Brown, Newsom want to talk water
Both ask for delay on restrictions to cities and farms
river restoration plan that would restrict the water supplies of California cities and farms, including San Francisco, was put on hold Wednesday after Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom joined Gov. Jerry Brown in requesting more time for nego tiations over the controversial initiative.
The State Water Resources Control Board was scheduled to vote Wednesday on a yearslong proposal to boost flows in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries, part of an effort to restore California’s declining salmon population and revive the languishing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
But amid widespread watersupply concerns by municipal users and agriculture, the State Water Board agreed to postpone the vote to Dec. 11 and let closed-door talks between critics of the plan and state mediators play out. State water
officials have wanted to forge a compromise deal on the river restoration to help ward off the possibility of a legal fight, though their deadline for an agreement had passed.
“When you have a governor and an incoming governor just asking for a short delay to get into it ... I want to give them a chance to bring everybody together a little better,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Board.
Brown’s and Newsom’s intervention speaks to the gravity of the so-called Bay Delta Plan. The proposal, supported by environmentalists and fishing groups, would keep more water in California’s rivers to prevent the collapse of the Delta, an oasis for myriad wildlife and a hub for water flows to cities and farms. The rivers that nourish the Delta sometimes dip to just 10 percent of their natural levels because of heavy pumping.
However, an unusual alliance of urban and agricultural water suppliers has criticized the plan for requiring too much sacrifice. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which gets the bulk of its water from the Tuolumne River high in the Sierra, estimates that Bay Area water users could face cuts of 40 percent during dry times.
While Brown has supported restoration of California’s degraded river system, he and Newsom, the state’s lieutenant governor, sent a letter late Tuesday to the State Water Board asking that the issue be put off until next month.
“A short extension will allow these negotiations to progress and could result in a faster, less contentious and more durable outcome,” Brown and Newsom wrote. “During this time, we pledge to actively and meaningfully engage to bring this vital matter to a successful closure.”
The status of talks between opponents of the plan and state mediators is unclear. The parties have committed to nondisclosure agreements and have been mum about the details of their backroom conversations.
However, Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, assured the State Water Board on Wednesday that stakeholders are coming closer to finding middle ground.
“In the last two months, we’ve made more progress than we’ve made the prior two years combined,” he said.
What a negotiated agreement might look like also is not clear. The State Water Board has insisted that flows in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries must remain at 40 percent of their natural levels to save fish populations and Delta habitat. Critics, however, say they can’t afford to give up that much water.
A vote on increasing the flows in the San Joaquin River watershed has already been postponed once.
With Newsom involved in a long campaign for governor, he has not been as involved in the issue as Brown. Many of those attending Wednesday’s meeting of the State Water Board, as well as board member Steven Moore, questioned whether state leaders would make the initiative a priority and keep it from falling off the radar.
“The governor-elect has a lot on his plate,” Moore said. “How would you answer (questions about) the skepticism of the level of his engagement?”
Some supporters of the plan feared that putting off the vote — again — was simply giving in to a strategy led by opponents of continuously delaying the matter.
Many water agencies, including the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, however, supported the postponement.
“I believe the best solution to this problem will come from voluntary negotiated agreements with the state that will deliver the best results for both the ecosystem of the Bay Delta and the residents of San Francisco,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who has recently expressed concern about the state’s plan.