State should use science to determine water flows
How low our expectations of government have sunk. Federal agencies now regularly deny science that explains the warming of our planet and rising seas. Backroom deals and obstruction of the public’s will have become so commonplace that we notice when one of our state government’s agencies takes action to protect the environment, even if it falls well short of the mark.
So it was last month when the State Water Resources Control Board finally required increased flows from three San Joaquin River tributaries, as the first step in a process to update water quality standards for the San Francisco Bay estuary. After almost 10 years of work, board members withstood tremendous political pressure to delay, or abandon, new protections that, for the first time, will require those who divert water upstream to share responsibility for the San Francisco Bay estuary ecosystem with agencies that export water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Lost in the celebration is the fact that the new standards will require only two of every five drops of water to remain in the rivers during just five months of the year — not enough to protect water quality, ecosystem health, or the public fisheries that are the water board’s charge. Less than a decade ago, the board determined that 60 percent of the San Joaquin valley’s winter-spring runoff was necessary to protect public benefits. In 2013, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife concluded that “substantial evidence demonstrates that 50 percent-60 percent (of the San Joaquin’s) unimpaired flow is necessary” to meet state and federal requirements for protection of fall-run chinook salmon — and more flow might be necessary to protect other resources.
The board opted for weaker environmental protections in order to reduce impacts to agribusiness and San Francisco, ignoring the potential for changed agricultural practices and investment in sustainable water use to ease or eliminate the impact of reduced water diversions. But at least the board heard extensive public comments and conducted technical reviews that acknowledged the wealth of existing science, which reveals that our rivers and fisheries need more flow.
In contrast, DFW and the Department of Water Resources negotiated in secret with the Trump administration and powerful water districts to develop a set of “voluntary settlement agreements” for the board to adopt instead. Because the negotiators rejected meaningful input from biologists, their agreements include paltry river flows that are sometimes lower than the catastrophic status quo and, in most cases, less than one-third of what the board and DFW had said was necessary only a few years ago. Some of this water would be purchased at taxpayer expense or provided only if other environmental protections are eliminated. Instead of the river flows scientists say are necessary, the negotiators offered habitat projects that are already required or under construction, will not work without adequate additional flows, or that lack any scientific justification at all.
Fully developed and analyzed voluntary agreements that protect public health and the environment should be encouraged. Faced with proposals that were anything but, the board did the right thing in not delaying further. Nevertheless, the standards it adopted must be improved.
The next phase of updates to the board’s water quality objectives will address flow from the Sacramento River valley and total flow from the Central Valley into San Francisco Bay. These new safeguards will affect numerous imperiled species, public fisheries and aspects of water quality. The board in the days ahead will provide opportunities for public comment; Bay Area residents who want to see their government agencies protect our bay need to speak loudly in favor of science-based proposals rather than those based on fear and expedience.