The Environmental Water Caucus (EWC) gave the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) recommendations for meeting California’s water needs without building a canunnel, and – no surprise – the BDCP folks didn’t like those recommendations.
Byron Buck, Executive Director of the State and Federal Contractors Water Agency, fired off a letter to Phil Isenberg taking issue with the recommendations, which are taken from EWC’s publication “California Water Solutions Now.”
EWC recommendations include aggressive statewide conservation, reductions in Delta pumping, and retirement of toxic farmlands. Byron Buck objected to the “emotional pejorative” of referring to lands on the west side as “toxic.”
“The reality,” he said, “is that the West Side Drainage Plan . . . has halved the salt and selenium loads to the Delta from this region. State mandated water quality requirements have been consistently met for over ten years and completion of the plan is expected to eliminate regular subsurface farmland drainage from the Grasslands drainage area to the Delta.”
Westlands, according to Buck, is proposing to use similar techniques. Fallowing of select lands is part of salt management plans, but whole scale retirement is not necessary.
We’d just like to note that half of too much salt and selenium is still too much. We’d also like to note that it isn’t too hard to meet state-mandated water quality requirements when you are in a position to bully the Water Board into mandating only the quality of water that is convenient for you to deliver.