Your eyes on California Government

JAN. 1, 2012

By WAYNE LUSVARDI

Two members of the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors, Larry Ruhstaller and Ken Vogel, have recently contended in an opinion piece in the Tracy Press that lack of freshwater inflows and outflows are the “clear cause of the Sacramento Delta’s decline.”

Both Supervisors condemn the decline of freshwater habitat for salmon as the benchmark of decline of the Delta.

The San Joaquin River

For those who can’t place San Joaquin County geographically, it is located east of the San Francisco Bay and the county seat is the City of Stockton.  It gets its name from the San Joaquin River.

The San Joaquin River is the largest river that flows into the Sacramento Delta.  It originates in the Sierra Nevada and flows 365 miles through the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley.  The San Joaquin River flows out to Suisun Bay, San Francisco Bay and ultimately the Pacific Ocean.  The San Joaquin’s water is heavily diverted for agricultural irrigation and serves as a wildlife corridor.

During the rise of the Industrial Revolution the San Joaquin Basin alternated from farms and cities in dry years to a huge inland sea during wet years. In the 20^th century, the river was engineered with dams and levees that reduced the threat of flooding.  But engineering also reduced flow of both fresh and saltwater through the Basin.  This also reduced the flow of both freshwater and salt water into the basin.

The San Joaquin River is mainly controlled by several federal agencies that built waterworks in the area.  During the Great Depression the federal government had to complete water projects in California because the state was unable to finance construction similar to today.  To this day most Californians do not understand that the federal government controls half of the state’s water supply, which it diverts mainly to farmers.

Thus, there are two parallel water systems in Central California: the State Water Project (SWP) for farms and cites and the Federal Central Valley Project (CWP) mainly for farms.  It was politically better to divide the water between cities and farms with parallel systems than to force them to rely on the same water ditch.

Is Lack of Flow the Cause of Delta Decline?

But the facts are not as clear as Ruhstaller and Vogel assert, according to William Fleenor, supervisor of the Environmental Dynamics Laboratory in Civil Engineering at the University of California at Davis.

Fleenor states: “One can’t put too much weight on cause and short-term result analyses.  Both salmon and striped bass strongly depend on ocean conditions.  Even if one were certain that increased flows were beneficial, was it because there was additional outflow or, because there was dilution of contaminants or because of the timing of the flows?”  In other words, the causes of the Delta’s decline are not clear but uncertain.

Not Pristine Delta Even 100 Years Ago

Ruhstaller and Vogel assert that 50 to 100 years ago the Delta had “freshwater inflows and outflows mimicking a more natural flow regime.”  But Fleenor says the picture we have of the Delta as some pristine ecosystem is not accurate:

“Even 100 years ago 60 percent of the Delta was already ‘reclaimed’ and most of the floodplains on the inflowing rivers cutoff from the river itself, although only 30 to 40 percent of upstream consumptive use was in place. By 50 years ago the entire Delta was reclaimed and most upstream storage was in place.”

Water Storage Aided Flood Control

Fleenor additionally does not agree that the Delta channels were “routinely dredged as a means of increasing maritime commerce, reducing river stages in flood times, and were the source of materials for levee maintenance.”

He states that “neither deep water ship channel or port was dredged” over 100 years ago.  “While dredging has been reduced in recent years – except for the deep water ship channels and ports – most of the flood protection has been produced by upstream storage controls.” So water storage, not only dredging, has resulted in improved flood control. Prior to such flood controls the Delta became an inland sea extending as far East as Stockton.

While Ruhstaller and Vogel write that levees “are maintained to a higher standard” today, Fleenor argues that “little more than routine maintenance and repair has been performed in the last 50 years.”

Tides Not an Ecology Stressor?

Ruhstaller and Vogel’s also contend that tides are not an eco-system stressor.  But Fleenor says that ocean conditions can influence the Delta’s tides.

Fleenor reports that tidal fluctuations were about two-feet prior to development of the Delta – before 1850. They dropped to zero in the late 1800’s when a large sediment wave occurred as a result of mining in the Sierras.  However, that sediment plug was washed out when the channel was widened and deepened.

From 1850 to today the sea level has increased eight inches. Fleenor reports that high to low tide fluctuations are now in the three-feet range.  Tidal fluctuations are expected to increase as the sea level is expected to rise in the future.

Pollution Discharges are Now Far and Wide

Fleenor seems to partly concur with Ruhstaller and Vogel that pollution discharges are “detrimental to ecosystem productivity.”  Ruhstaller and Vogel claim that today treatment of discharges is required at the point source. Fleenor says that the wide use of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and even some nutrients can be detrimental.

Muddying the Waters

Policy makers and water engineers don’t seem to be describing the same place when they speak about the Delta.

To Ruhstaller and Vogel the Delta of today “has the same general land use with the exception of a few urban expansions in Stockton; has less dredging due to regulations; is striving to meet a prescribed engineering standard; has the same tides; has treated wastewater discharges; has highly regulated non-point source discharges, including urban and agricultural storm water runoff and return flows; and roughly the same amount of applied water on crops as it has in the past.”

The word picture that Fleenor paints is of a different Delta. This Delta was 100 percent reclaimed by development and agriculture long ago; has less dredging but this has been offset by greater upstream water storage; has one-foot higher tidal fluctuations that are expected to increase with the rise of the ocean; has some regulated industrial point and non-point pollution discharges but also has suffered from urban and agricultural runoff due to an 85 percent increase in population.

Most importantly, in contrast to Ruhstaller and Vogel, civil engineer Fleenor says: “The average Delta outflows actually have been similar in volume for nearly 60 years since we first started controlling watersheds.”  Thus, Delta outflows don’t appear to be the single clear cause of ecosystem decline.

Nonetheless, Ruhstaller and Vogel claim that if water exports to cities and farms are brought “in line with the reductions that rational analysis and science-based studies demonstrate … the problems will be solved.”

But it is not indisputably clear that science is on the side of policy makers who want to reduce water exports. Because science mostly results in more uncertainty, water policy should be based on a postulate of ignorance.

Fleenor believes a solution is “a separation of the ecosystem from the water delivery system by some type of peripheral conveyance would be critical to protecting the ecosystem and producing a reliable water supply.”

In contrast, the San Joaquin County Supervisors sponsored a referendum in 2007 opposing the Peripheral Canal.

So shutting the spigot off on farms and cities is not necessarily the answer. Re-plumbing the Delta offers a better prospect from what little we know for certain about how the Delta works.

The water policy makers of the 1930’s Depression Era had to build separate water canals and systems for farmers and cities.  In the midst of the longest economic downturn since the Great Depression, California may have to ultimately consider dividing the waters once more as the next-best solution.

But before we determine what policies to purse with the Delta we first have to get everyone agreeing on the same physical realities and conditions.  As noted above, this is a difficult task.

“Muddy water, let stand – becomes clear.” Lao Tzu