CSPA Develops and Supports Changes to Hydropower Licensing

Posted on April 17, 2022 by Chris Shutes

CSPA has played a strong role over the last 12 months in developing and negotiating a package of proposed reforms to the Federal Power Act.  The package will, if implemented, change a multitude of on-the-ground aspects of how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licenses hydroelectric projects.  The package, with a short summary, was transmitted to committee leads in Congress in early April 2022.

CSPA’s Chris Shutes was co-chair of a working group and one of the most active members of a “drafting team” that developed the package.  The drafting team was composed of representatives from the hydropower industry, Indian tribes, and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s).  The working group came about as a result of the “Uncommon Dialogue on Hydropower.”

In the fall of 2020, CSPA began developing a series of problem statements concerning hydropower licensing.  CSPA wrote up and presented these issues to fellow members of the Hydropower Reform Coalition in late 2020.  The Coalition chose CSPA to be one of the NGO co-chairs in a working group with tribes and industry, which completed the package in March 2022 following forty-plus negotiating sessions over 2021 and early 2022.  The recommended changes consist of word-by-word line edits and additions to the Federal Power Act.

Some of the basic principles in negotiating the package were:

  • Changes are limited to the Federal Power Act, not other laws.
  • Changes should not alter the authorities of FERC or other agencies, or shift the balance of authorities among them.
  • The exception on shifting authorities is that federally recognized Indian tribes should have explicit authorities to act for themselves, rather than having the Department of Interior act for them.
  • Maintain consistency with case law.
  • Rather than questioning stated interests of negotiating parties, seek agreement on changes that meet mutual interests or move on.

The package if enacted would increase opportunities for advocates to use the hydropower licensing process to improve the conditions of rivers and fish.  Among the improvements are:

  1. A requirement that FERC develop new rules for “license surrender” that include timelines and that allow the public to recommend early in the process what should happen when a hydro project ceases to operate. This would offer river and fishery advocates a major opportunity to get obsolete dams and other infrastructure out of rivers in years, not decades.
  2. A requirement for FERC to analyze and consider mitigating the ongoing and reasonably foreseeable future effects of a hydropower project in relicensing. Too often, FERC has accepted the effects of a dam or other infrastructure as past actions where the damage was done.  A new definition would make FERC address ongoing effects, including what would be different if the dam and hydropower project didn’t exist.  It would also require FERC to look forward over the 30-50 years of a new license.
  3. A requirement for FERC to analyze project effects under a changing climate. Till now, FERC just said no to climate change because it was too difficult or “speculative.”  FERC would have to adopt methods for addressing climate change and hold periodic conferences to keep current on climate science.
  4. Requirements that give federally recognized Indian tribes the right to issue mandatory conditions in hydropower licenses for projects that occupy Indian reservations. Related requirements would give federally recognized tribes that same standing as fisheries agencies when projects affect treaty rights that relate to fish and wildlife.
  5. A requirement for “all models, including data and other modeling inputs and outputs, to be reasonably available for evaluation, operation, reporting, and review by licensing participants.” Models are routinely gamed and abused in licensing, just like they are in other venues relating to water: someone turns the crank, and out pops the answer they want.  This would require model users to show their work, and to let others use models to offer alternatives.
  6. A requirement that FERC consider and directly respond to the information needs of other agencies. FERC routinely denies study requests from resource agencies.  Licensees often support denial of studies, and then argue that since FERC didn’t order them, they must not be important.  This delays the process because it requires agencies to collect information independently.
  7. A requirement that FERC and resource agencies hold public conferences to try to set a joint schedule and study plan. Licensees and their supporters often complain that licensing takes too long.  A lot of the delay stems from fights about information, which become proxy fights about the scope of the mitigation that FERC will require.  The conferences would daylight the disputes, without letting FERC limit the authorities of other agencies.
  8. A requirement that FERC report to Congress every five years on hydropower projects or parts of projects that are not operational, with a timeline to get them back on line or take other action.
  9. A requirement that FERC do a more accurate economic analysis of hydropower projects, including future project economics, in relicensing. FERC’s current practice provides a cursory analysis that often overvalues power that would be foregone due to proposed mitigation measures.
  10. A requirement that FERC and other agencies analyze whether providing fish passage to habitat upstream or downstream of dams would improve fisheries, regardless of whether a given fish species historically occupied such habitat.

As with many negotiated packages, there are things that the often opposing interests of negotiating partners, in this case including the hydropower industry, would get out of the package as well.  Many of these include a shorter licensing process in certain situations where resource issues are not complex.  Types of projects that could, if they show that they are relatively low impact, be eligible for shortened licensing include:

  • Addition of hydropower power to existing dams that don’t have hydropower on them.
  • New pumped storage projects that are “closed-loop” and don’t pump water out of rivers or onstream reservoirs.
  • New pumped storage projects that use only offstream reservoirs.

Other hydropower industry interests that the package helps meet is a short language addition to the statute that gives the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management the ability to require mandatory conditions that FERC can’t change.  There is also a short addition to the statute that allows the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to require fish passage past hydropower dams.  In both cases, new language would require such measures to show some connection to “project effects.”  Some NGO’s found these changes unacceptable or too risky.  CSPA and other NGO’s that support that package decided that the benefits of the package outweigh the risks.

CSPA is among NGO’s with the most extensive presence in hydropower licensing venues in California.  This has been true since CSPA helped leverage FERC to re-open the license for the Lower Mokelumne Project (Pardee and Camanche dams) in the early 1990’s, an important step in making the lower Mokelumne one of the most productive salmon-producing rivers in California today.  Since then, CSPA has been a leader in fifteen-odd FERC licensing proceedings and is recognized as having subject-matter expertise.

CSPA has found that many of the fights in the trenches of FERC licensing are over process.  CSPA spends much of its time making legal arguments about why certain information is relevant or over why FERC or other authorized agencies have the authority in licensing to require certain types of measures.  The proposed package of reforms to the Federal Power Act will, if enacted, mean that CSPA and other advocates can spend more time and effort figuring out how to make rivers better for fish.  It would mean that CSPA and others have to spend less time and effort arguing about whether a licensing proceeding gets to consider such measures at all.

Posted in Chris Shutes, Hydroelectric (FERC) | Comments Off on CSPA Develops and Supports Changes to Hydropower Licensing

CSPA Objects to Weakened Delta Water Quality without Strict Diversion Limits and a Ban on Transfers

Posted on April 9, 2022 by Chris Shutes

On April 6, 2022, CSPA and allied organizations AquAlliance and California Water Impact Network filed a protest and objection to a “Temporary Urgency Change Petition” for April-June 2022 water operations in the Delta.  The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the US Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) filed the petition on March 18.  CSPA et al. argue that the State Water Board must grant the petition only if the Board also limits diversions by contractors to DWR’s State Water Project (SWP) and Reclamation’s Central Valley Project (CVP) to amounts needed for health and safety and for wildlife refuges, and if the Board bans transfers of water stored in SWP and CVP reservoirs.

