In addition, “pulse flows” for migrating fish in the fall would be needed and increased fall outflow in above normal years, the scientists concluded. The report “was based on the best available science,” State Water Board staff said. But the staff emphasized that the report did not account for all the functions the Delta serves or reflect the multi-dimensional balancing requirement of the State Water Board and its analysis of the water supply, economic, and hydro- power effects of a broad range of alternatives.
Howard said the flow criteria report would not be the sole basis for possible revamped water quality standards that could lead to increased freshwater flow.
“There is a lot of information in that report and certainly we will be using that information in the review but we have tried to make it clear that this particular report did not try to balance the hydropower, cold water storage, water delivery needs and flow needs so that’s the process we intend to take a look at now – to see whether or not, on balance, there’s some need for additional flows,” he said.
Jerry Johns, a water consultant who spent a lengthy career with the State Water Board and the Depart- ment of Water Resources, said the flow criteria report “has the potential of really undoing a lot of good things that happen upstream,” such as the mainte- nance of cold water pools for salmon. Johns noted that “in the lingo of the water quality business, flow criteria are not enforceable standards.” The authors of the report “just needed to say what some of the fish would need, in which they did a good job explain- ing their rationale, but they did no evaluation of the effects on other fish species or other beneficial uses which is required before enforceable water quality objectives or standards can be adopted,” he said.
Implementing the report’s recom- mended flow numbers “without that balancing of interests would be dev- astating – you would no longer have
July/August 2012
salmon in the Central Valley” due to the loss of cold water pools in upstream reservoirs which are now vital for maintaining fish acceptable salmon spawning habitat in the streams below these reservoirs.
That said, setting flows for the estuary “is not an insurmountable task,” said Johns.
“It really depends on what the Board does, because they need to take into consideration all the other things that are going on [and] I’m not sure the Board members have thought about that yet,” he said. “And truly it is complicated.”
Many stakeholders fear the State
Water Board will establish a strict nexus between water quality objectives and the burden on water rights holders to help meet them.
“One of our concerns is [the State
Water Board] has said, ‘Don’t worry, we are just setting objectives, we are not pinning you down yet, we are not making any decisions on which entities will be responsible for meeting the objectives,’” said Valerie Kincaid, an attorney for the San Joaquin Tributar- ies Authority. “But of course, depend- ing how those objectives work and how they are written; only a few parties can be responsible for an objective, especially if the objectives are very narrow.”
Though establishing and imple- menting a flow objective takes time, there is a sense of urgency by the state. The Delta Stewardship Council has called for adoption of the flow ob- jectives by June 2014 and the State Water Board says the process “must be conducted in parallel, rather than sequentially” with the BDCP. This issue of Western Water ex- amines the issues associated with the State Water Board’s proposed revision of the water quality Bay-Delta Plan, most notably the question of whether additional flows are needed for the sys- tem, and how they might be provided.
A Modified Flow Regime The State Water Board allocates sur- face water rights and is responsible for
7
By June 2014, the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to revise water quality objectives that reflect the influence of freshwater inflow and its interaction with salinity on the ecosystem.