Comparing Futures for the Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta

Notes

notes CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1. For the location of individual islands named herein, see map Delta Islands on page xx. 2. See Chapter 4 for details on water use by region. 3. In the first four years of the CALFED investment program, a total of $78 million was spent on levees, only 29 percent of the amount envisioned in the CALFED Record of Decision, signed in August 2000. Total CALFED spending from all sources was $2.5 billion, 66 percent of the level envisaged (Department of Finance, 2005; CALFED, 2000). CHAPTER 2. THE LEGACIES OF DELTA HISTORY 1. Unless otherwise noted, the discussion in this section draws from Thompson (1957). 2. The Minor Project widened the Sacramento River to 3,500 feet and a mean flood stage of 35 feet. Horseshoe Bend was cut off, Decker Island was created, and a narrow midstream island in front of the city of RioVista was removed. 3. Drawing on experience from the 1907 flood, the Major Project proposed 600,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of discharge capability for the Sacramento River. Creation of the Yolo Bypass was first proposed in a report by Manson and Grunsky for the Public Works Commission in 1894. Other flood control 193 proposals in this period included that of the Dabney Commission in the early 1900s. 4. The locations of both channels are depicted in Figure 1.2. 5. In 2004, Stockton handled 1.4 percent of total volume and only 0.1 percent of total value of California’s sea trade. Sacramento’s shares were even lower,at 0.5 percent and 0.06 percent, respectively (www.wisertrade.org) 6. As discussed in Chapter 4,upstream diversions still have major effects on Delta inflows. 7. See Jackson and Paterson (1977) for a discussion of the case. 8. Even in the 1920s, the weakness of Delta levees was seen as a major constraint on Delta solutions, including the design and operation of a saltwater barrier (Young, 1929; Matthew, 1931b). 9. In reaching this conclusion, the Plan’s authors drew on several studies conducted in the 1920s, including a 1925 study by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), a 1928 privately financed study on the economics of the barrier (the “Means Report”),a 1929 study for the Department of PublicWorks (Young 1929), and the report of the joint federal-state commission appointed in 1930 (the Hoover-Young Commission). Among these, the only report to advocate a barrier was the USBR report. See Jackson and Paterson (1977). 10. The proposal was launched in the committee’s 1963 report, Report of the Interagency Delta Committee for Delta Planning (Jackson and Paterson 1977). 11. In 1978,the SWRCB adopted a new water quality control plan for the Delta and Suisun Marsh (the 1978 Delta Plan) and set new Delta water quality standards with Decision 1485 (D-1485), again focusing on environmental as well as human water quality needs and implying greater restrictions on water exports. Following successful legal challenges at the trial court level, the 1986 “Racanelli Decision”affirmed the SWRCB’s broad authority and discretion over water rights and quality issues, including jurisdiction over the CVP. The SWRCB was ordered to prepare a new plan for Delta flows and export guidelines with a greater environmental emphasis. This new draft, put forth in 1988, was withdrawn the following year amid controversy over its legal and water rights implications. Chapter 8 discusses the regulatory issues arising relative to the most recent water quality control plan for the Delta, finalized in 1995 and updated in 2006. 12. In 1970,a preliminary report from the U.S. Geological Survey suggested that the southern San Francisco Bay could suffer from reduced Delta outflows. A 1973 report by the director of the California Department of Fish and Game endorsed the canal for correcting adverse conditions in the Delta for fish (notably problems caused by pumping in the southern Delta), but it also stressed the importance of maintaining adequate flows within the Delta itself and of involving fisheries note s to page s 23–34 194 agencies in the decision-making process (Arnett 1973). That same year,a student uncovered an unknown,preliminary report from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that was highly critical of the canal. The student gave the report to the Friends of the Earth and it was made public. DWR published a 600page draft Environmental Impact...