The stage was set in 2021 when DWR and Reclamation over-delivered water to contractors and allowed late season transfers of water stored in Shasta Reservoir.  This had severe impacts on fisheries and left SWP and CVP reservoirs with drastically little water left in storage.  As CSPA reported on January 17, 2022, CSPA et al. filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate asking a court to set aside the State Water Board’s June 1, 2021 approval of Reclamation and DWR’s TUCP for 2021 Delta operations, and a second Petition for Writ of Mandate asking a court to set aside the State Water Board’s approval of Reclamation’s Sacramento River Temperature Management Plan (TMP) for Water Year 2021.

Rains in October and December 2021 replenished some storage.  In December, DWR and Reclamation submitted, but in January 2022 withdrew, a TUCP for Delta operations. Extremely dry months since New Years have left DWR and Reclamation with less overall storage than in 2021, prompting the March TUCP.  In a partial turnaround, DWR and Reclamation now propose in 2022 to deliver substantially less water to contractors in aggregate than they delivered in 2021.  However, the TUCP does not explicitly propose reduced deliveries or to eliminate water transfers, and the State Water Board’s April 4 Order granting the TUCP does not explicitly include such requirements.

In 2021, DWR and Reclamation could have saved fish and water by implementing CSPA’s alternative Sacramento River TMP and the diversion reductions it proposed.  (For description and links, see CSPA’s June 6, 2021 post.)  There was enough stored water in 2021 to keep Delta critical year water quality requirements and to do a better job of protecting salmon in the Sacramento River.  In a draft 2022 TMP released April 6, Reclamation is proposing releases from Shasta Reservoir that are nearly identical to those the CSPA proposed in 2021.

Regrettably, a year later, it is no longer enough.  As CSPA et al.’s protest and objection to the March 2022 TUCP puts it:

The water that should have been stored to create options to protect public trust resources in 2022 was lost in 2021 to canals and sluice gates and transfers. … The State Water Board, in deciding what it must do in 2022 … is a year late and hundreds of thousands of acre-feet short, because in 2021 it did not adopt CSPA’s proposed TMP or something functionally equivalent in terms of maintaining reservoir storage.

So CSPA et al. are stuck in the miserable position, in 2022, of not having an alternative source of water to propose that DWR and Reclamation could use to meet water quality standards in the Delta.

Though DWR and Reclamation must finally face up to the consequences of their reckless over-deliveries in 2021 (and 2020), and now propose drastic cuts to water deliveries to senior “settlement” contractors north of Delta, they have not done so as a regulatory requirement.  Thus, even in extreme circumstances of their own making, DWR and Reclamation remain in control of what they generally term “voluntary” measures that are minimally enforceable or not enforceable at all.

And, in its April 4 Order approving the TUCP, the State Water Board retains its hands-off culture and posture as a non-regulator that cedes its regulatory role to the “trust us” mantra of entities that have shown themselves reliably irresponsible.

Posted in California Delta, Chris Shutes, Water Quality | Comments Off on CSPA Objects to Weakened Delta Water Quality without Strict Diversion Limits and a Ban on Transfers

CSPA Tells Water Board: Limit Shasta Reservoir Releases and Sacramento River Deliveries in 2022 to Save Fish and Water in ’22 and ‘23

Posted on March 19, 2022 by Chris Shutes

On March 16, 2022, CSPA presented recommendations to the State Water Resources Control Board to manage the Shasta and Trinity reservoirs and the Sacramento River in 2022.  The State Water Board must act now to limit releases from Shasta Reservoir from April through November.  Unlike last year, the State Water Board must assert its authority to keep the Bureau of Reclamation from delivering unreasonable amounts of water to Sacramento River “Settlement Contractors.”  Reclamation’s deliveries in 2021 dug such deep holes in Shasta and Trinity reservoirs that many fish will die in 2022 even if the State Water Board finally steps up.

In a related matter, Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) presented the State Water Board on March 15 with a “Temporary Urgency Change Petition” (TUCP) to weaken water quality standards in the Bay-Delta estuary from April through June.  The ostensible purpose of the petition is to allow Reclamation and DWR to hold more water in reservoirs.  However, the petition doesn’t say how much water Reclamation and DWR will be releasing from the same reservoirs to deliver water to settlement contractors along the Sacramento and Feather rivers.  Last year, Reclamation and DWR used a TUCP to “save” 289,000 acre-feet of water in Shasta Reservoir, while delivering a total of 4,400,000 acre-feet of water to contractors (Water Rights Order 2022-0095, pp. 9 and 13).  That’s conserving water?  How dumb do they think we are?

CSPA recommends minimum releases from Shasta Reservoir in April, with perhaps pulse flows to move salmon downstream.  As it did in 2021, CSPA recommends releases of 5000 cfs from Shasta from May through November, and exports of water from the Trinity River of 300 cfs (with modification of exports only as needed to protect fish in the Trinity).  CSPA will be objecting to the TUCP in the next two weeks.

Posted in Chris Shutes, Fisheries, State Board Bay-Delta Standards, Water Quality | Comments Off on CSPA Tells Water Board: Limit Shasta Reservoir Releases and Sacramento River Deliveries in 2022 to Save Fish and Water in ’22 and ‘23

CSPA & Allies File Lawsuits on Groundwater Management in Butte, Colusa & Vina Subbasins

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Cindy Charles

By Cindy Charles

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), along with AquAlliance and the California Water Impact Network, filed three separate lawsuits in February 2022 against the Butte, Colusa, and Vina subbasins’ Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs).

The lawsuits argue that all three GSPs will continue to threaten groundwater users and the environment by accepting domestic well failures and not preventing additional groundwater loss.  Among the three plans, there are concerns about the acceptance of unreasonable land subsidence and the use of inadequate well monitoring parameters.  The lawsuits also claim that the plans’ projects and management actions are ambiguous and unenforceable.

The GSPs are required to meet mandates from the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).  SGMA was enacted to halt overdraft and bring groundwater basins into balanced levels of pumping and recharge.  The lawsuits argue that all three GSPs fail to achieve sustainable groundwater management and need to be declared invalid.

