Yearly Archives: 2011

This case by, brought by the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau against the Dept. of Fish and Game, is the most outrageous thing I’ve read in quite a while.

If you remember, farmers in the Scott and Shasta Valleys are a bunch of old school growers who all but dewater the rivers in the summer as they send water to their pastures (sometimes they do dewater whole stretches, below their “push-up dams”). Sadly for them, the Scott and Shasta Rivers have one of the best remaining salmon runs in the state, so the Dept of Fish and Game has jurisdiction over them under the Endangered Species Act. Fish and Game tried to implement a valleywide Take Permit (in which some individual Take was permitted, so long as the whole river was managed to a standard), which I always thought was too permissive anyway, but the growers refused it. Now the Dept of Fish and Game doesn’t know what to. Enforcing against every single diverter is a nightmare, but growers up there keep sucking the river dry, stranding and killing salmon.

The Siskiyou Farm Bureau is now suing DFG, under an astonishing new interpretation:

The Siskiyou County Farm Bureau filed its lawsuit on March 25, alleging that water diverters are not legally obligated to inform Fish and Game of their water diversions and that the agency has no authority to regulate these diversions.
…

According to the groups, the Farm Bureau’s key argument is that the word ‘divert’ in Fish and Game code refers not to water diverted for irrigation, but to the physical diversion of the natural flow to a new water course. The Farm Bureau insists that landowners taking water from the rivers to water their hay fields are not ‘diverting’ but ‘extracting’ water and are therefore exempt from the law.

This cracks me up. It is completely at odds with common parlance in water. We talk about irrigation diversions, power diversions, diversion points this and diversion head that. Diversions has always meant “where you take the water out.” The best part is that like the Siskiyou growers point out, “diversion” was always a euphemism. That water wasn’t “diverted” for a short while before it returns (warmed and salty). It is extracted to be spread over the land as the downstream river gets smaller. Extractions would always have been a purer, blunter word for it.

I can’t imagine a judge will fall for this. Why yes! All of DFG’s authority rests on the common word that everyone uses to describe taking water out of the river! If you use a synonym, salmon are no longer dying in dried up gravels! DFG has to butt out! But the case will be fun to watch. I hope it is expensive to bring.

I wanted to second a point in this editorial in the Redding Searchlight. Their representative, who is Republican and usually a resource extractor, came out against Rep. Nunes’ bill in the house even though the other people speaking out against the bill are largely environmentalists. My goodness! Such a strange alliance.

But the editorial points out that even though their representative properly loathes environmentalists and it must have pained him to oppose something they also oppose, Nunes’ bill would likely threaten north state water interests.

Herger? Until Wednesday, he’d taken no official stand. Loyalty to GOP colleagues and Herger’s philosophy that resources should be put to productive use would argue in favor, but his own district’s direct interests pulled in the other direction.

Y’all, there is no principle in water politicking. There is only protecting your own water use. Property rights, political party loyalty, fervent belief in the appropriative system of water rights, environmentalism, ag solidarity, historic alliances? Nope. Scarcity is coming. We’re in the era of protecting one’s own. Of course we are. This is water, necessary to lifestyle, production and existence. What else could people do?

The implication is that if you need to know how someone’s going to stand on a water issue, decide if it helps or hurts their existing uses of water. Don’t look at anything else. If you need them to side with you despite putting their water use at risk, buy them out with something they want even more, as we see in the proposed water bond. Don’t think principle will sway them. How could it against the reality of not having water?

I have the full First Admin Draft of the Economic Sustainability Plan for the Delta open in another tab, which is practically the same as reading it. For the moment, I’m relying on Valley Econ’s summary. , which is remarkably similar to Alex Breitler’s summary, and I think the latter could have thrown a link or two to the former and maybe to the report as a whole, seeing as we’re all water bloggers in this together and links are cheap.

The Economic Sustainability Plan does some stuff that I’m glad of, giving us an absolute sense of the size of agriculture and tourism in the Delta. It also gives us a good rough sense of the cost to the Delta of implementing the existing BDCP. Very roughly, the habitat restoration and putting in a Peripheral Canal would eat up about half of the existing agriculture in the Delta. Livelihoods, life-styles, ripple and value-added economy, everything that would imply. That would suck for them, no question.

