 |
|
 |
| ||
|
An 800,000 Acre-Foot Blur
Stuffing the mailboxes at BurRec this August were letters of concern about how a big block of water dedicated by the Central Valley Water Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) to help fish and wildlife is to be managed and accounted for. The current answer to this question appears in a draft administrative proposal and semi-final guidelines released by BurRec and U.S. Fish & Wildlife in July with a call for comments.
The CVPIA calls for both "reoperation" of the federal project to move water around in a more fish-friendly way -- without reducing deliveries -- and for dedication of 800,000 acre feet out of the total yield to help double anadromous fish populations. The most contentious issue in the recently released proposal and guidelines -- which flesh out the in-the-water details of the CVPIA mandates -- is whether the 800,000 acre feet can be recaptured. According to the guidelines, if any of it can be "...recaptured or pumped for any authorized project purpose, after it has first served the identified fish and wildlife purpose, Reclamation {BurRec] may do so. Recaptured water may reduce the impact on project yield but shall not be considered to be reoperation of the project."
Environmentalists think the guidelines blur the line between reoperation and recapture. "It's fine to pump water that has benefited fish to Westlands as reoperation, which we fully support," says Wendy Pulling of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But dedicated yield is something else altogether. If the 800,000 isn't water that impacts CVP deliveries, it would be business as usual with fish getting the short end of the stick."
But CVP water users think this approach is too simplistic. "You can't look at project operation for the environment in isolation from its other uses, " says Jason Peltier of the Central Valley Project Water Association. Water contractors, who've been pushing the recapture idea, believe that once the fish water's served its primary environmental purpose upstream it should be made available for other purposes, especially if the 1995 Bay-Delta accord standards are being met downstream. "If you're meeting the standards, that should be a cap on our obligation," says Peltier.
But Pulling disagrees, saying the Delta standards aren't "the ceiling for ecosystem health" and leave some important anadromous fish needs unmet. That's why she's also concerned about language in the new guidelines which would permanently credit the 800,000 acre feet towards the feds 50% share of the water needed to meet the Delta standards (the other half of the roughly 400,000-1.1 million acre feet necessary to meet the standards comes from the state water project). While environmentalists agreed to the crediting arrangement for the duration of the accord, which ends in December 1997, Pulling feels its too early to decide whether a permanent credit is appropriate -- especially since recent analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund indicates that because of the plumbing and geography of the Delta, the feds share, like or not, may actually be much higher.
"If the feds are signing up for a permanent 67% for the Delta, that punchs a big hole in our ability to use the 800,000 for fish upstream," says Pulling.
What the final language will be on the permanent credit, and on how reuse opportunities will be counted, is still being evaluated by the agencies, along with comments on the proposal and guidelines. The current guidelines will be used to manage this year's fish water, however.
Contact: Wendy Pulling (415)777-0220; Jason Peltier (916)448-1638; Laura King, BurRec (916)979-2209
[ ABAG HOME | SFEP HOME ]
Copyright © 2002, San Francisco Estuary Project