RTD Letter: Pump Operation Plans Must Address Harmful Algal Blooms and Delta Salinity 4/15/20

Yesterday, Restore the Delta sent a comment letter to the State Water Resources Control Board criticizing the Comprehensive Operations Plan (COP) and Monitoring Special Study (MSS) submitted to the SWRCB by the California Department of Water Resources and the United States Bureau of Reclamation

The COP and MSS are planning and regulatory documents that are to meet the requirement set forth in the 2018 amendments to the Bay-Delta Plan. However, the submittal to the SWRCB failed to develop modeling studies and flow responses that mitigate harmful algal blooms and the impacts in the South Delta in regard to salinity from operation of the state and federal pumping systems.

Restore the Delta asserts that the COP/MSS submittal reads like an afterthought by the Department of Water Resources and incorporates dated materials that fail to improve water quality conditions in the Delta. So to speak, the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau of Reclamation, which have been preoccupied with rolling back Delta protections and their ongoing pursuit of a Delta tunnel, rested on their laurels in the production of these document plans and standards. 

Restore the Delta has asked the State Water Resources Control Board to issue a letter that instructs the state and federal project operators to prepare a comprehensive COP/MSS report that addresses the spirit of the 2018 Bay-Delta Plan’s Program of Implementation, not just a perfunctory document that fails to improve Delta conditions.

The full comment letter can be read here.

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