I want to stress is that if implementing the Delta Plan and some version of the BDCP is the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do even if it incurs those costs. The State regularly comes up against real costs in the real world and the process stops dead. Real costs instantly disqualify an option, and we stew at status quo for another few years until we try again, fruitlessly searching the solution space for the mythical solution with no costs to anyone. We now know that there will be concentrated hurt in the Delta. That sucks. The question is whether implementing the restoration and conveyance measures in a legit BDCP (not the current one) averts even more costs to the state as a whole. Doing nothing doesn’t only mean we get to keep the current good parts. Doing nothing carries the risk of interrupting water service to Los Angeles, which is a great big horrific deal even if it gets managed well. Every option has to be compared to that risk, not to a world where nothing bad happens to anyone.

Honest and concrete reports like this ESP (presuming it is roughly accurate) give us two good things. It means we make choices in the full and explicit knowledge of the costs to the losers. That is way more honorable than making the same choices but pretending it is somehow win-win, or not acknowledging the costs. The other thing it means is that if we choose to implement (a much revised and better) BDCP, we can include ways to compensate and transition the in-Delta people who are injured by it. But even the full knowledge that this is a real bad option for some people in the state doesn’t mean that the DSC has to stop cold. It means we need a similar report for what happens to the whole state if we don’t “fix the Delta,” habitat restoration, Peripheral Canal and all.

ADDED: Alex commented to say:

For the (public) record, the summary I posted is basically right from the report — I didn’t take it from Jeff’s blog.

And I did link to the report itself in a previous post.

I plead not guilty, Your Honor.

My apologies.

I took two three more impressions from ACWA’s alternate Delta Plan.

• It is not a plan to engage the physical world, since that might mean some local agencies be constrained from doing whatever they want.  Instead, it is a plan to do harmless intra-state coordination and write a bunch of reports.  At the very best, it does not much of anything for several more years, which the signatories evidently prefer to anything that smacks of regulation.  If ACWA does manage to get this included as an alternate plan in the EIR and it is somehow selected as the chosen alternative, it will be a textbook perfect example of how California dithers for decades while levees, canals and fish populations crumble.
• Boy howdy would ACWA and those signatories like the state to pass out money.  Money, money, money, flowing one way from the state to regions and locals.  Better, faster grants.  Money.
• As befits a bunch of water users, their section on accelerating surface storage and conveyance was concrete and detailed.  I read somewhere that the DSC’s 4th Draft still doesn’t say anything about a Peripheral Canal.  If you want help with that part, ACWA and its buddies could write you some real nice text for getting those built.
• An almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.

Reading ACWA’s alternate Delta Plan was like a groovy trip to an alternate universe where the right and proper solution to all problems is not the Iron Fist of Centralized Power, but is instead The State Should Coordinate With Itself.  I know!!  Trippy.  The near, mid and long term actions in every section were mostly recommendations for what the state could do with itself.  Honestly, I blame ourselves, in two ways.

1. By many accounts, the state has been embarrassingly disjointed and terrible to deal with. The different aspects of managing water are widely parted out and there is no shortage of stories of the state contradicting itself.  Sorry, y’all.  Truly, there are substantial efforts to straighten that out and institute a new culture of getting our act together at the state first before we go public.  That’s been going on for a few years, but evidently hasn’t made much of an impression yet.  Our bad.  This is why I like the sort of governance proposals made by the Little Hoover Commission and PPIC, to merge state water agencies.  The resulting agency would be big and need to pay conscious attention to coordination, but it’d be better.
2. My department at least is willing to openly acknowledge this, which is why a lot of bigger collaborative policy discussions have started there.  Everyone, including the State, can agree that the State needs to do a better job.  Great!  Agreement!  But in so many of our policy processes, the discussion ends when disagreement starts.  So we never talk about the next things, things more controversial than “the state needs to do a better job.”

