[env-trinity] PRESS RELEASE: State Water Board's Bay-Delta Environmental Analysis Falls Short

[Tom Stokely]

January 19, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

*Muddying the Waters: State Water Board’s Bay-Delta Environmental Analysis
Falls Short*
*Agency’s CEQA Analysis Provides No Clear Plan for Restoring and Protecting
California’s Greatest Aquatic Resource*

The State Water Control Board’s long-awaited environmental assessment of
the San Francisco Bay/ Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary correctly
describes the dire state of current affairs: keystone native fish species
are nearing extinction, commercial fisheries, sport angling and
recreational opportunities are disappearing, costs for domestic water
services are skyrocketing, toxic algal blooms are threatening human health
and wildlife, and salinity is intruding far into the Delta, threatening
domestic water supplies and arable farmland.

The Water Board also notes in the 6,000-page assessment that tree nuts –
notoriously thirsty crops that have been the mainstay of San Joaquin Valley
agribusiness for two decades – are now spreading northward into the
Sacramento Valley.

The Board tacitly acknowledges it has responded to recent droughts in an ad
hoc fashion by waiving water quality standards, a policy that has expedited
water deliveries to agricultural operations despite dwindling supplies and
concomitant environmental degradation.

But while the Board has met its obligation under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to accurately report existing conditions,
it has failed to present a coherent plan to remedy the crisis as required
by law and the agency’s own policies, said Max Gomberg, a senior policy
advisor for the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and the former
Climate and Conservation Manager for the State Water Board.

“The assessment does not include a full solution set, it does not track the
science, there is no serious attempt to weigh costs and benefits, and there
is no acknowledgement of accountability for the Board’s past actions – and
inactions – that have been harmful to tribes, communities, and the
environment,” Gomberg said.

Gomberg cited some of the most egregious examples of the assessment’s
failings:

• It does not specify new and necessary rules for reservoir operations,
water conveyance projects, water temperature, fish passage infrastructure,
and habitat restoration.

• It provides no proposals for restoring equity to tribes deprived of water
and fisheries by government projects.

• It cites the necessity of higher downriver flows and colder temperatures
to maintain salmon fisheries but provides no concrete baselines or
proposals for either.

• It entertains exclusionary voluntary agreements among water districts and
government agencies despite clear evidence that such accords are inadequate
and would circumvent the Board’s duty to set and enforce protective water
quality standards.

• It provides no clear cost/benefit analyses weighing the value of an
improved environment, better water quality, enhanced watershed, estuarine,
and riverine habitats, sustainable fisheries, and tribal and community
prosperity against Central Valley corporate agriculture.

Tom Stokely, C-WIN’s advisor on anadromous fisheries and the federal
Central Valley Project (CVP), excoriated the report for its lack of
attention to the Trinity River, which provides essential cold water to
Klamath/Trinity salmon, one of the last major anadromous fish runs in the
continental United States.

“Excessive water exports from the Trinity River to the CVP during recent
drought created severe cold-water depletion, devastating the
Klamath/Trinity fish,” said Stokely. “Trinity River Coho salmon, a federal
and state threatened species, suffered nearly 75% egg mortality at the
Trinity River Hatchery in November 2021 due to warm water because of low
Trinity Lake storage resulting from excessive agricultural exports. But the
Trinity River and Trinity Reservoir aren’t even shown on the report’s maps
– even though the report acknowledges that on average almost 700,000
acre-feet of water a year is exported from the Trinity and sent south via
the CVP to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness operations.”

C-WIN’s Executive Director, Carolee Krieger, noted the report made no
attempt to propose remedies for the greatest oversight in state water
policy: “paper” water.

“That’s water that exists in state water rights claims and other documents,
but not in our reservoirs, rivers or aquifers,” said Krieger. “The Board
has acknowledged that water rights claims exceed supplies by a factor of
five. Until they start bringing claims in line with water that actually
exists, any assessment they produce amounts to little more than wasted
taxpayer money.”

Ultimately, concluded Gomberg, “The Board has refused to acknowledge its
obligations and use its authority to reverse a long-established legacy of
social harm and environmental degradation. In the current situation,
everyone who is not an agricultural baron loses. We deserve better. The
Board needs to revisit its Bay-Delta environmental analysis and come back
with a better plan.”

*Contact:*

*Max Gomberg*
C-WIN Senior Policy Advisor
Phone: (415) 310-7013
Email: maxgombergca at gmail.com

*Tom Stokely*
C-WIN Senior Policy Analyst
Phone: (503) 524-0315
Email: tgstoked at gmail.com

*Carolee Krieger*
C-WIN Executive Director
Phone: (805) ‭451-9565‬
Email: caroleekrieger7 at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20240118/bd02f1d3/attachment-0001.html>