April 30--REPORTING FROM OAKLAND -- Unveiling a scaled-down version of a long-planned effort to replumb the hub of the state's water system, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday said Californians can't afford a continued stalemate on the project.
"This is an imperative. It must move forward," Brown said, referring to the state proposal to build two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to ease water shipments to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and Southland cities.
Faced with continuing resistance from the federal fishery agencies that must approve the project, the state is dropping efforts to obtain a 50-year environmental permit for operation of the tunnels and a new diversion point on the Sacramento River in the north delta.
It is also pursuing a less ambitious, $300-million environmental program to restore 30,000 acres over the next few years, as opposed to the five-decade, $8-billion proposal to restore more than 100,000 acres of fish and wildlife habitat in the delta.
Pointing out that for years, little habitat work has been performed in the environmentally troubled delta, Brown called 30,000 acres " real." The 100,000-acre goal, he added, "is a desire."
The changes amount to the end of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which water contractors had hoped would provide them long-term protection from continued environmental restrictions on delta exports.
Instead, the state will seek shorter environmental permits that could grow stricter as delta conditions evolve with climate change.
Speaking at an Oakland news conference, Brown said the contractors, who have committed to paying the $15-billion construction bill for the 30-mile tunnels, "have no choice" but to stick with the project. "If they don't do this they are absolutely certain to suffer serious [water] losses in the future."
In statements, contractors, who have spent nearly $250 million on planning the tunnel project, said they would study the revisions.
"Continuing along the previous pathway toward approval of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan has resulted in repeated obstacles and was not acceptable," said Dan Nelson, executive director of the San Luis Delta-Mendota Water Authority. "The danger of a collapsing delta ecosystem and a faltering economy were too real to allow the previous efforts to drag on."
Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said: "We will thoroughly review with our board this new proposal to advance the modernization of the delta water system and restoration of the ecosystem on separate, but coordinated tracks. Metropolitan has long stood ready to invest in a delta solution that works for both the environment and California economy. Any successful final plan must do both."
Part of the largest estuary on the West Coast, the delta has for decades been a bottleneck in California's sprawling plumbing system. Its environmental troubles started in the 1800s when Gold Rush-era settlers drained its wildlife-rich wetlands and turned them into cropland.
As the state's big government water projects came on line in the 20th century, more and more water was diverted from delta tributaries and the delta itself. Now freshwater flows through the delta to the sea are only about half what they once were.
The federal and state pumping operations in the south delta that fill southbound aqueducts have profoundly altered the delta's hydrology, disturbing the salinity patterns that native fish evolved with. The pumps pull migrating salmon and the tiny delta smelt to their deaths and cause some delta water channels to flow backwards.
That has helped send fish populations plummeting and triggered increasingly tough endangered-species protections that have restricted delta exports.
The urban and irrigation districts that get water from the delta have been the driving force behind the tunnel project. Building a new diversion point on the Sacramento River in the north delta and improving habitat will, they hope, boost the populations of imperiled fish and ease limits on delta pumping.
But the project has encountered delays, heated opposition from delta growers and some environmentalists, along with repeated criticisms from the federal fishery agencies that must approve it.
"This is a huge deal for the governor of California to recognize the need for adjustment," said William Stelle Jr., West Coast regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, one of the agencies that has to sign off on the project.