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SF Estuary/Delta Needs Long Overdue Protections from Ballast Water Discharges

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Cindy Charles

By Cindy Charles

CSPA, along with over a dozen other environmental organizations, recently signed on to a comment letter supporting limits on the discharge of ships’ ballast water into the Bay-Delta Estuary.  The letter was sent to the San Francisco Estuary Partnership (SFEP) for consideration in the 2022-2027 San Francisco Estuary Blueprint.

The comment letter calls out the failure of the Estuary Blueprint to address ballast water and to require actions to reduce the introduction of non-native species in ballast discharges. The San Francisco Bay/Delta ecosystem is generally recognized as one of the most invaded estuaries in the world.

Ballast water discharge is not only a critical environmental threat. It is also a public health threat that includes human pathogens, including bacteria and viruses.

The letter recommends that the Blueprint include a provision that calls on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to adopt requirements for ballast discharge that comply with the Clean Water Act limits on harmful non-native organisms and human pathogens.

The San Francisco Estuary Partnership was established in 1988 by the State of California and the EPA under the Clean Water Act’s National Estuary Program. The Estuary Blueprint maps out the regional actions needed for a healthy, resilient San Francisco Estuary.  The Blueprint is currently undergoing an update by the SFEP.

SFEP staff will provide the comments to members of the SFEP Implementation Committee to discuss at their next meeting on March 16.

 

 

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Bill Jennings Elected to California Outdoors Hall of Fame 2022

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Cindy Charles

CSPA is pleased to announce that CSPA’s Executive Director Bill Jennings has been elected to the California Outdoor Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2022.

Fighting to protect fisheries and water quality for over 25 years, Bill has chaired CSPA since 1988. He is a Board Member of the California Water Impact Network and Restore the Delta. Between 1995 and 2005, he served as Deltakeeper. He was a founder and Chairman of the Committee to Save the Mokelumne.

Bill has received numerous previous acknowledgments, including:

  • The International Conservation Award from the Federation of Fly Fishers;
  • The Director’s Achievement Award from the Department of Fish and Game;
  • The Conservation Achievement Award from the California-Nevada Chapter of the American Fisheries Society;
  • The Quality of Life Award from the Land Utilization Alliance; and
  • The Delta Advocate Award from Restore the Delta.

In addition, the Outdoor Writers Association of California recognized Bill as Outdoor Californian of the Year, and the Delta Fly Fishers selected him as Fly Fisherman of the Year. His success in achieving the historic cleanup of Penn Mine on the banks of the Mokelumne River led to awards to both the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and Committee to Save the Mokelumne by the California Water Policy IX Conference.

Under Bill’s leadership, CSPA has become a leading actor in California water policy and fisheries protection through “in-the-trenches” engagement with regulators. Over the past thirty years, CSPA has had a consistent presence, most often by Bill personally, in proceedings before the State Water Resources Control Board and regional water quality control boards. Bill’s insistence on technically competent advocacy, combined with his willingness to litigate to enforce standards and laws, has made CSPA a voice for anglers far greater than CSPA’s modest organizational structure would suggest.

Less known about Bill are the years he spent fly fishing and traveling in Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, and many of the other major and not-so-major fishing and outdoor venues across the western United States. As with many of the most effective fisheries advocates, he is strongly motivated by personal connections to the places he defends.

To win induction into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame, nominees must be named on 60 percent of ballots. Voters include previous inductees and major figures in the outdoor industry. Anybody can nominate a candidate. To be considered, a candidate must meet two achievements. They must have: 1) have inspired thousands of Californians to take part in the great outdoors and/or conservation, and 2) taken part in a paramount scope of adventures.

Usually, the induction ceremony is held at the end of January. However, due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, it has been delayed. When a day and time for the induction ceremony is selected, CSPA will post an announcement.

Posted in Water Quality | Comments Off on Bill Jennings Elected to California Outdoors Hall of Fame 2022

The Merry-Go-Round of Denial Must Stop – Transfer of Public Trust Water to Agriculture Is On Repeat

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Cindy Charles

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and allies AquAlliance and California Water Impact Network (CWIN), filed an objection on January 7, 2022  to yet another petition to weaken flow and salinity standards that protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.  The objection urges California’s State Water Board to reject the Temporary Urgency Change Petition (TUCP) submitted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Resources (DWR) for the time period from February 1 to April 30, 2022.

This is the second year in a row Reclamation and DWR are seeking a pass from responsibly and lawfully managing their operations.  Stopping these waivers of environmental protections is critical to avoiding a repeat of 2021’s catastrophic fish kills and to protecting water quality for all citizens of California.

In June 2021, in spite of vigorous protests from CSPA and many others, the Board waived or weakened water quality requirements for Reclamation’s Central Valley Project (CVP) and DWR’s State Water Project (SWP).  The Board’s disastrous decisions played a major role in a 2021 survival rate of less than 3% of juvenile winter-run salmon.  Other native fish, including fall-run salmon, Delta smelt, and longfin smelt, also had another terrible year because of low flows and high water temperatures.

The stage was set when Reclamation and DWR over-delivered water to CVP and SWP contractors in 2020 and early 2021, instead of responsibly managing Delta operations and upstream reservoirs to protect public trust resources.

CSPA’s objection says the State Water Board should deny the TUCP for 2022.  The Board must use its authorities under the reasonable use and public trust doctrines.  The Board must set strict limits on SWP and CVP deliveries to all water contractors until Delta water quality standards are met and reservoir operations are managed to protect public trust resources.  Each time the Board weakens standards, the impacts to fish get worse and the road to recovery becomes steeper.  Fish populations that suffered under TUCP’s in 2021 have still not recovered from the TUCP’s in the previous drought of 2014-2015.

Battles on Many Fronts

Other recent actions that CSPA, CWIN and AquAlliance have taken to fight against the repetitive weakening of water quality and temperature standards include:

  • CSPA and allies submitted comments to the State Water Board on January 7, 2022 on the Board’s Draft Order on Reconsideration for the 2021 TUCP on Delta operations and the 2021 Sacramento River Temperature Management Plan (TMP).  The comments state that the Board’s actions in approving that TUCP and the TMP were unlawful and that the effects to fish were  unreasonable and outrageous.  The comments ask the Board to issue a new Order that acknowledges the unreasonable use of water and resulting unreasonable effects on fish and wildlife.  It also asks the Board to set new procedures for:
    • Determining the reasonable use of water in dry year sequences;
    • Limiting water deliveries consistent with reasonable use; and
    • Protecting public trust resources consistent with legal responsibilities.
  • CSPA and allies also filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate asking a court to set aside the State Water Board’s June 1, 2021 approval of Reclamation and DWR’s TUCP for Delta operations.
  • In addition, CSPA and allies filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate asking a court to set aside the State Water Board’s approval on June 10, 2021 of Reclamation’s Sacramento River Temperature Management Plan for Water Year 2021.