All that’s openly known, and ACWA is largely right about the state needing to do all the coordination it recommends.  But making that the centerpiece of the Delta Plan is a terrible waste.  In the first place, the state should be doing that no matter what.  Fourthly, what a fucking waste of the DSC.  The Legislature creates a new body with some real authority and it should spend its time nagging agencies?  Seventeenth, isn’t the revived California Water Commission supposed to be doing a fair share of this?  Twelfth, the point of the Delta Plan is not the state diddling itself, but to provide a reliable water supply for the state and to protect, restore and enhance the Delta ecosystem.  Those goals are going to have to be met out there, on the ground, with the people of the state who aren’t bureaucrats.

I was intrigued to see the continuation of a few themes I’ve detected before.  We’ve seen these in different sets of political talking points in the past couple years.

• I’ve picked up hints of a new rift developing; not the traditional ag/urban/enviro, but an emerging big water user v. little water user.  Item 7, pg 23 is about ending illegal water diversions in the Delta.  Those might be illegal diversions, they might be poorly documented historic diversions; they are certainly individual diverters, outside the structure of a water district.  ACWA is gunning for them, perhaps rightfully.  I can’t speak to the legality or size of in-Delta diversions.  I only note that ag solidarity is crumbling.
• On pg 30, ACWA wants to restrict ocean fishing of salmon.  Screw salmon fishers!  I understand the reasoning, but it is an assertive declaration that the state should value one use of our water resources over another type of use (growing over fishing).
• On pg 35, ACWA brings up ammonia repeatedly.  This is code for the State Water Contractors’ strategy of blaming fish decline on the Sacramento Regional wastewater treatment plant rather than lack of flow.  I happen to think that Sacramento should upgrade their plant and that the fish decline is largely due to diverted flows.  I don’t mind this recommendation, but point out that it comes from a specific political strategy.

***

In roughly half a dozen places, ACWA’s Alternate Delta Plan directs the Delta Stewardship Commission come up with a plan for something (pgs. 7, 10, 21, 24, 28, 41, 44, 49).  DUDE!  That’s what they’re doing (sorta).  Why would ACWA and all those signatories like partitioned-out plans any better?  Oh yeah.  Because all of those fights are pushed to the future where the plans can individually weakened.  Even if that cynical reason isn’t right, the fact that ACWA’s default is “the DSC should make a plan for that sometime later” means that ACWA doesn’t have a plan of its own.  This is not a document with a solid detailed vision. It is some good points, some re-warmed talking points and some stalling.

***

In several places, ACWA’s Alternate Delta Plan is oddly focused on getting DWR to write reports (pgs 19: UWMPs, 20:levees (isn’t this what the DRMS reports were supposed to be?), 21: Bulletin 118, 21: more groundwater, 22: surface storage, 41: flood stuff).  Oh, and Fish and Game and SWRCB too.  One problem with this is that the point of the DSC is not to generate reports.  It is to meet co-equal goals.  Near and mid term actions shouldn’t be more studies and reports.  It is time for physical changes in the real world.

The second problem is that this is just weird.  Why would the DSC be an intermediary for demanding reports?  If you want reports (I agree that many of those would be fascinating and helpful), surely the Brown administration or the Legislature should be directing the agencies, not another agency.  Moreover, no one needs to exert political pressure to get those reports.  DWR would love to write those!  So would DFG and the SWRCB.  Departments don’t need direction from the Delta Stewardship Council.  They need staff and a state that can pass a damn budget.  I loved furloughs so I’m not complaining personally, but if you want reports out of a department, it doesn’t help to cut staff time by 15% for a couple years.  Finally, since ACWA is begging for a bunch of reports, I can’t help but point out that these reports and studies are the sort of thing that serve all the water users of the state and the departments that write them are appropriately supported by water user/public goods fees.

***

Getting more specific and trivial:

On page 13, ACWA’s Alternate Delta Plan shows more of their allergy to centralized control.

Athough the Act includes direction to pursue a Coastal Zone Management Plan type agreement with the federal government… a much more effective, timely and flexible  approach would be for the Council to … develop Memoranda of Agreement with the key federal agencies… .

