The Bay-Delta Conservation Plan public meeting, August 29th, 2012

The following is a rundown of what happened at the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan public meeting held on August 29th, 2012. These are highlights only, and is a record of most of what happened; however, it is not meant to be a complete record or a compete transcript of the meeting. I listened in on the conference call, which is why individual speakers aren’t identified; without visuals, I cannot confirm who is speaking in most instances.

PRESENTATIONS

Meral opens with an update: Dr. Jerry Meral, Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources, started the meeting with an update on the status of the project. The revised proposed conveyance facilities are 40% smaller than the facilities proposed in February and now consist of three intakes with a cumulative capacity of 9,000 cfs. The water will be conveyed by gravity flow through twin tunnels rather than being pumped. The project proposes over 100,000 acres of restored habitat, the majority being tidal habitat, so far the leading candidate for recovery of covered species. While progress on the BDCP has been made, there are still a lot of remaining issues, including reservoir releases and upstream temperatures, how and where the intakes should be located, and how the project will be financed. The governance of the project continues to evolve with local counties wanting to be included in the decision making process. Residents of Courtland and Hood have many concerns about impacts of the project on their communities; staff is working with them to resolve these issues. Meral also said they were working on an expedited process for landowners to resolve concerns about project impacts. Meral emphasized that it is a ‘preferred project’ not the selected project, and no final decision has been made or can be made until the environmental work has been completed.

More on the new facilities: Russ Stein, Department of Water Resources, discussed the new conveyance facilities. The preferred alternative is based on Alternative 4. For intake locations, they are currently looking at intake locations 2, 3, and 5, but there are 7 potential locations along the Sacramento River and nothing has been ruled out as of yet. The intakes will feature state-of-the-art fish screens. The intakes are 3,000 cfs each; the largest fish screens ever built have been for 3,000 cfs; additionally, larger capacity intakes would have to be longer, thereby making it more difficult for the juvenile salmonids to get past. After the intakes, the water will flow into sedimentation basins and then into an intermediate forebay; from there, the water would travel 35 miles through the tunnels down to a 840-acre forebay around Byron Tract where it could be conveyed to either the Jones Pumping Plant (CVP) or Clifton Court (SWP). The tunnels will convey the water by gravity flow, which will reduce greenhouse gases and require less transmission lines to be installed. This alternative would require 50 MW of power instead of 200 MW, a substantial savings in energy. The total footprint of the revised project is 2700 acres. The use of the south Delta facilities will be retained, so water will be able to be diverted at either point.

Biological Goals and Objectives: David Zippin and Jennifer Pierre talked about the importance of biological goals and objectives. Biological goals and objectives serve three purposes: they articulate the desired outcomes, they describe how the outcomes will contribute to the recovery of covered species, and they provide benchmarks for measuring progress. Since February, they have been working with fish and wildlife agencies to incorporate their comments. Some goals and objectives are currently being refined including strategies for non-tidal marsh, cultivated lands, tidal and managed wetlands, and covered fish, specifically the Delta smelt, longfin smelt, and through-Delta survival of salmonids. Lamprey are included in the Plan’s biological goals and objectives because they could potentially become listed species. They are also working on expanding the rationale for each objective.

Decision Tree Update: The decision tree is a new concept; it is a visual and analytical tool to be applied to Conservation Measure 1, the new facilities. The decision tree will be applied to initial operations once the new facilities are built and operational. A decision tree prescribes a decision based on specific criteria; the specific criteria lead to the selection of a specific outcome. Decision trees can incorporate multiple criteria and associated outcomes. Decision trees are needed and useful because scientific uncertainties existing now will be reduced by new studies and data that will occur during the 10 to 15 years it will take for the project to become operational. Decision trees are also being considered for determining spring and fall outflow. The criteria set by the decision tree that will be used to determine operations will be analyzed in the Effects Analysis. The decision tree will produce a range of potential operations that could occur; these ranges will be equally analyzed. The decision tree will establish the starting point; adaptive management will be used to modify operations as needed. The decision tree is currently under development; might be ready for review in September. A participant asked if when the permit is approved, will it include numbers for actual operations? Meral replied that there will be a range of numbers; numbers will have to be included in order for the permit to be approved.

Finance: David Zippin gave a brief presentation on the financing of the project. There are no new cost estimates at this time. Costs for conservation measures have been changing. Construction costs are up as the tunnel size for gravity flow needs to be larger, but operating and maintenance costs will be significantly less. Other cost estimates for conservation measures have changed as well. The upcoming Chapter 8 (Financing of the BDCP) will contain planning level estimates, identify and quantify likely funding sources, demonstrate that potential sources are adequate, and describe contingencies. Chapter 8 will not contain an operating budget, financing plan, or funding agreements. “Adequate funding” is a requirement of both NCCP and ESA regulations. Over 25 potential funding sources have been identified so far. They are working with the water contractors to fully define costs. The contractors have agreed to fully fund the new facilities and the mitigation for those facilities, plus a portion of mitigation beyond that; this is currently being discussed. The water bond continues to be an important source of funding. The proportional funding remains the same with roughly 75% of costs to be covered by the water contractors, 10% by Reclamation, 10% by the water bond, and 5% from other agencies, such as DFG, USFWS, and NMFS.