The merry-go-round of the State Water Board’s serial waivers of water quality and temperature standards must stop.  It is imperative for the Board to responsibly manage California’s water during drought, a historically common occurrence.

Posted in California Delta, Water Quality | Comments Off on The Merry-Go-Round of Denial Must Stop – Transfer of Public Trust Water to Agriculture Is On Repeat

CSPA and Allies Support Increased Tuolumne River Flows – Again

Posted on January 15, 2022 by Chris Shutes

CSPA and ten allied conservation groups filed comments on January 7, 2022 in overall support of the Water Quality Certification (WQC) for the relicensing of the Don Pedro and La Grange hydroelectric projects on the Tuolumne River.  The State Water Resources Control Board (Board) issued the WQC in January 2021.  As it stands today, the WQC would require substantially increased flows in the lower 52 miles of the Tuolumne River.  Ongoing litigation by CSPA and others could increase Tuolumne River flows even further.

In February 2021, CSPA and allies petitioned the Board to reconsider two narrow issues in the WQC: June flows in the lower 26 miles of the river, and the amount of augmentation of large wood the WQC requires.

Also in February 2021, the license holders of the projects, Turlock Irrigation District and Modesto Irrigation District (Districts), as well as the City and County of San Francisco (City) and the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency (BAWSCA), filed voluminous petitions for reconsideration asking the Board to rescind the WQC entirely.

Many of the arguments in the Districts’ and the City’s February 2021 petitions to the Board were grounded in a Rule concerning water quality certifications the that Trump administration implemented in 2020.  That rule gutted the ability of states to protect water quality, including flow.  The Biden administration has initiated a new rulemaking to substantially unravel the Trump-era Rule.  In October 2021, a federal judge issued an Order Vacating the Trump Rule.

Most of the rest of the legal arguments in the petitions for reconsideration of the Districts, the City, and BAWSCA were incorrect for other reasons.  The comments of CSPA and allies cite to controlling, foundational case law on water quality certifications to rebut those arguments.

For the past ten years, CSPA, the Tuolumne River Trust (TRT), and others have advocated for and suggested approaches to managing water supply and demand that would mitigate the water supply lost in restoring adequate flows to the Tuolumne River.  The Districts, the City, and BAWSCA, in contrast, all strongly opposed analysis of such mitigation measures throughout the licensing and WQC proceedings.  In recent comments in several venues, such as planning for groundwater management in the Modesto and Turlock subbasins, CSPA and TRT have continued to encourage consideration of such alternatives.

The timeline for the Board’s response to the petitions for reconsideration is unknown but likely short.

Note: The Districts are also appealing in the Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to deny waiver of the WQC.  CSPA and four other conservation groups have intervened in that case in support of FERC’s decision denying waiver.  The current responses to the Board are made to with the understanding that a federal finding of waiver would make the petitions to the Board moot.

Posted in Hydroelectric (FERC) | Comments Off on CSPA and Allies Support Increased Tuolumne River Flows – Again

CSPA Wins Settlement to Remove Phone Cable from Tahoe; Cable Contains 63 Tons of Lead

Posted on November 13, 2021 by Cindy Charles

On November 4, 2021, CSPA won settlement of a lawsuit it filed against AT&T’s PacBell subsidiary regarding eight miles of abandoned phone cable on the bottom of Lake Tahoe. As a result of the settlement, PacBell will remove the decaying cable. The cable contains 63 tons of lead.

Cable in Tahoe

Local divers discovered the abandoned cables while removing other trash from the lake bottom. CSPA filed the lawsuit in January, 2021. CSPA provided the legal muscle and expertise to turn awareness of a serious problem into an action to fix it. CSPA’s lawsuit alleged violations of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 and California’s Safe Drinking Water & Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65).

PacBell switched to fiber optic phone cables over 30 years ago and abandoned the old cables that used a heavy lead sheath to shield copper transmission wires. The cables contain approximately 3 pounds of lead per foot. They extend for 8 miles along the western shore of Lake Tahoe from Baldwin Beach to Rubicon Bay, including across the mouth of Emerald Bay. While the amount of lead the cables have leached into Lake Tahoe is unknown, attorneys for CSPA found that three feet of cable left for one day in in a tub of Lake Tahoe water leached 4800 times the amount of lead allowed to enter a source of drinking water.

Cable cross section showing lead

The settlement obtained by CSPA requires PacBell to get all the necessary permits for the cable removal. PacBell will then put the removal work out for bid. If permitting requirements push the removal cost above $1.5 million, the sides will need to come together to reassess.

In a press release, CSPA executive director Bill Jennings noted: “Lake Tahoe is one of California’s iconic waterways. We’re proud to help get this toxic garbage out of the Lake.”

CSPA’s “Watershed Enforcers” campaign programmatically uses legal action to correct violations of water quality laws and regulations. The law offices of Andrew Packard coordinated the legal team that represented CSPA in this matter.

Posted in Water Quality | Comments Off on CSPA Wins Settlement to Remove Phone Cable from Tahoe; Cable Contains 63 Tons of Lead

CSPA Fall 2021 Newsletter: Wildfire strikes our favorite fishing spots, CA Clean Water Act update, and defending the Tuolumne and Yuba Rivers

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Denise Zitnik

The Fall 2021 Edition of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance Newsletter is out now. Below is the introduction to the newsletter by Bill Jennings, CSPA’s Executive Director.

From the Desk of Bill Jennings

I hope each of you have had an opportunity to wet a line during this second drought year. Fisheries have grievously suffered, as they did during the critical drought years of 2014 and 2015. California is experiencing its worst drought since the late 1800s, as measured by both lack of precipitation and high temperatures. But there is still so
much to protect and enjoy.

August 2021 was the driest and hottest August on record, and the water year that ended last month was the second driest on record. Excessive water deliveries to settlement and exchange water contractors have depleted State and Federal Project reservoirs to historic low levels of storage. Another drought year will bring California into uncharted territory, and that appears to be likely, given another La Nina.

In the Central Valley, flow and water quality is a continuum. What happens in the estuary affects flow and water quality in the high Sierras. Water storage in the rim reservoirs directly affects both Delta flow/water quality and Sierra storage reservoirs. CSPA labors in the trenches of the regulatory and legal processes, and sometimes we get a little wonky in our posts. But it’s all focused on securing adequate flow and water quality, from the Sierras through the estuary.

For example, following an extensive administrative proceeding, CSPA is preparing twin lawsuits over the weakening of standards and violation of those weakened standards regarding the 2021 Sacramento River Temperature Management Plan and the weakening and violations of flow/water quality standards in the Delta. These lawsuits represent an effort to ensure that future management of California’s water projects protects fisheries, even in dry years.

