Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
sea. They want diversions out of the watershed in general—and out of
the Delta in particular—to be curtailed.”
The question of whether the Endangered Species Act could trump
farmers and cities concerned about their water supply came to a head in
the early 1990s. The debate roared around whether the state should issue a
“flow standard,” specifying a certain amount of water to be released at sen-
sitive times of year for fish, and whether the federal government would
force the issue. Adversaries eventually came to agreement through a series
of accords, lawsuits, and legislative initiatives. Among these was the Bay-
Delta Accord of 1994. The accord, which created the interagency CALFED
Bay-Delta Program, required that those managing water supplies and en-
forcing fish protections shepherd supplies for the benefit of all uses. The
accord also set a state water standard that would maintain certain levels of
salinity in a critical estuarine mixing zone around Suisun Bay, in lieu of
mandating specific quantities of flow out to sea (see p. 219, “Water Rights
for the Ecosystem”).
Another milestone in the water wars, the Central Valley Project Im-
provement Act of 1992, forced the giant federal waterworks to dedicate a
certain percentage of its annual yield to the restoration of fisheries and
wetlands. It also called for a doubling of anadromous fish populations by
2002, though implementation was delayed by years of lawsuits.
“This is a starved estuary,” says Gary Bobker of The Bay Institute,
whose organization has been a tireless champion of the most dewatered
and disenfranchised parts of the watershed. “We've radically altered its hy-
drograph. And even larger scale changes are being planned upstream. If
we make changes upstream, there will not only be consequences for the
delta but also in the bay, the ocean, the rest of the ecosystem. It all comes
down to the connectivity of an estuary.”
The larger-scale changes Bobker refers to include the latest version of a
peripheral canal. Water managers have long proposed such a canal to con-
nect the upper Sacramento River and its fresh water directly to the giant
supply pumps at Tracy, bypassing the delta and all its fish, tidal incursions,
and turf wars. Californians rejected several versions of the canal, most re-
cently a 400-foot-wide trench version proposed in 1982. A stumpier mini-
canal was proposed in 2007 and, more recently, some pipelines and tun-
nels that might be less disruptive to local landowners. Whatever the
physical format, engineers claim it will not only solve saltwater intrusion
problems once and for all but perhaps even help the fish.
More delta visions and conservation plans seem to get created every
year. Politics, as always, drives water management in California in cycles
far too short to ever fully embrace the longer cycles at play in the state's
climate, rivers, bays, and ocean waters.