Those two things are not the same.  A Coastal Zone Management Plan could include zoning that local agencies and individuals would have to abide by.  It can restrict some uses of the coastal zone.  It influences everyone in the area.  MOU’s are only binding on the agencies that sign them.  It would guide the federal agencies that sign on and the DSC, but not the rest of everyone in the managed zone.  This is consistent with ACWA’s “don’t boss me” philosophy, but if a Coastal Zone Management Plan is called for, an MOU with the feds is not a substitute.

***

I ended my last detailed review of a Delta plan with a rant about bald assertions.  There’s some of that in ACWA’s Alternate Plan as well, noticeable to readers who don’t share initial assumptions.  I object to unsupported statements that lack of reliability has had devastating effects on the state’s economy (pg 17, facts not in evidence), and that “California’s water supply is … sufficient to serve its economic needs today and into the future” (pg 17 as well.  Why then did the SWRCB’s report on the flows required to restore fisheries in the Delta send water users into such a tizzy?  If there is sufficient water to meet that environmental need and all the others, why were all y’all talking about how it was a single fish-focused report that would ruin the state if it ever got implemented?)  There were a couple other trivial ones, but I’ve been nitpicky enough for one night.

***

I can’t imagine you want more, but I marked up a paper copy.  Should anyone want an even more detailed critique, send me a Word version and you’ll get back a commented-up document.

I completely love the fact that no matter how old and how professional we get, the professional plans and papers we produce still read like authors ran out of time at the end and slapped a last page of text together. We are doomed to write college papers for our whole lives. I assume that’s why ACWA’s “Finance” section is laughably short. Here’s what it says.

Paragraph 1, pg 48: People have to like the Plan to pay the costs of meeting the co-equal goals. The bond might pass. BDCP would pay for some stuff too if the Delta Plan includes BDCP.

Actions and Recommendations, pg 48:
Near term:

• People have to like the plan if they’re expected to pay for it (people = their own districts).
• The bond might pass.  If it does, the Council should write some instructions for passing out bond money.  If it doesn’t, the Council should come up with a Finance Plan.
• Ecosystem restoration stuff should be paid for by everyone, from the General Fund or G.O. bonds, like the 2012 bond that might pass.
• The Council shouldn’t cost us much.  Go ahead and pay for that out of the General Fund.

Medium term:

• The Delta Stewardship Council should come up with real specific Finance Plans, in five years.

You guys, this is the entire Finance section of the ACWA plan.  If you think I’m joking, read pages 48-49 for yourself.

Poor Professor Michael.  He pines for a finance plan that has, like, finances in it.  He has futile hopes for a plan with several conveyance and restoration alternatives all costed out.  He would like to compare those costs to the anticipated amount of water that would be delivered with that conveyance.  He would like to compare them to the opportunity cost.  He would like to dig in, critique estimates and assumptions.  Oh that crazy dreamer.  There’s no sign of a Delta Plan, alternate or not, that has numbers in it.

I’ll give a more holistic critique of ACWA’s whole plan soon, but no.  The rest of ACWA’s Alternate Delta Plan is no more substantive.  It is a fine positioning effort for trying to fend off a Delta Plan that might change the status quo, but it is not a substantive plan that is worth serious consideration.  They did not come up with a game-changer.

Every time someone complains to the Delta Stewardship Council that the Plan is all wrong, Mr. Isenberg smiles politely and asks the complainer to submit a better plan. He always strikes me as completely serious; he would love to see a better plan. I presume ACWA got the same treatment, and to their credit they took him up on it. They did not write a better plan. They didn’t write a plan that ensures the co-equal goals will be met at all. Unfortunately, their cover letter purports that their alternate Delta Plan has a plan in it, one that should be considered as a project alternative in the EIR. That’s an interesting way to give a hollow set of defensive positioning a little credibility while moving the fight down the road.