Most of us at CSPA fish, and our fishing like everyone else’s has suffered during the drought. We begin this newsletter with “Protecting Places Near and Dear” by Chris Shutes on a few of his fishing experiences over the year. Following that is an extensive article “CSPA Is Working Hard to Restore & Defend the Clean Water Act in California” by Cindy Charles regarding our efforts to restore and defend the Clean Water Act in California. This article is subdivided into sections on EPA’s efforts to revise Section 401 of the Act, our efforts fighting waivers of 401 Water Quality Certifications, and our intervention to support certification decisions on Tuolumne River hydropower projects. We then feature another article, “CSPA & Allies Granted Intervention in Court Case to Support Certification Decision on Tuolumne River Hydropower Projects” by Cindy on our federal lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation over excessive groundwater pumping by Sacramento River Water Districts. We conclude with an article by Chris and Cindy about the fight for flows and habitat restoration on the Yuba River.

I believe we can reasonably say that CSPA’s involvement has made California fisheries and water quality considerably better. In addition to our Main Website that periodically chronicles our efforts, please check out our Fisheries Blog that features weekly posts on diverse aspects of California’s fisheries.

We don’t accept funds from sources that would limit our efforts to protect fisheries. So we rely on your donations and memberships. Thank you for your continuing support. Cheers!

Posted in Newsletter | Comments Off on CSPA Fall 2021 Newsletter: Wildfire strikes our favorite fishing spots, CA Clean Water Act update, and defending the Tuolumne and Yuba Rivers

Success in Stopping A Very Bad Westlands Water Deal

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Cindy Charles

CSPA, along with other environmental groups and fishing organizations, tribes, water agencies and counties, has prevailed in a lawsuit to stop the Westlands Water District from obtaining a permanent water contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.  On October 27th, a Fresno County judge declined to validate a contract granting permanent access to water from the Central Valley Project.  The contract would have given Westlands permanent access to up to 1.15 million acre-feet of water per year for irrigation and other private purposes.

Westlands has been operating on an interim contract basis, renewing its water deal with the Bureau every two years.  It sought to make the contract permanent, but did not fulfill the lawful requirements of including details of payments to the government or public notice.

In his Order denying validation, Judge Tharpe wrote that the incomplete contract lacked financial terms and proper public notice under the Brown Act and could not be validated.

The law offices of Stephan Volker represented CSPA in this matter.

This victory is a significant setback to the last-minute maneuver of the Trump administration to provide  water to Westlands at the expense of the public interest in the protection of fisheries and the environment.

Posted in Cindy Charles | Comments Off on Success in Stopping A Very Bad Westlands Water Deal

Reckless Water Transfer Would Further Jeopardize Fisheries in 2021 & 2022

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Cindy Charles

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Water Impact Network, and AquAlliance filed comments to the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) on July 16, 2021 in opposition to the proposed water transfer of up to 100,000 acre-feet of water from New Melones Reservoir. The transfer is requested by South San Joaquin Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District (Districts). The proposed recipient is the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA).

This proposed water transfer is reckless in the face of the ongoing severe drought, because it would greatly reduce water storage in New Melones Reservoir.  Water in New Melones is now being used to protect Delta fisheries, and New Melones storage is critical as a reserve in case 2022 is dry.

New Melones Reservoir

On July 12, the Districts filed amendments to their 2021 petition. The amended petition seeks to add San Luis Reservoir as an additional temporary point of diversion and rediversion, and to extend the time to deliver the water for use through February 2023. CSPA and allies filed supplemental comments to the State Water Board on July 19, continuing to oppose the proposed transfer.

At first, even the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) objected to the proposed transfer in a letter to the Counsel to the Districts. In a June 22 letter to the Districts (included as an attachment to CSPA et al.’s July 16 comments), Reclamation stated that there was not enough inflow to New Melones in 2021 to support the transfer. Further, Reclamation reminded the Districts that Reclamation’s 1988 Agreement with the Districts allows use of the Districts’ “conservation account” in New Melones Reservoir only for in-District use.

But in a sudden turnaround, without public notice or explanation, Reclamation issued on August 5 a Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA) in support of the Districts’ proposed 2021 transfer of 100,000 acre-feet of water to SLDMWA.

Undaunted, CSPA and allies sent a comment letter to Reclamation on August 12 regarding the DEA. These new comments stated that the DEA is legally inadequate because it fails to analyze the contractual change in Reclamation’s implementation of the 1988 Agreement for the operation of New Melones Reservoir. This change will have long-term significant impacts on the environment. Reclamation needs to issue a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) that discloses such impacts and analyzes potential mitigations for such a major change. In addition, Reclamation needs to issue a separate draft EIS that discloses the significant impacts of the proposed transfer’s reduction of CVP storage both in 2021 and 2022.

Given the extreme drought and the critical need for carryover storage in New Melones, CSPA and allies strongly urge Reclamation not to allow the Districts to transfer water from the conservation account, either in this case or in the future. CSPA and allies also recommend that the Districts withdraw their proposed water transfer.

Moreover, the State Water Board should disallow the transfer even if Reclamation accedes. The State Water Board needs to cease its deferrals to Reclamation’s contracts and agreements that allocate too much water for irrigation and water sales as a permanent structural condition. The State Water Board needs to assert its authority now to protect public trust fishery resources.

Editor’s note: on August 17, 2021, the State Water Board notified CSPA and other commenters on the proposed transfer that the Districts had withdrawn their transfer request.

Posted in Cindy Charles, Water Rights | Comments Off on Reckless Water Transfer Would Further Jeopardize Fisheries in 2021 & 2022

Court Ruling Finds FERC 401 Waiver Not Justified – Important Implications for California Hydropower Project Licenses

Posted on July 24, 2021 by Cindy Charles

On July 2, 2021, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an important decision regarding Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, overturning an Order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  FERC’s Order had found that the state of North Carolina had unlawfully “coordinated” with the license applicant to delay the state’s certification that a new FERC license for the Bynum hydroelectric project complied with state water quality laws.  FERC found that North Carolina’s participation in the delay meant that the state had “waived” its authority under Section 401 to issue the certification.

The Court reversed FERC’s finding of waiver because the finding was not supported by “substantial evidence.”  The Court wrote:

If (as we are assuming) mere coordination between an applicant and the state agency can lead to a finding of waiver under § 401, then it must take more than routine informational emails to show coordination. Were the rule otherwise, applicants could manipulate state agencies into inadvertently waiving their certification authority just by asking questions. The States’ rights and responsibilities to ensure compliance with their own water-quality standards are too important to be so easily stripped away.

