A Thursday morning meeting of Bay Delta Conservation Plan principals was disrupted by a fisherman, two environmentalists, and a Delta farmer protesting the closed process. The Department of Water Resources has told legislators that they’re not welcome at meetings of signatories to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, the plan that state water exporters have undertaken to secure their water supplies. The meetings have been going forward behind closed doors since August in what Resources Secretary Lester Snow told lawmakers was “a key procedural component of the public BDCP Steering Committee process.”  Showing up this morning at the meeting convened at the California Farm Bureau Federation in Sacramento were Dan Bacher, fisheries activist, researcher, and editor of The Fish Sniffer; Bill [...]

Westlands Water District got a letter from Congress members George Miller, John Garamendi, Grace F. Napolitano, and Mike Thompson. “We read with great interest,” they write, “that the Westlands Water District has more water at San Luis Reservoir than it can use this year, and is contemplating an exchange with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. . . . [This] announcement of “extra” federal water delivered to Westlands will come as a surprise to anyone who has seen Westlands’ political advocacy, press releases, and court filings over the course of this year.” The Congress members have nine questions for Westlands, including a question about why the district isn’t using any “extra” water to replenish the groundwater it says is [...]

The California Water Commission (CWC) is one of those State boards and commissions that could have sunsetted ten years ago and hardly anyone would have noticed. But it’s back, thanks to the 2009 Comprehensive Water Package.  The Legislation gave the CWC some responsibilities with respect to the water infrastructure envisioned by the water bond. The commissioners have been selected (see Dan Bacher’s article on the subject from last May http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/05/14/18647925.php), and six of the nine met for the first time on September 28.  (Two have appointments that are not yet in effect.)  Anthony Saracino (director of the California Water Program at the Nature Conservancy) chaired the proceedings.  Joe Del Bosque (member of AgSafe, California Farm Bureau, California Latino Water Coalition [...]

The most interesting briefing came from Stuart Drown, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission.  The subject was the Little Hoover Commission’s August 2010 report, “Managing for Change: Modernizing California’s Water Governance.” This is a report that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, which is surprising given what it recommends:  separating the State Water Project from DWR.  An independent, publicly-owned California Water Authority would operate the SWP and eventually merge it with the Central Valley Project. A new Department of Water Management would be created within the Natural Resources Agency. This Department would collect and monitor data on water use; manage supply and demand (with input from the Department of Fish and Game); administer and enforce water rights; implement the [...]

Under the terms of last year’s legislation, the Delta Protection Commission (DPC) has until July 2011 to come up with an Economic Sustainability Plan for the Delta. The DPC has completed five community meetings to gather public input on the creation of the Sustainability Plan “framework” for the Delta.  The DPC held meetings in Courtland, Discovery Bay, Rio Vista, West Lodi/North Stockton, and Antioch. This was the first of a series of community meetings on the ESP, and attendance could have been better.  The commission knows they need more outreach, but like everything else related to governance under the Delta Reform Act, this process is on a tight schedule. Among the issues raised: You can’t talk about economic sustainability without [...]

On October 6, the DPC will hold Public Meeting #2 of its Feasibility Study for  a National Heritage Area (NHA) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.  The meeting will include small group discussion on potential interpretive themes for a Delta NHA. The meeting will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at D. H. White Elementary School, 500 Elm Way, Rio Vista. There is also breaking news of a new bill introduced by Senator Feinstein in regard to the creation of the NHA designation.  Restore the Delta will keep you posted in the weeks to come.

In its new video, “Westlands, Salmon, & Reason,” Salmon Water Now (SWN) challenges farmers to meet with fishermen for a meaningful discussion about water, politics, and people.  You can see this new video at  http://www.vimeo.com/14982246 SWN got a lot of reaction, even from national media, to its last video, “Bullies of Westlands.”  Some reactions apparently came from farmers who are not part of Westlands.  Farmers throughout the state who know how to use resources wisely to grow crops should be distancing themselves from Westlands’ increasingly questionable tactics for manipulating water supplies. To access Salmon Water Now’s earlier videos, go to http://salmonwaternow.org/resources-for-media/videos

Last week, we reported that a group of congressional representatives and state legislators representing the Delta had written a letter to Lester Snow and Ken Salazar asking for information about the meetings of BDCP “Delta Principals” that have been taking place out of public view. The letter asked for information such as who the principals are, how they were selected, and what the group’s role and objectives are. Resources Secretary Lester Snow has gotten back to Senator Lois Wolk about that. In a September 23 letter, Snow explains that these meetings among “principals who are signatories to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP)” are “a key procedural component of the public BDCP Steering Committee process to achieve the comprehensive strategy [...]

In an interview earlier this week with the Central Valley Business Times, Jonas Minton of the Planning and Conservation League provided some background on this meeting of “principals.” Click here to read. Exporters undertook the BDCP process to secure water supplies.  Minton notes that we now have overwhelming scientific evidence that if the Bay-Delta Estuary is to be saved, we cannot continue exports at anything like their historic levels, let alone increase exports. According to Minton, “When confronted with those conclusions [that the estuary has had too much fresh water taken from it], the exporters just withdrew” from the public process. In these recent meetings, “They’ve been frantically trying to come up with some kind of agreement that could be [...]