rently scheduled for the 2014 ballot. If approved by the voters, the twice- delayed measure would likely provide funding for a “significant amount” of the ecosystem restoration activities under the BDCP, according to Anton Favorini-Csorba, fiscal and policy analyst with the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The bond includes an allocation of $750 million for projects that sup- port Delta sustainability, such as levee improvements, water infrastructure or habitat enhancement.
The Delta Plan and the BDCP are separate processes that revolve around the same intent of meeting the co- equal goals. The water package requires the BDCP to be incorporated into the Delta Plan, provided it adheres to the standards of a Natural Communities Conversation Plan, the state’s version of an HCP that has higher standards of environmental protection and process requirements for transparency. Ques- tions about that determination can be appealed to the Delta Stewardship Council for approval. “There’s been a fair amount of confusion” between the BDCP and the Delta Plan, Knopp said. “We call for a resolution for the matter of water conveyance through the Delta but we don’t specify what that means. The single plan for the Delta is the Delta Plan. Ultimately, the BDCP, once it’s completed and approved by the Department of Fish and Wildlife, will be incorporated into the Delta Plan resulting in a single plan for the Delta.”
The Delta Plan has been met with wide disdain. Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, derided it as “warmed over CALFED light,” while the San Luis- Delta Mendota Water Authority and Westlands Water District immediately filed suit to halt its implementation. “The fundamental problem with the Delta Plan is that it goes well beyond the statutory authority granted by the Legislature,” Tom Birmingham, Westlands’ general manager, said in a press release. “That extension of authority will impact the ability of the state to manage current water sup- plies and develop new infrastructure to secure California’s future needs.” Knopp called the lawsuit “disap- pointing, but not unexpected,” and defended the Delta Plan as “a moder- ate and reasonable path forward that is consistent with the requirements and authorities granted by the Delta Reform Act.”
Procedural issues aside, it is the talk about large underground tunnels and the disruption of people’s lives and property through a multi-year con- struction process that fuels most of the BDCP controversy. The Brown Admin- istration stresses that BDCP is essential if the state is to move past its decades of problems in the Delta.
In an April 14 opinion piece
published in The Sacramento Bee, Jerry Meral, deputy secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, wrote “we are, at last, positioned to achieve” a safer
water supply and restored Delta eco- system through the BDCP. “Having new water intakes 35 miles from the existing pumps would improve the ability of California’s major water projects to divert water when and where it does the least ecological harm,” Meral wrote. “An investment of only $15 billion – the estimated cost of a new Delta con- veyance system – would secure these supplies from disaster and prevent an economic calamity, as well as secure the health of the Delta ecosystem.” A process as large in scope as the BDCP has been heavily vetted by federal and state fishery agencies to ensure every aspect of the plan meets Endangered Species Act requirements. As Western Water went to press, analysis of flows standards and other parameters continued. Although “significant progress” has been made in the draft BDCP, there are remain- ing issues to resolve, William Stelle, West Coast salmon coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service wrote in a May 19 opinion piece pub- lished in The Sacramento Bee. “The BDCP’s core tenets are grounded in good science [and] redoing the basic plumbing is necessary to avoid a disastrous collapse of the existing system when the next catastrophe hits,” Stelle wrote. “Is there agreement on all these points? No. Are there legitimate scientific uncertainties which underlie the active issues? Absolutely. Do we think the BDCP as currently drafted
Under the BDCP more than 100,000 acres worth of habitat projects would be created or protected. The Isenberg Sandhill Crane Reserve in San Joaquin County.
8 Western Water
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