The cover letter is interesting aside from the “pretend our Delta Plan has a plan in it” aspect. One nice thing is that while it has biases I don’t share, the questions and larger assertions are recognizable to me. Unlike Nunes who thinks that environmentalists are Wiccans, McClintock who thinks that people arbitrarily stopped liking abundance in the 70’s and that’s why we can’t have new dams, or Birmingham who thinks water deliveries don’t depend on hydrology, they are talking about the world I perceive.

They pose some of the same questions I’ve wondered at, about how the DSC will proceed. They do it in a funny leading way: Will the DSC promote harmony and justice while doing this thing we like, or will they continue kicking puppies and small children? But that’s fine. If the DSC can withstand being scolded on the blogs, I figure they can give the answers they intend even if the questions were meant to be leading.

Mostly, though, the policy/cover letter is fine. It is ACWA’s “Alternate Delta Plan” where the exercise falls apart.

I hope the Delta Stewardship Commission and their staff are not still cranking on the 4th Draft. But if they are and spending the weekend inside, thanks. We’re grateful. Sending them concentration and insight, since I don’t need it at the moment.

A quick note to thank Lubell and Campana for their write-ups of important water goings-on. I can hardly think of a better use for blogs and expertise than their notes on what they saw when people gathered to talk about water policy. Since I appreciate reading these run-downs of meetings so much, I should do them too. Here are the concepts that stayed with me from last week’s CDFA Board Meeting.

An exchange between Adan Ortega (who always says interesting things) and Phil Isenberg (who always says interesting things):

Isenberg (paraphrased): When bond money runs out in the foreseeable future and the state can’t bribe “Regions” to do stuff voluntarily, what is the alternative? Doing nothing? Regulation?
Ortega (paraphrased): Why’s it always got to be regulation? What are other drivers besides giving money or regulation?
Other people: There are market incentives. And decoupling rates. There is technology improvement.
Onthepublicrecord(in my head): This calls for a force diagram! Everyone loves a force diagram. But this one didn’t cheer me up.

Not to Scale.

Professor Howitt spoke:

Prof. Howitt said some interesting things. He says “Ag has the water; urban has the money; enviros have the votes.” That’s a good summary. He suggested pricing Peripheral Canal water by reliability, which is a neat idea. Then he discussed the public goods charge in the PPIC report and I remembered why I don’t count him as a reliable source.

He mentioned a public goods charge for generating a constant stream of revenue for a water and ecosystem infrastructure. He threw out the figure $2/household-year for urban and $2/acre-year for ag.

39M Californians x (1 household/3 Californians) x ($2/household-year) = $26M per year.
10M irrigated acres x ($2/acre-year) = $20M per year.

Prof Howitt proposes to raise $46M per year for water infrastructure and ecosystem restoration with a public goods charge? What shall we build with it all?!? You know, Prof. Howitt is thought of as the expert, but he goes around in public saying numbers that are off by an order of magnitude. I’m prepared to spot anybody double or triple the real number or one big mistake. That seems fair. But if you are an economist and newspapers quote you, you should be making these kinds of calculations in your head. Is it likely that the west side lost 40,000 jobs? Is a $2/household public goods charge meaningful? How much revenue would it generate? If this is your profession, you should have an innate sense of scale that will stop you from embarrassing yourself. Estimating is your friend.

[It crossed my mind on the way home that perhaps I have the units wrong. Maybe it was $2/household-month, which would solve the order of magnitude problem. That’s not what I wrote down, but maybe I heard wrong. If so, I owe Prof. Howitt an apology.]

And Jason Peltier:

The last thought that made an impression on me came from Jason Peltier, from Westlands. Among other things, he said something close to “We could decide we don’t want Westlands to exist anymore. That’s a policy decision. But we don’t make that decision. We make other side decisions that indirectly have that result.” I agree with him. We don’t make direct decisions about what we collectively want and the resulting trade-offs. This forces all of us to strategize and prophesize and try to reveal the hidden implications of things. It also means that we don’t make honest choices about compensating the losers, since we pretend they didn’t lose from our far away decision way over there.

That’s what I got from the Ag Board meeting last week. They had some strong panels, although I do see a lot of the same faces at these things.