<html><head></head><body><div class="ydp410f8c0eyahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"> <div><div><span style="border-collapse:separate;line-height:normal;border-spacing:0px;font-size:14px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span style="border-collapse:separate;line-height:normal;border-spacing:0px;">Newsom's water policies are harming the Trinity River too!</span></div></span><div><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">TS<br></div></div><span style="border-collapse:separate;line-height:normal;border-spacing:0px;font-size:14px;"><div><span style="border-collapse:separate;line-height:normal;border-spacing:0px;"><div><a href="https://www.sacbee.com/article282230423.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.sacbee.com/article282230423.html</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div><b>Deep Disappointment:’ Global climate envoy Newsom is alienating environmentalists at home </b></div><div><br></div><div>BY ARI PLACHTA UPDATED NOVEMBER 29, 2023 </div><div><br></div><div>Gov.
Gavin Newsom has been positioning himself as a global climate leader
this year, evangelizing California environmentalism in China and at the
United Nations. But at home, he is increasingly at loggerheads with
leading environmentalists. </div><div><br></div><div>Environmental
groups and tribes say the governor’s plan to protect water supply from
climate change will exacerbate existing ecological devastation and
irreversibly damage the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the central
hub of the state’s water system. </div><div><br></div><div>While this
relationship has been fraying for years, a new fault line opened this
month when Newsom used newfound authority to fast track approval for the
largest proposed piece of concrete water infrastructure to be built by
the state in decades. </div><div><br></div><div>“We were expecting a
very different administration. He was an extremely environmentally
focused mayor in San Francisco and we were expecting something similar,”
said Barry Nelson, a longtime analyst for the Natural Resources Defense
Council now representing the Golden State Salmon Association. </div><div><br></div><div>The
Bee talked to nearly a dozen leading advocates and experts on
California water. Many give credit to Newsom on other issues, but share
the belief that his water policies fall short of their expectations. </div><div><br></div><div>Questions
put to the governor’s office on water strategy were referred to Natural
Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. He said the administration has aimed
to break from traditional conflict-ridden water policy debates, but
disagreement is inevitable. He also highlighted Newsom’s support for dam
removal on the Klamath and Eel rivers.</div><div><br></div><div> “While
we want to bring everybody along, we have a responsibility to ensure
that we have water supplies for Californians,” Crowfoot said. “At the
end of the day, we have to provide a balanced approach and that’s what
we’re doing.” </div><div><br></div><div>Environmentalists are acutely
concerned with the beleaguered delta, a massive estuary that draws
together California’s major rivers and feeds giant pumps that ship water
south to cities and farms. </div><div><br></div><div>Newsom’s sweeping
2022 water strategy, which includes programs such as safe drinking water
to communities and water recycling, has sparked specific criticism for
his support for three major proposals related to the Bay-Delta watershed
and Sacramento Valley. </div><div><br></div><div>Those proposals:
Negotiated agreements with major water agencies to relinquish supplies
voluntarily, instead of regulations for minimum flows through the delta;
a controversial proposal to build a tunnel to transport water from the
Sacramento river beneath the delta; and the plan to build Sites
Reservoir in a valley north of Sacramento. </div><div><br></div><div>In
the governor’s framing, his approach is meant to address the strains of
climate change on water supply. But environmental advocates warn his
plan won’t protect the delta’s deteriorating ecosystem or ensure that a
sufficient amount of water pass through, threatening disaster for the
local farming economy, Native American communities and threatened and
endangered fish — from salmon and steelhead to green sturgeon and delta
smelt. </div><div><br></div><div>Opposition to Newsom’s tunnel project
among state lawmakers almost tanked a budget deal last summer when he
tried unsuccessfully to include it in a last-minute infrastructure law,
SB 249. The law allows the governor to pick projects for judicial
streamlining. Environmental challenges in court have to be limited to
270 days. </div><div><br></div><div>Groups such as Friends of the River,
Tell the Dam Truth and Patagonia also urged against Newsom’s selection
of Sites Reservoir for streamlining under the law, citing research that
decomposing organic matter underneath the reservoir could also emit
362,000 metric tons of methane emissions despite the project’s branding
as “green infrastructure.” </div><div><br></div><div>“Do we need a
really expensive new reservoir that won’t provide very much water and
has all these negative impacts?” asked Keiko Mertz, policy director for
Friends of the River. “The answer is clearly no. We should be saving
