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CSPA Protests Scheme to Ship More Water South

Water Would Be Stored on Delta Islands

by Chris Shutes, FERC Projects Director

September 21, 2009 -- CSPA has filed a protest with the State Water Resources Control Board over a water rights application to store water on two Delta islands. The water would later be exported through the Delta pumps, stored in some cases underground in Kern County, and ultimately used for drinking water in southern California.
 
The project proposed for “Delta Wetlands” was approved by the State Board in the 2001 Water Rights Decision 1643. However, the Central Delta Water Agency successfully sued over the lack of specificity of where the water would ultimately be used. The original application has been amended in a petition which contains a specific description of where the water will be used, and the State Board issued a new notice for both documents.
 
CSPA opposed this project the first time around over the impacts to water quality and specifically water temperature, fisheries, and lack of “surplus” water to meet the demands of the project. Nonetheless, the Board approved a project that could store 140,000 acre-feet of water at any given time, and divert over 400,000 acre-feet a year from Delta outflow.
 
The water rights permit would allow the project to divert from 15-25% of the Delta outflow index, and to move the X2 salinity compliance point up to two and a half kilometers upstream.
 
The project’s proponents seek to limit present consideration by the Board to the places where the water will be stored in Kern County and ultimately used south of the Tehachapis. CSPA maintains that radically deteriorated in-Delta conditions almost nine years after the original decision, including crashing fisheries, require a fresh look at the entire project.

CSPA Protest