This noteworthy decision may help CSPA defend water quality on several California rivers.  CSPA, along with other environmental groups, has been vigorously contesting a series of FERC’s unwarranted waivers of Section 401 water quality certifications for hydropower projects.  In California, the State Water Board is the agency that issues 401 certifications for new hydropower licenses.

CSPA has filed petitions for review with Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals, seeking to overturn waivers on the following hydro projects:

  • Nevada Irrigation District’s (NID) Yuba-Bear Hydroelectric Project
  • Yuba County Water Agency’s (YCWA) Yuba River Development Project
  • Merced Irrigation District’s (Merced ID) Merced River and Merced Falls Projects

The Ninth Circuit has consolidated these cases, including petitions for review filed by State Water Board on the same waivers, into a single case. In all three cases, the licensee withdrew and resubmitted applications for water quality certification.

CSPA is hopeful that the recent North Carolina decision will have a positive effect on these California cases, and thus help CSPA and others to restore the proper functioning of Section 401 of the Clean Water Act in California, which is vital to preserving water quality for both people and fish.

The case is North Carolina DEQ v F.E.R.C., — F.4th —, 2021 WL 2763265 (4th Cir. July 2, 2021).

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CSPA Protests State Water Board’s Protection of Irrigated Agriculture at the Expense of Fisheries and the Environment

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Bill Jennings

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) and allies have vigorously protested two recent actions by the State Water Resources Control Board that virtually ensure a repeat of the last drought, when the Board’s disastrous decisions decimated multiple year classes of salmon and drove pelagic species in the Delta to the brink of extinction.  Fisheries have still not recovered from the effects of 2012-2015 drought.  This year, the SWRCB’s actions may push them over the edge.

Multi-year droughts are common in California, occurring more than 40% of the time.  Unfortunately, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and Department of Water Resources (DWR) routinely deliver normal water supplies in the first dry year, assuming the following year will be wet.  When a dry year is followed by another dry or critically dry year, depleted reservoirs cannot be replenished.  The State Water Board’s traditional response has been to protect irrigated agriculture by drastically reducing flows critical to fisheries survival and weakening water quality standards that were already developed to account for dry and critically dry conditions.

The State Water Board’s pattern and practice, extending over decades, is a major reason that winter and spring runs of Chinook salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, Delta smelt and longfin smelt are listed as threatened or endangered under state and federal endangered species acts.  Conversely, irrigated agriculture, which comprises about 2% of California’s economy but consumes 80% of the state’s developed water supplies, has fared rather well during droughts.  Since 2000, Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley farm production has increased 71.4% and  152.5%, respectively.  And the Department of Agriculture is forecasting that almond production and acreage will reach record highs this year.

The CSPA protests involve the Sacramento River Temperature Management Plan and Temporary Urgency Change Petition Order. Together, they pose significant risk to native salmonid and pelagic species.

Sacramento River Temperature Management Plan

Construction of Shasta Dam deprived Chinook salmon of the cold spring-fed spawning habitat of the McCloud, Pit and upper Sacramento Rivers: spawning now occurs below the dam.  In 1990, the State Water Board established temperature standards between Shasta Dam and Red Bluff that provided for 59 miles of spawning habitat.  The temperature compliance point could be moved upstream subject to uncontrollable factors.  Water deliveries are not an uncontrollable factor.

This year, the compliance point only provides five miles of spawning habitat.  Proposed temperature requirements are far above levels identified as lethal for spawning and rearing Chinook salmon.  In 2014 and 2015, egg to fry survival was only 4% and 3%, respectively.  This year is likely to be similar.

CSPA sent the State Water Board a letter on 14 March 2021 requesting immediate enforcement of Water Rights Order 90-05 and Bay-Delta water quality standards.  CSPA followed up with a 15 April letter urging the Board to reduce water deliveries in order to conserve limited cold water in Shasta Reservoir.  On 21 April 2021, CSPA testified at a State Water Board workshop regarding the proposed Temperature Management Plan.  On 5 May, USBR submitted a draft Temperature Management Plan that proposed lethal temperatures and inadequate end-of-year storage, while providing excessive water deliveries.  CSPA, Save California Salmon and the California Water Impact Network submitted an alternative approach to the State Water Board on 23 May 2021.  The CSPA et al. Temperature Management Plan, comprised of a transmittal letter, descriptive elements and spreadsheet, would provide protective water temperatures for salmon in the Sacramento and Trinity Rivers.  It would also provide increased carryover storage in Shasta and Trinity Reservoirs in case of another dry year.  CSPA and its allies issued a press release and fact sheet on 1 June.

USBR submitted a slightly modified but still wholly inadequate final Temperature Management Plan on 28 May 2021.  The State Water Board has ten days to approve or disapprove the Plan.  If the State Water Board approves the Plan, CSPA will request reconsideration and, if necessary, litigate the issue.  It should be noted that CSPA believes the State Water Board hasn’t complied with a settlement agreement in a pattern and practice lawsuit from the last drought; CSPA may need to seek court enforcement of the settlement.

Weakening of Delta Flow and Water Quality Standards

Present populations of Delta fishes are a remnant of their historical abundances prior to construction of the state and federal water projects.  Several are on the edge of extinction.  The current inadequate Delta water quality and flow standards were adopted 26 years ago and they remain in effect despite requirements to revise them every three years.  The rules still in force include specific standards for different water years, including dry and critically dry years.  However, the Governor’s 10 May 2021 Drought Proclamation waived mandatory compliance with these already-too-weak standards.

On 17 May 2021, DWR and USBR submitted a Temporary Urgency Change Petition to weaken the existing critical year standards.  The State Water Board noticed the petition and provide an abbreviated public comment period to conclude 4 June.  Before expiration of the comment period, the State Water Board issue an order approving the temporary urgency change.  The order significantly reduces Delta outflow, moves the salinity compliance point further east into the interior Delta, and facilitates export of transferred water.  CSPA, California Water Impact Network and AquAlliance filed a Protest, Objection and Petition for Reconsideration to the Change Petition and order on 4 June 2021.

The CSPA et al. Protest alleges that the State Water Board order is contrary to law, against the public interest and will have adverse environmental impacts.  It describes myriad consequences of the order, including: seriously degrading water quality for fish, farms and cities; reducing the food supply and viable habitat for endangered and threatened fish; impeding migration of native species; facilitating the spread of toxic algal blooms that threaten fish, plankton and humans; and expanding the range of non-native submerged aquatic vegetation and invasive predators at the expense of native species among other things.  The over-arching effect will be to transform one of the great natural freshwater estuaries in the world into a salty warmwater lake.

