Key Facts About the Bay-Delta Plan
The State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) is responsible for allocating surface water rights, protecting the public trust, and preventing the waste and unreasonable use of water.
California’s Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act (Porter-Cologne Act) and the federal Clean Water Act require the State Board to create a water quality control plan for the Bay-Delta. The plan must identify beneficial uses of water in the Bay-Delta. The plan must also establish and implement flow objectives to protect those beneficial uses.
The State Board must review the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan (Bay-Delta Plan) every three years. This review includes water quality standards, notably Delta salinity, and flow into and out of the Delta.
The Bay-Delta Plan is long overdue for an update. In order to fulfill the requirements of the Porter-Cologne Act the next update to the Bay-Delta Plan must establish an enforceable program to reverse the precipitous decline of fish species in the Bay-Delta and its tributaries.
CSPA’s Campaign to Complete the Bay-Delta Plan
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) has represented the interests of the public trust in this process since 1995. CSPA participated in the development of the 1995 Bay-Delta standards and the implementation of those standards in 2000.
On September 28, 2023, the State Board released a Draft Staff Report (Report) proposing updates to the Bay-Delta Plan. In its comments on the proposed updates CSPA encouraged the State Board to act urgently on the Report with an update to the Bay-Delta Plan that supports restoration of the Bay-Delta ecosystem.
CSPA did criticize the Report, however, for failing to give due weight to the common-law public trust doctrine and to the reasonable use doctrine as part of the foundation of the Report’s analysis.
In California, water belongs to the people. A user of water must respect the rights and interests of others, including the peoples’ property right to robust fisheries, clean water, and healthy ecosystems.
CSPA continues to campaign for an update to the Bay-Delta that includes inflows and outflows sufficient enough to restore the Bay-Delta’s once thriving fisheries.
Background of Bay-Delta Plan Updates
According to the State Board’s update to the Bay-Delta Plan in 1995, the beneficial uses of the Bay-Delta have been degraded by past and present human activities including “water development, land use, wastewater discharges, introduced species, and harvesting.” A degradation “that is evidenced by the declines in the populations of many biological resources of the Estuary.”
In 2010 the State Board went on to say that the “best available science suggests that current flows are insufficient to protect public trust resources.”
Unimpaired flow is the flow that would naturally occur in a river in the absence of reservoirs and diversions. The State Board’s 2010 flow report recommended that the Bay-Delta needed 60% of unimpaired San Joaquin River inflow from February through June. Despite this recommendation the State Board only proposed 35% of unimpaired flow.
In addition the State Board proposed to eliminate a requirement of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act to double salmon and steelhead populations. The State Board also proposed to relax south Delta salinity standards. CSPA’s comments in response to these proposals were overwhelmingly negative.
By 2018 the State Board had implemented a new updated Bay-Delta Plan. The new plan for flow in the San Joaquin River required releases from reservoirs on the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers to provide 40% of unimpaired flow in the months of February through June.
CSPA welcomed this increase but continued to advocate for 60% of unimpaired flow. CSPA also opposed the weakening of the southern Delta salinity standards in the 2018 update.
The 2023 Bay-Delta Plan Update
The State Board’s 2023 Report proposes a Delta inflow and outflow objective of 55% of the unimpaired flow into the Delta from the Sacramento River and tributaries. CSPA maintains that 55% of unimpaired flow is inadequate to restore the Bay-Delta watershed and estuary or to support and maintain the natural production of viable native fish populations.
CSPA also condemns the 2023 Report’s inclusion of the Voluntary Agreements (VAs). The Voluntary Agreements have no business in the Report. The VAs were negotiated amongst water user interests and government agencies without environmental groups, native tribes, and other stakeholders. Read more about CSPA’s campaign to stop the Voluntary Agreements here.
CSPA’s Campaign for a Complete Bay-Delta Plan that Protects the Public Trust
CSPA participates in the Bay-Delta Plan update to campaign for:
- Enforceable unimpaired flows that go beyond maintaining “viable” populations of native fish. To protect public trust resources such as recreational and commercial fishing, inflows and outflows must be sufficient to support populations of fish abundant enough to fish for.
- A high percentage of unimpaired flow with adjustments to create adequate carry over storage.
- Reserving reservoir storage for the purpose of controlling water temperatures as proposed by the State Board in its 2023 Draft Staff Report.
- Elimination of Voluntary Agreements. Elimination of the VAs is crucial to creating an enforceable Bay-Delta Plan.
Other Bay-Delta Campaigns
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Complete the Bay-Delta Plan