and has in fact been
in operation for years. Continued operation of that project and the
expansion of it would become a covered activity under BDCP,” said Dr. Earle.
Conservation Measure 15 deals with localized control of predatory fish. “
The
fact is that nonnative fish eat a lot of covered fish, particularly
juvenile salmon who suffer very high mortality rates during their
passage through the Delta,” said Dr. Earle. “
However, whether
it’s possible to go out there and catch those fish and thereby reduce
predation rates on juvenile salmon is something that nobody knows, and
it’s a hugely controversial topic. So CM15 is basically a research
program that calls for the first 5 years to be focused on a number of
research efforts designed to see if it is at least locally possible to
reduce significant predation by nonnative fish in certain parts of the
Delta,” he said, adding that further action on this will be informed by the results of the research studies.
Conservation
Measure 16 involves the installation of non-physical fish barriers,
which would be located in areas where there is a high mortality of fish
due to predation, primarily. “
For instance, there is a high rate of
predation for fish that go down Georgiana Slough instead of the main
stem, so there has been a nonphysical barrier installed seasonally at
the head of Georgiana Slough to divert juvenile salmon so they don’t go
down the slough and stay instead in the main stem. This does it by
using underwater bubbles, sound and bright lights to keep fish from
going down the undesirable area. Similar techniques have been used in
various sites and have been shown to be successful,” he said.
Conservation Measure 17 provides funds for increased levels of
enforcement to reduce illegal poaching of sturgeon and salmon in the
Delta, and Conservation Measure 18 deals with the possibility of
conservation hatcheries, with USFWS, UC Davis and DFW collaborating on
the development and possible expansion of conservation hatcheries.
Conservation Measure 19 establishes a grant program to introduce
improved urban stormwater treatment for municipalities in the Bay Delta
area, and Conservation Measure 20 “
would establish inspection
stations at popular water recreational sites throughout the Delta where
educational efforts would occur and watercraft could be inspected to see
if they are bringing in any invasive species,” said Dr. Earle, noting that the biggest concern right now is the possible introduction of zebra and quagga mussels.
Conservation Measure 21 is a purely voluntary program that would
provide financial assistance and technical guidance for landowners to
either screen or remove currently unscreened diversions that may be
posing a threat to covered fish species.
Conservation Measure 22 contains a variety of measures to be undertaken to reduce impacts of construction on covered species.
There are important regional actions that are not related to the BDCP
either directly or indirectly, but which will forseeably occur in the
Delta and which have big implications for the success of BDCP, said Dr.
Earle. There are ammonia load reductions
that are expected from
improved treatment at the Sacramento regional wastewater treatment plant
and other municipal treatment works in the Delta that may support
improved aquatic productivity in the Delta, and Hatchery Genetic
Management Plans that are
proposed for salmon and steelhead
hatcheries in the Central Valley may have possible beneficial effects on
salmon and steelhead populations, said Dr. Earle, concluding this
portion of the presentation.
At this point, with the scheduled three hour meeting stretching to
nearly four and a half hours and a dwindling crowd, Jerry Meral decided
to postpone the discussion of adaptive management and Chapter 4 until
the next meeting.
“
Thank you everyone for staying so long … I am impressed by your stamina. We’ll probably test it again in two weeks.”
MEETING MATERIALS
- Click here for the meeting agenda.
- Click here for the power point presentation for the meeting.
- Click here for the preliminary draft documents of the BDCP.
- Click here for a fact sheet on the biological goals and objectives.
- Click here for a fact sheet on ecosystem restoration.
- Click here for a handout regarding Conservation Measure 1.
- For further details on Conservation Measure 1, especially regarding
the decision tree to determine project exports, see Chapter 3, Section
3.4.1, which begins on page 421 of Chapter 3.
- Click here for a background document on the BDCP’s proposed operational rules.
—————————–
Note: Not all questions nor all portions of the
presentation are included, else it would be so incredibly long and no
one would read it. Also, some questions and discussions were moved to
group similar topics together for easier reading. Please refer to the
video of the meeting or the
BDCP preliminary draft documents for additional information and details.