Posted in Bill Jennings, Enforcement, Fisheries, Miscellaneous, State Board Bay-Delta Standards, Water Quality, Water Rights | Comments Off on CSPA Protests State Water Board’s Protection of Irrigated Agriculture at the Expense of Fisheries and the Environment

CSPA and Allies Oppose Proposed SFPUC General Manager and City of San Francisco’s Lawsuit Against State Water Board

Posted on May 26, 2021 by Chris Shutes

CSPA has joined a letter opposing the prospective appointment of San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera as the new General Manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC).  The SFPUC is the water supply agency for the City of San Francisco.  In total, eleven environmental and fishing groups joined the May 24, 2021 letter to San Francisco Mayor London Breed and SFPUC Commission President Sophie Maxwell.

The opposition to Mr. Herrera’s appointment stems largely from a lawsuit against the State Water Resources Control Board that Mr. Herrera filed on May 14, 2021 on behalf of the SFPUC and the City of San Francisco.  The opposition also stems from statements that Mr. Herrera made to the press regarding the lawsuit, and in particular his statement that going to court “is our only option to protect San Francisco’s water supply.”

The City’s lawsuit contests the State Water Board’s Water Quality Certification for the relicensing of Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts’ Don Pedro and La Grange hydroelectric projects.

The opposition letter objects not simply to the act of filing suit, but to the lawsuit’s scorched earth legal arguments about the State Water Board’s Water Quality Certification.  The City’s lawsuit argues that implementing the flow requirements in the Certification would violate the California Constitution’s prohibition of “waste or unreasonable use” of water.  The City’s lawsuit also invokes the Trump Administration’s 2020 Rule on Section 401 of the Clean Water, which rolled back almost all of the kinds of conditions states can place on new federal licenses.[1]

The opposition letter concludes by saying: “We urge you to reject Mr. Herrera and conduct a national search for a more qualified candidate to lead the SFPUC.”

[1] For further discussion, see: http://calsport.org/news/hydropower-reform-coalition-opposes-another-trump-administration-attack-on-the-clean-water-act/.  See also: http://calsport.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2019-10-21.HRC_.401_Comments.pdf.

 

 

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CSPA & Allies Tell Biden Administration Not to Endorse Flawed Voluntary Agreements

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Cindy Charles

On May 7, 2021, CSPA joined a broad coalition of organizations in a letter urging the Biden Administration not to endorse so-called “voluntary agreements” that propose inadequate environmental requirements for the San Francisco Bay-Delta and its tributaries.   The letter was addressed to Secretary Haaland of the Department of the Interior and Secretary Raimondo of the Department of Commerce.

The groups expressed serious concerns that some agencies of the State of California are negotiating behind closed doors with numerous water districts, without participation from conservation and environmental justice organizations, fishing industry groups, or Native American tribes.

These closed-door negotiations continue to be based on the inadequate proposed Framework for voluntary agreements announced by the State in February 2020. That Framework’s inadequate flow and other requirements will fail to protect and restore the Bay-Delta watershed and the communities and jobs that depend on it.  The Framework has not been substantively improved during the 14 months since it was released.

The Bay-Delta water quality standards in effect today are 25 years old. Improved water quality protections are urgently needed, are long overdue, and are required by both state and federal law. California’s salmon runs in the Central Valley, which sustain thousands of fishing jobs across the West Coast and are of importance to tribal peoples of this area, continue to decline. Longfin smelt and other native species in the Delta are now trending towards extinction. Harmful algal blooms are proliferating in the estuary, threatening public health for heavily disadvantaged communities like Stockton.

CSPA and allied organizations call on the Biden Administration to withdraw the Trump Administration’s 2019 biological opinions and to engage in a science-based, transparent, public process at the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt and implement improved water quality standards for the Bay-Delta watershed.

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CSPA Comments on State Water Board’s Response to Climate Change

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Cindy Charles

CSPA, the California Water Impact Network and California Water Research submitted a comment letter on March 31, 2021 to the California State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Rights on the Water Board’s Recommendations for an Effective Water Rights Response to Climate Change: Identification of Data Needs and Recommendations to Incorporate Climate Change into Water Rights Permitting Policies, Procedures, and Methodologies (Recommendations). The Water Board released this report in February, 2021 and invited stakeholders to provide feedback and to propose other options not listed in the report. Click here for a link to the report.

The report outlines staff recommendations to make water availability analyses for permitting new water rights more robust. It also suggests actions to support an effective water rights response to climate change. The report describes the rapid rate of climate change in California and the inadequacy of reliance on past hydrology to predict future conditions. The report outlines new data needs, opportunities, and potential approaches for an effective water rights response.

Some of the report’s recommendations include actions such as:

• Develop adaptive permit terms in new permits
• Develop a fact sheet for water right applicants to incorporate climate change
• Expand existing network of stream and precipitation gages
• Reevaluate the existing instream flow metrics and criteria
• Revise the Fully Appropriated Stream list
• Prepare for and capitalize on capturing flood flows and storing them underground
• Plan for droughts

The CSPA et al. comment letter supports the report’s discussion of the impacts of climate change on stream flows and the need for better estimations of unimpaired flows. However, the letter expresses concerns about the several elements and omissions, including:

1) The Division of Water Rights needs to consider the role of diversions in stressing freshwater ecosystems in the state to avoid crisis management. During the 2012-2016 drought, the Water Board temporarily suspended at least 35 minimum instream flow standards. By August 2015, the Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that there had been 783 fish rescues in 52 different watersheds, comprising 51 species and more than 264,000 fish.  Unless the Water Board does a better job of keeping water in our rivers and streams, California’s native aquatic and stream-dependent species will not survive climate change.

2. The Division of Water Rights needs to consider the decades of delays and inaction on determining instream flow needs. The comment letter references a 1976-1977 Governor’s Commission to Review California Water Rights Law 1978 Final Report. That report recommended increased protection for instream flows and better management of groundwater. For aquatic ecosystems to survive, the Water Board must implement long overdue protections for instream flows.

3. The Division of Water Rights needs to establish rules to protect variability of flows that are greater than required minimum flows. The Water Board must not consider all water over and above existing diversion allocations and required minimum instream flows to be available for appropriation. The Water Board should establish both defaults and site-specific rules that define water available for groundwater storage, particularly in new water rights.

4. The constitutional principle of reasonable use and the public trust doctrine must be the foundation of all water rights permitting decisions by the Water Board. In 1983, the California Supreme Court found that “[t]he state has an affirmative duty to take the public trust into account in the planning and allocation of water resources, and to protect public trust uses whenever feasible.” (National Audubon Society v. Superior Court (1983) 33 Cal.3d 319, 446)

The complete comment letter can be found here: CSPA-et-al-re-WR-response-to-Climate-Change.pdf and the attachment here:  CSPA comments Managed Replenishment White Paper 120517.

