Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliance are relieved, Or not at all. – Shakespeare, Hamlet Articles Full-court press from Westlands Roll up your sleeves for recirculated BDCP documents Full-court press from Westlands by Jane Wagner-Tyack Westlands Water District irrigators are face to face with the ugly truth of how little water their junior water rights give them when there isn’t any surplus, and how much they have to pay for what they can get. In July, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) (uninfluenced by exporters, of course) asked the State Water Resources Control Board to order south and central Delta water diverters with riparian and pre-1914 water rights to provide information about what [...]

“The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.” — Lewis Thomas Articles Why habitat restoration isn’t working BDCP’s water quality analysis: Indefensible Devious plans for surface storage Why habitat restoration isn’t working Conventional wisdom says that Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fisheries have collapsed because of loss of the pre-reclamation mosaic of habitat, so only more habitat will restore them to health. But in fact, reclamation of Delta islands was completed by the third decade of the 20th century, yet fisheries remained relatively stable until the state and federal export projects became operational and began to export millions of acre feet of water every year. There is now more [...]

“In one of our conversations yesterday, we were talking about adaptive management and how everyone seems to be using the term differently, and the most cynical interpretation of a lot of the use of ‘adaptive management’ is promising to fix it later.” — Dr. Jay Lund, Delta Independent Science Board “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit.” — W. C. Fields Articles An Implementing Agreement at last Lost in translation A Water Bond soup with too many cooks Hits, runs, and an error Ask for a dome No barriers after all (updated correction 6/6/14) Every great campaign has an art movement An Implementing Agreement at last We finally have a draft Implementing Agreement (IA) released [...]

“Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt; how they deny themselves nothing . . . .” — William Makepeace Thackeray Calling the water shots Behind the scenes planning by the water contractors who want the twin tunnels is bearing fruit with the formation of two new Offices in the Department of Water Resources (DWR). One of them, a new Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Office in the Executive Division of DWR, will be responsible for that third of the plan that is actually supposed to help the ecosystem – Conservation Measures 2-22. It will be headed initially by Chief Deputy Director Laura King Moon, known to us for her [...]

Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst. — Marcus Valerius Martialis Articles IFFI equals Iffy A sample letter on the subject of Funding IFFI equals Iffy You can remember the major inadequacies of BDCP if you think of Eye-Eff-Eff-Eye — IFFI. That stands for Impacts, Funding, Fish and Implementation. Let’s look at these individually. IMPACTS All the benefits of BDCP go to people outside the Delta, and all the negative impacts are borne by people in the Delta region. There are over 50 negative impacts that can’t be mitigated, and BDCP doesn’t even have to try to mitigate them if planners decide that mitigating them isn’t feasible. Basically, it isn’t feasible if they don’t want to do [...]

We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence. – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species Articles Hunger and thirst Speaking of BDCP …. 2014 State of Our Rivers Symposium Hunger and thirst By Jane Wagner-Tyack UOP economist Dr. Jeffrey Michael reports in an April 7 blog post that between 2007 and 2012, despite the drought in 2009, San Joaquin Valley agriculture made a clear shift toward permanent crops. Over that period, acreage of field crops (like cotton, hay, grain, and alfalfa) increased by 2 percent. Acreage of fruit and nut crops (like almonds, pistachios and grapes, crops that can’t be fallowed in a dry year) increased by 21 percent. Meanwhile, acreage of vegetable crops decreased [...]

“Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.” – Howard Zinn Articles What did they know? And When did they know it? Old news worth another look And independent scientists say…. And environmental groups across the board agree… What did they know? And When did they know it? In retrospect, state and federal water managers may wish they had sent less water out of upstream reservoirs last year. Even in an average water year, it’s a challenge to meet the needs of all the water users above and below the Delta and the needs of several runs of migrating and spawning fish as well. And what’s an “average” water year? Probably it is much dryer than anyone thought [...]

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence Articles The view from behind the eight ball From barriers to tunnels Getting by with a lot of help from our friends The view from behind the eight ball U. S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was at the C. W. “Bill” Jones Pumping Plant last week to hear from the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority and Resources Secretary John Laird about how bad things are for exporters as a result of the drought, and by the end of the day, she was supporting the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Ten people from the Delta – in addition [...]

“Go not for every grief to the physician, nor for every quarrel to the lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot.” – George Herbert So much has happened in the first six weeks of 2014 that anyone may be forgiven for feeling dazed and confused. To help you sort out one thread of events, we’re providing a chronology of drought-related developments, with some details about what is in the various declarations and bills. We’ll leave it to you to see some of the interesting connections. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan has been pushing forward with tightly-structured open houses around the state. Smiling acolytes display glossy foam boards and shiny brochures full of errors, and if you want to make [...]