taxpayer dollars.” </div><div><br></div><div>FEINSTEIN ON STEROIDS? </div><div><br></div><div>Several
leading environmental advocates said the Newsom administration has
turned a deaf ear to groups representing communities and stakeholders
that would face negative impacts from the proposed “voluntary
agreements,” as well as Sites and delta tunnel projects. </div><div><br></div><div>Barry
Nelson, the former NRDC analyst, compared Newsom’s strategy on
California water supply to that of late California senator Dianne
Feinstein, who developed a reputation for closely aligning with Central
Valley farmers. </div><div><br></div><div>“Newsom’s strategy is the
Feinstein strategy on steroids,” Nelson said. “One of her staffers once
said to me, ‘The senator is going to earn her environmental credibility
on forestry and desert issues and offshore oil, but her water policies
would reflect the desire of Central Valley agriculture.’” </div><div><br></div><div>Natural
Resources Secretary Crowfoot called the notion “wholly inaccurate,”
citing a $300 million-a-year commitment made by Newsom in his first year
in office to safe drinking water for low-income communities in the
Central Valley.</div><div><br></div><div>“We have to adjust our system
for climate change,” Crowfoot said. “At the end of the day, there are
groups and leaders on all sides of California water that will criticize a
balanced approach, but it’s not going to change our focus.” </div><div><br></div><div>For
its part, Sites Reservoir has completed the environmental review
process and must receive a water right from the State Water Resources
Control Board before moving forward. That public hearing is expected
next year. </div><div><br></div><div>Andrew Rypel, a fisheries biologist
and sturgeon expert at UC Davis, said celebrating dams coming down on
the Eel River one week and celebrating the construction of Sites
Reservoir the next is a strategy riddled with mixed messages. </div><div><br></div><div>“Is
Sites going to result in more or less water being exported from the
river? I think the answer is more,” Rypel said. “And is that going to
help or hurt native fish? Probably hurt them.” </div><div><br></div><div>Last
month, the water board laid out long-awaited options for new water
quality standards in the delta that included Newsom’s voluntary
agreements proposal, which a coalition of statewide water agencies
support. </div><div><br></div><div>Jerry Brown, executive director of
the quasi-governmental agency Sites Project Authority, said around 17%
of storage within the reservoir will be dedicated for environmental
purposes including distributing flow through the Yolo bypass and other
nature reserves. </div><div><br></div><div>“Any water supply project has
pluses and minuses,” Brown said. “Is there going to be water to fill
this storage project? All of the research that I’ve reviewed says yes
there will be.” </div><div><br></div><div>‘DISAPPOINTMENT’ WITH THE MASTER PLAN </div><div><br></div><div>Back
in 2020, executive director of Restore the Delta Barbara
Barrigan-Parilla said she had plans to meet with Secretary Crowfoot but
soon stopped hearing from the Newsom administration on issues impacting
delta farmers, residents and tribal communities. </div><div><br></div><div>“I
have the deepest disappointment on water issues in Governor Newsom,
probably more than with any other governor,” she said. “Governor Newsom
and his team came in and promised one thing and have delivered something
completely different. They have cut out the delta community in every
way, shape and form.” </div><div><br></div><div>She warned that moving
ahead with the voluntary agreements, building Sites, and building the
tunnel would mean loss of the delta — the largest estuary on the North
American west coast, one of the most agriculturally productive regions
in the U.S. and a culturally significant place for indigenous
Californians for thousands of years. </div><div><br></div><div>“I sit
here and wonder, ‘Does he really think he has to deliver this bad plan
so that he looks like he’s building infrastructure or problem solving
for a presidential run?’” Barrigan-Parilla said. “I find that deeply
troublesome because I don’t know how much of it is really a commitment
to the idea that this is the best path forward for water management.” </div><div><br></div><div>The
debate over Sites, the tunnels and Bay-Delta plan also coincides with a
civil rights investigation by the federal Environmental Protection
Agency after tribes and environmental justice groups accused the state
water board of discrimination and mismanagement that have contributed to
the delta’s ecological deterioration. </div><div><br></div><div>“The
State Water Board really shouldn’t be proceeding with approving any of
these major infrastructure projects until the water quality standards in
the delta are sufficiently updated,” said Stephanie Safdi, an attorney
who filed the complaint and lecturer at Stanford Law. “They set the
amount of flow needed to create a sustainable ecosystem that’s also
going to support thriving tribes.” </div><div><br></div><div>The water
board is holding meetings and workshops on the Bay-Delta Plan, and will
post future water rights hearing information on the Sites Reservoir
project. This story was originally published November 29, 2023, 5:00 AM.</div></div></span></div></span></div><div><br></div></div></div></body></html>