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CSPA Urges State Water Board to Tap New Melones Now

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Chris Shutes

Following up on the State Water Board’s April 21, 2021 workshop on Sacramento River water temperature management, CSPA has written a letter urging the Board to enforce existing flow requirements for the lower San Joaquin River.  Water Rights Decision 1641 requires the Bureau of Reclamation to release water from New Melones Reservoir to meet seasonal San Joaquin River pulse flows.  Implementing the required releases from New Melones would also take pressure off other major reservoirs, which are struggling to maintain cold water for fish downstream.

During the April 21 workshop, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation identified storage levels at New Melones as the “shining star” of the Central Valley Project.  Meanwhile, Trinity, Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs are as low as they were in the 2014 and 2015 drought years.  Nonetheless, the Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources are drawing water from those reservoirs north of the Delta to meet Delta flow and salinity requirements.

The outrage is that Decision 1641 already requires Reclamation to release enough water from New Melones to make the flow on the lower San Joaquin River greater than 3000 cubic feet per second, from April 15 through May 15.  But as it did in the last drought, Reclamation is shining on both the requirement and the State Water Board, which established and is supposed to enforce the requirement.  On April 26, 2021, flows at the San Joaquin River compliance point are less than half the required flow.

This optional compliance needs to end.  On top of that, Reclamation should increase the New Melones release simply on the grounds that it would better water management than further drawing down the north-of-Delta reservoirs, where downstream fisheries are moving towards lethal temperature conditions later this summer.

Meet the requirements and save fish!

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CSPA Comments on FERC’s Additional Information Request for Merced Irrigation District’s Hydro Projects

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Cindy Charles

Crocker Huffman Dam – Merced Fall Hydro Project

CSPA and several allied conservation groups[1] filed comments on April 1, 2021 responding to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staff’s February 19, 2021 Additional Information Request (AIR) for the Merced River Hydroelectric Project and the Merced Falls Hydroelectric Project (collectively, Projects). These two hydroelectric projects are owned by the Merced Irrigation District (Merced ID) and have been undergoing relicensing since February 2012.

On June 18, 2020, FERC issued an Order finding that the State Water Board had waived certification for the Projects.[2] A primary purpose of the AIR is to allow FERC to evaluate the inclusion of elements of the combined Water Quality Certification (the Certification) for the Projects.

The AIR also addresses information needed to inform the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) consultation under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). NMFS has informed FERC that the ESA consultation must consider past effects of project operations as well as comparing present project effects with effects under proposed future operation. FERC did not perform this analysis in its Final Environmental Impact Statement in 2015. FERC plans to issue a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to perform this new evaluation.

The Conservation Groups’ comments recommend that FERC Staff clarify and expand its directives on the following issues:

1) Provide explicit direction and rules to Merced ID for modeling elements of specified Certification Conditions, including carryover storage, irrigation deliveries, temperature targets and performance metrics, and for modeling specific scenarios for State Water Board’s Certification Condition 4 (Extremely Dry Conditions).

2) Revise directives to MID related to the pre-project baseline, cumulative effects, and geographic scope.

3) Review and analyze those elements of the Certification whose implementation would positively affect tribal interests, in order to more fully inform Staff’s analysis.

The Conservation Groups submitted these comments because of concerns that the AIR lacks sufficient specificity and direction to Merced ID regarding how to model elements of the Certification that the Certification itself left to be defined or quantified at a future date. The AIR also lacks internal consistency: it asks Merced ID to provide analysis of the past effects of project operation, but not the past effects of project construction.

Another major concern is that the AIR appears to be partially premised on the position that FERC has discretion to decline compliance with those elements of the Certification that are also elements of the adopted Bay-Delta Plan. This premise that waiver of certification would absolve Merced ID of compliance with the Bay-Delta Plan is unfounded. FERC needs to clarify this distinction and to direct Merced ID on how to model the adopted Bay-Delta Plan in light of the fact that the Bay-Delta Plan will require Merced ID’s compliance.

FERC’s do-over of its Environmental Impact Statement needs to pick up all the loose ends. That requires clarity. It is not helpful to ask a regulated entity to fill in the blanks before providing information that is supposed to help FERC staff correct oversights and poor decisions that staff made previously in relicensing.

 

[1] Other groups include the Merced Conservation Committee, the Golden West Women Flyfishers, Friends of the River, American Rivers, American Whitewater, Trout Unlimited, the Northern California Council Federation of Flyfishers International and the Sierra Club Tehipite Chapter.

[2] The California State Water Resources Control Board and a group of environmental organizations, including California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Friends of the River, and Sierra Club and its Tehipite Chapter, each have filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) of FERC orders finding that the Water Board waived its authority under section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to issue a water quality certification (WQC) in the ongoing relicensing of Merced Irrigation District’s (Merced) Merced River and Merced Falls Projects.  CSPA et al.’s Petition was filed in October 2020.

 

 

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CSPA Says No Again to Suction Dredging Mining

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Cindy Charles

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, along with 19 other conservation, fisheries and community organizations, submitted comments on March 5, 2021 to the California State Water Resources Control Board on a proposed National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) General Permit for Suction Dredges Mining Discharges.

Suction dredge mining was prohibited in California in 2009.  In 2015, the California Fish and Game Code and Water Code were amended, requiring miners to obtain both (1) a permit from the State Board or a letter from the State Board stating no such permit is required, and (2) a permit from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to suction dredge mine in California.  The State Board requested comments on the proposed new NPDES permit.

The CSPA & coalition comment letter urges the State Board to maintain its previous recommendation that suction dredge mining “be permanently prohibited,” because the significant environmental effects of this destructive activity cannot be fully mitigated.  The letter states that if the it does decide to selectively allow suction dredge mining, the State Board must:

  • Maintain strong prohibitions on suction dredge mining in areas where there has been historic gold mining or that have high levels of heavy metals, such as mercury.
  • Prohibit mining in waters that are impaired for sediment; areas with rare, sensitive, threatened or endangered species; and areas with cultural, recreational, and aesthetic resources.
  • Create and distribute descriptions and maps that accurately describe all areas where suction dredge mining is prohibited—such as national parks, wilderness areas, and military areas—to avoid confusion and conflicts.
  • Require real-time monitoring to ensure that water-quality violations do not occur.
  • Issue only individual permits and not a general permit, because site- and operation-specific impacts can only be analyzed on a permit-by-permit basis.

 

Posted in Cindy Charles, Water Quality | Comments Off on CSPA Says No Again to Suction Dredging Mining