Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta (2012) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 15-34
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From page 15... ...
In anticipation of the need to manage and respond to changes that are likely to beset the delta, a variety of planning activities have been undertaken. In addition, there have been actions taken under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA)
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16 SUSTAINABLE WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE DELTA FIGURE 1-1 The Delta. SOURCE: Reproduced from NRC (2010)
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Most references to the delta do not include San Francisco Bay itself -- typically, the western extent is around Suisun Bay -- but hydrologically, chemically, and biologically, San Francisco Bay is an integral part of the system and too often is not considered in analysis of the delta. The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries include all of the watersheds that drain to and from the great Central Valley of California's interior.
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From page 18... ...
, which include southern portions of the San Francisco Bay Area, the western side of the San Joaquin Valley, and much of southern California. Significant amounts of water are diverted to irrigate delta lands, and irrigation return flow is discharged into delta channels.
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The SWP supplies domestic water users in southern California (and domestic use in the southern San Francisco Bay Area) as well as Central Valley agriculture in proportions that are determined in any given year by the CDWR based primarily on water in surface storage and anticipated runoff.
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The species that occupied the delta historically were adapted to variability in flow, quality, and all the various factors they helped to determine. The history of human development of land and water use in the delta is a history of attempts, with varying degrees of success, to constrain this environmental variability, to reduce environmental uncertainty, and to make the delta landscape more suitable for farming and as a source of water supplies.
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From page 21... ...
The importance of environmental uses of water has been reflected further in many state regulatory decisions and, more recently, in judicial interpretations of the federal Endangered Species Act and the California Endangered Species Act. Several taxa of delta fishes that live in or migrate through the delta have been listed as threatened and endangered.
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22 SUSTAINABLE WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE DELTA FIGURE 1-2 Delta levees, 2006. There are approximately 1,100 miles of levees in the delta.
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From page 23... ...
. The Delta Reform Act also specified that the newly created Delta Science Program "shall function as a replacement for, and successor to, the CALFED Science Program" and that the newly created Delta Independent Science Board "shall replace the CALFED Independent Science Board" (California Water Code § 85280(c)
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From page 24... ...
Also beginning in mid-decade, federal, state, and local water agencies, state and federal fishery management agencies, environmental organizations, and other parties began work on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) , an early draft of which was the subject of a recent National Research Council report (NRC 2011)
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. However, in some cases, unexercised riparian rights may not enjoy this superior priority (in re Waters of Long Valley Creek Stream System, 599 P.2d 656 [Cal.
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From page 26... ...
For example, agricultural water users with relatively senior priorities may plant higher priced, permanent crops such as grapes and fruit trees, whereas more junior users might not feel comfortable making an investment in such permanent crops. Despite this relative predictability, appropriative rights can be modified by the State Water Board, which has continuing jurisdiction to modify water permits with conditions to protect other water users and the environment.
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California has no comprehensive, statewide instream flow program to supplement these privately held instream flow water rights. WATER RIGHTS AFFECTING THE BAY-DELTA Water Contracts The federal Bureau of Reclamation (operator of the CVP)
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In 2009, California passed a comprehensive package of legislative reforms known as the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009. Among other things, the new legislation required the SWB to develop new flow criteria to protect public trust resources of the delta ecosystem (Water Code § 85086)
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From page 29... ...
. Other environmental statutes that have relevance to the delta include the federal Clean Water Act and NEPA and the state Natural Communities Conservation Planning Act, the California Endangered Species Act, and many provisions of the California Water Code.
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From page 30... ...
. This review, A Scientific Assessment of Alternatives for Reducing Water Management Effects on Threatened and Endangered Fishes in California's Bay Delta,9 considered the following questions: · Are there any "reasonable and prudent alternatives" (RPAs)
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The committee's review should include existing scientific information, such as that in the NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center's paper on decline of Central Valley fall-run Chinook salmon, and products developed through the Pelagic Organism Decline studies (including the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis reviews and analyses that are presently under way)
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Sacramento, CA: CALFED Bay Delta Program. California Department of Finance.
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2010. A Scientific Assessment of Alternatives for Reducing Water Management Effects on Threatened and Endangered Fishes in California's Bay Delta.
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