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Despite spending billions, CalFed can't fix Delta

Published in the Contra Costa Times on 05/04/05

Despite spending billions, CalFed can't fix Delta

By Mike Taugher
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Why, after 10 years and more than $3 billion, is there another Delta fish crisis?

And why is its cause a mystery?

"It's quite apparent that we don't know what's going on in the Delta," said Tim Quinn, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's vice president for State Water Project resources.

"Why did this have to become a crisis before we started putting dollars into it?"

The discovery that the Delta's ecosystem is in deep ecological trouble comes at an awkward time for the little known program meant to prevent such problems.

The program, called CalFed, is an ecosystem restoration and water management initiative that grew out of a chaotic Delta crisis in the early 1990s. At that time, a lengthy drought had devastated fish populations and forced severe cutbacks to water users.

At the top of the list of issues CalFed was set up to address is the conflict between the needs of fish in the Delta and water users who rely on Delta export pumps to irrigate farms in the Central Valley and supply water to Southern California.

That conflict now threatens to rear up again, with water users' plans to increase the capacity of Delta pumps now drawing fire from environmentalists who say that would be irresponsible -- at least until the reasons for the ongoing Delta fish collapse are determined.

"The (water) exporters are putting the cart before the horse," said Jonas Minton, water policy director for the Planning and Conservation League.

Water users, meanwhile, are frustrated that after so much time and money has been put into CalFed, Delta conflicts now appear no closer to being resolved.

"What we're seeing is that they've spent all this money and they thought it was going to solve all these things for them, and it hasn't," said Tina Swanson, a senior scientist at the Bay Institute.

The problem, said Quinn, is that CalFed received so much money from a series of environment and water bonds that it failed to concentrate on one of its most important goals -- stabilizing and improving the in-Delta environment.

"There was so much public money, CalFed lost its focus," Quinn said.

His comments echo recent criticism from state legislators who have severely criticized CalFed's management for failing to come up with a plan to finance its programs after the bond funds run out, which will begin occurring for some of its programs as early as next year.

Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, also has pointedly questioned CalFed for having little to show for major investments of public money over the last four years. During that time, CalFed has spent or committed more than $1 billion in bond funds and more than $250 million in state taxpayer funds.

Machado and other key legislators have grown so frustrated that the Legislature now is expected to severely cut CalFed's budget to what lawmakers are calling a "life support" level next year.

CalFed's programs sprawl from salmon restoration projects in Northern California rivers to water efficiency improvements in Southern California.

When the full CalFed plan was finalized in 2000, its authors claimed it was, "the largest, most comprehensive water management program in the world" and, "the most complex and extensive ecosystem restoration project ever proposed."

Since then, CalFed has spent about $3 billion, with about one-fifth of that going to ecosystem restoration.

Quinn, frustrated with CalFed's inability to head off the burgeoning problem in the Delta, criticized its management for failing to pay adequate attention to in-Delta fish.

"This should have been identified as priority five years ago," he said.

Patrick Wright, who heads CalFed as the executive director of the California Bay-Delta Authority, said the chaotic situation of the 1990s will not be repeated.

"We're dealing with it in a much more collaborative, deliberative fashion," he said.

"It's a very, very complex system," Wright added. "We're going to have to accelerate our efforts to better understand what's going on out there."

Defenders of CalFed also note the program has had successes.

Salmon runs, for example, have improved due to CalFed-sponsored habitat improvements.

"Where we have a better understanding of the needs of the fish, we're doing well," Wright said. "Where we don't, we need to pour more money into the science."

Also, it was just a few years ago that the in-Delta fish populations that are now crashing appeared to be healthy.

"Before you draw the conclusion that CalFed hasn't done anything, you have to realize CalFed has done a hell of a job on half the problem," said Greg Gartrell, an assistant general manager at the Contra Costa Water District, referring to the salmon gains.

"On the in-Delta problem, it looked a few years ago like we were doing fine," Gartrell added. "We don't know what the cause is of this decline."

Meanwhile, Southern California and Central Valley water agencies are awaiting the state's decision to go forward with a plan to ease regulatory constraints on the pumping capacity for state water project pumps at Byron.

That capacity could be increased in 2008, with the ability to increase capacity under specific conditions even earlier than that, said Katherine Kelly, the chief of the Bay-Delta office for the Department of Water Resources.

But as long as pumping remains a potential cause of recent fish declines, environmentalists are adamant that state officials suspend plans to increase the pumping capacity.

Quinn said his agency, which delivers water to 18 million Southern Californians, would accept pumping limitations if "good science" shows it is needed.

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