Schedule: Meral said the public draft of the BDCP and the EIR/EIS will be done in the fall, likely to be October. When exactly it will be ready depends on the success of the decision tree, and whether more modeling will need to be done as modeling drives the schedule. He will know more in September. At some point in the winter or early spring, the water contractors are going to have to make a commitment to fund the project and go forward. The final EIR/EIS could be approved and adopted in spring of 2013.

OTHER THINGS DISCUSSED …

Low-flow fish screens for the south Delta: The question was raised about screening the pumps in the south Delta for low-flow fish screens. Meral said that water agencies had studied the issue but had not released results of the study. A comment was made that low-flow screens are not appropriate for the south Delta facilities because they are designed to take water from a river flowing by, but at the south Delta, the fish are at a dead end and there’s no place for them to go, and by saving them from the pumps, they are instead subject to increased predation.

Tunnel size questioned: More than once, the size of the tunnels was questioned. Meral and staff said the tunnel will be a size that is capable of diverting 9,000 cfs by gravity. This will require a larger size tunnel than if the water were to be pumped; tunnels that would be pressurized need to be engineered for that, and these tunnels are not being engineered to be pressurized. Engineering for a pressurized tunnel increases construction costs significantly. The tunnels are not oversized for gravity feed, but they would be oversized if the tunnels were to be pressurized. A request was made for the specific diameter of the tunnels and whether those tunnels are larger or smaller than what was proposed in February, but the question could not be answered by staff. “The tunnels will be designed to pass a 9,000 cfs flow; they won’t be designed for a larger flow. What the tunnel diameter is, though, I don’t know yet,” Meral said.

“Suck the river dry”: A participant said, regarding size/capacity of the proposed tunnels: “I think they basically have the ability to suck the river dry if they wanted to.” Meral addressed the “suck the river dry” concerns, saying “We’re not very far above sea level. You could draw as much water as you want out of there and it will never be dry … it physically can’t be done. All you’d do is draw sea water in … nobody’s going to be seeing the bed of the Sacramento River; I’d like to put that one to rest.”

The Role of the Water Board: A commenter asked Meral to clarify the role of the State Water Resources Control Board. Meral said the Water Board is a cooperating agency working with them on the environmental work. The Water Board is proposing an alternative that will be considered as well. The Water Board must approve the change in the point of diversion, so the Water Board will have the final say whether the project goes forward.

Vague salmon objectives: A comment from a participant (possibly Dick Poole, GGSA): He has been reviewing the objectives for salmon; the objectives lack specific numbers, or are noted that “objective achieved by operational improvements”. “We’d like to comment on it but we’re not seeing anything we can comment on,” he said. Zippin responded that he was not sure what document they were reviewing, but he suspects they were placeholders for numbers that hadn’t been developed yet. In most all of the cases, the numbers have been developed but haven’t been released yet. Targets are still being discussed with the agencies. The commenter said that they’d been working on salmon issues for years, and he didn’t think that operational improvements were going to do much of anything. Zippin replied that they weren’t planning on solely relying on operational improvements.

Local concerns: One commenter said that with the decision tree, it’s difficult analyze to the impact on local water supplies and local water quality. Local water users are concerned about bypass flows in the Sacramento River; tides are an influence as well. “We don’t have anything yet to rely on to come to any conclusion on that issue; we need more from you on that.” Jennifer Pierre said that water quality and supply will be evaluated in the Effects Analysis at the range of values provided by the decision tree, and the EIR will do more analysis on these issues as well.

Science versus muscle: One participant said we can all get lulled into thinking that science will provide all the answers, but there will always be some degree of scientific uncertainty. “The problem is that when there is scientific uncertainty, it comes down to a battle of muscle trying to decide what we’re going to do … as long as there’s a little bit of uncertainty, and the ability to get in there and claim the uncertainty, and then use political muscle to get an outcome that you want; we believe that’s going to happen. Pushing that off into the future until after facilities are built is a risky proposition for Delta stakeholders.” Meral responded that so far, it seems the muscle has come down on the side of the fish agencies. “The projects have been very constrained by the [endangered species] acts and of course by the water boards and water quality standards,” Meral said. “For those who are worried that the water projects or the water contractors will take advantage of the scientific uncertainty to force a decision in their favor, I would say they would probably tell you – some of them are here and can speak for themselves – that they haven’t been overly successful with that in the past … history is that these projects have been highly constrained, exports have been dramatically reduced really by the operation of the acts in the face of a lot of protests and lawsuits by the water contractors, so … the past is not an indication that muscle is going to overcome these acts.”

Who will be in charge of Delta restoration: One participant questioned the role of the Delta Conservancy and others in leading restoration efforts: “Who’s authorized to do what? Who’s going to be the lead agency? If it’s going to be the BDCP, there ought to be an announcement to that effect.” Meral agreed that there are several agencies with an interest in Delta restoration efforts, but who will be in charge? “My guess is that in the end, the agencies all work together. To say that one agency will dominate, like the Delta Conservancy or the Fish & Wildlife Service or someone else, I don’t think so. I think the key is that all the state and federal agencies and the NGOs just need to meet periodically and coordinate,” said Meral.