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CSPA/C-WIN Comment on Proposed Review of Bay-Delta Plan
by Bill Jennings, Executive Director, CSPA
June 11, 2009 -- The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) and California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) submitted joint comments on the State Water Resources Control Board's (State Board) staff report for the Periodic Review of the Water Quality Control Plan for the Bay-Delta (Bay-Delta Plan).
The Bay-Delta Plan identifies the beneficial uses of the estuary, the water quality and flow objectives for the protection of those beneficial uses, and a program of implementation for achieving the objectives. The Periodic Review is a process to update the existing Plan and includes a review and update of water quality/flow objectives and the program of implementation. It will include recommended changes to water rights permits and water quality regulation, consistent with the program of implementation, to protect beneficial uses.
The 28-page comment letter chronicles the State Board's failures to protect fisheries and water quality, discusses the inadequacies of the staff report and provides CSPA/C-WIN's recommendations on actions and measures necessary to protect the estuary.
Below is a description of the CSPA/C-Win recommendations.
1. At a minimum, incorporate the Reasonable and Prudent Measures contained in the Salmon and Delta Smelt Biological Opinions. These represent the MINUMUM requirements for survival of the species. They do not provide for recovery of listed or non-listed species.
2. Eliminate the Vernalis Adaptive Management Program and at a minimum, a return to the 1995/D- 1641 San Joaquin River pulse flows. Examination of the recent Salmon Biological Opinion suggests that much higher flows are warranted for survival of listed species.
3. Evaluate how much water is necessary for Bay-Delta ecosystem health.
4. Develop and implement fish screen criteria that results in installation of state-of-the art fish screens at the federal and state pumps-coupled with comprehensive monitoring to ensure the screens work to achieve the planned outcomes for fish protection.
5. Develop and adopt an implementation plan for the fish doubling narrative.
6. Conduct a hearing to rescind the waiver of the agricultural water quality standards, direct the Central Valley Board to rescind the July 2006 waiver for agricultural discharges, and instead impose WDR's for all agricultural dischargers. As part of this proceeding, the State Water Board would reinstate the permanent standards, with responsibility borne by the federal and state projects by releasing water from reservoirs on the San Joaquin side of the Delta and by limiting pumping at the state and federal export projects.
7. Consider and adopt a land retirement program for drainage impaired agricultural lands in the two projects' areas of water use. C-WIN and CSPA continue to contend that irrigation of these saline seleniferous lands is a wasteful and unreasonable use of water in violation of Article X, Section 2 of the California Constitution.
8. Include water right investigation, enforcement and other activities in the Water Quality Control Plan monitoring program to ensure adequate river flows and water quality for fisheries.
9. Determine that there will be fish passage at Central Valley watershed rim dams.
10. Provide dedicated cold-water storage in rim reservoirs to sustain suitable temperatures for salmon and delta fisheries per the recent National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinions3 on the Central Valley Project/State Water Project Operations Criteria and Plan.
11. Conduct an interim evidentiary hearing to investigate salt loading caused by delivery of Delta water to the San Joaquin Valley and impose terms and conditions in permits to control salt loading to the San Joaquin River and Delta.
12. Prevent redirected impacts to the Trinity River and other tributaries from Delta operations.
13. Conduct an interim evidentiary hearing to investigate increased exports and reverse flows in Old and Middle Rivers and consider terms and conditions in permits to protect the Delta ecosystem from the effects of the increased export of, so called, “surplus” water.
14. Direct, as an immediate enforcement matter, the Department of Water Resources to halt all Delta diversions until such time as approval from the California Department of Fish and Game under the California Endangered Species Act is obtained.
15. Conduct an evidentiary hearing to receive evidence and recommendations from fishery and water agencies on how to minimize the impact of warm water discharges from rim dams on salmon and other affected species, including interim emergency measures.
16. Develop Selenium standards for acute and chronic fish and animal tissues addressing concerns about bioaccumulation raised in US Fish and Wildlife Service research and REQUIRED by the Biological Opinion for the California Toxics Rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
17. Develop a focus on water use efficiency, rather than water supply development, to both reduce demand and improve water quality.
18. Create a comprehensive monitoring program for the Bay-Delta
CSPA/C-WIN comments on periodic review