(May 19, 2011) The California Chamber of Commerce, along with a coalition of water agencies, local governments and other organizations, is urging the Delta Stewardship Council to formulate a Delta Plan draft based on the requirements set by the Legislature.

Last month, the council released its third draft of the Delta Plan, proposing a series of regulatory acts. The coalition, comprised of 15 statewide organizations, wrote a letter to the council to voice concerns over the draft’s continued emphasis on regulating local and state agencies and duplicating existing efforts, rather than coordinating and synthesizing regulations to achieve a long-term plan for the Delta with co-equal goals as identified in the 2009 comprehensive water package enacted by the Legislature.

Coalition Concerns

The coalition identified four main concerns regarding the latest Delta Plan draft.

• "The Delta Reform Act requires the council to prepare a plan, not create a new regulatory agency.” The Delta Reform Act (SB X7 1) contemplates that the Delta Plan will serve as a “comprehensive, long-term management plan for the Delta.” However, instead of creating a program to coordinate the efforts of the different agencies in the Delta, the council simply proposes a long list of regulatory policies, the letter states. Not only does the draft lack a plan, it also lacks cohesion by creating a collection of scattered regulatory acts.
• “The Delta Reform Act requires the council to coordinate with existing agencies, not regulate them.” The Legislature recognized that there are many local, state and federal agencies with independent jurisdiction and statutory directives in the Delta, and that there exists a lack of coordination between them. The council was established with the purpose to facilitate integration and coordination, the letter states.

“The Council should help the approximately 200 agencies with authority in the Delta to work better together, not just become the 201st,” the coalition stated.

• “The Delta Reform Act requires the council to base the Delta Plan on good science.” Section 85308 of the Water Code requires the council to base the Delta Plan on the best available science and the independent scientific advice of the Independent Science Board (ISB). Yet, in March the ISB wrote a letter to the council, admonishing it for “failing to use the best available science as the basis of its policies and recommendations to address problems facing the Delta.”

Furthermore, last week, the ISB noted that the council’s draft “is not consistent with providing the requisite foundation and parameters for an adaptive environmental management program that will be necessary to adequately address the problems facing the Delta.”

Coalition Recommendations

The coalition urged the council to:

• Draft a plan that more clearly describes its long-term vision for the Delta, with an emphasis on a comprehensive approach which includes the necessary investments in the Delta for improving statewide water supply reliability and reducing the multitude of stressors on the ecosystem.
• Draft a plan that fills in the gaps by identifying additional or modified programs necessary to reach milestones for achieving co-equal goals.
• Focus on the component of the Delta Plan addressing “Science and Adaptive Management,” not on an “academic description” of adaptive management, but rather on developing procedures to assure all stakeholders that actions will only be included in the Delta Plan or modified over time based on full consideration of the latest scientific information. Moreover, the council should take advantage of the ISB’s expertise to develop methods and measures of evaluating whether actions undertaken in the Delta are successfully advancing the co-equal goals.