Delta Flows – Weekly Highlights from Restore the Delta for the Week of August 13, 2007

Delta Flows – Weekly Highlights from Restore the Delta for the Week of August 13, 2007

“Ecological restoration is extraordinarily simple: You remove whatever prevents the system from healing itself.”
Paul Hawken

Central Valley Water Quality Regional Control Board (CVWQRCB) Lacks 70% of Needed Staff to Monitor Water Quality

At the August 2nd, 2007 Central Valley Water Quality Regional Control Board Meeting, Executive Officer, Pamela Creedon, acknowledged that the Board is so understaffed that it cannot meet its core mission of protecting California’s water quality. According to a recent press release from the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance Director, Bill Jennings, “The Central Valley Region covers nearly 40% of the State’s land area, provides drinking water to nearly 2/3 of the State’s population, and includes reservoirs storing nearly 30 million acre-feet of water.”

What is truly alarming to Restore the Delta staff is that the CVWQRCB bears a significant portion of the responsibility for assuring the quality of freshwater inflows into the California Delta. With only 12% of the staff needed to regulate storm water discharges; 16% of the employees required to regulate dairies; 37% of the needed employees to regulate municipal discharges; 22% of staff needed to regulate discharges to land; and 22% of the staff required to enforce the agricultural waiver program (a program through which agriculture works in collectives to monitor and report discharge practices), the Board cannot ensure that water flowing from upstream into the Delta meets Clean Water Act standards.

Record-high freshwater exports to other regions within California and poor water quality are without a doubt the two primary factors behind the decline in fisheries within the Delta over the last five years. It is also this toxic combination of reduced freshwater flows and incoming pollutants that denigrate water quality for Delta agriculture and the Delta recreational community.

Ecological restoration of the Delta will only happen with removal of the government barriers that are preventing restoration. These barriers include ineffective government policies and non-enforcement of laws resulting in (1) excessive freshwater exports either through the Delta or around the Delta (peripheral canal/pipe) continuing; (2) and incoming freshwater flows not meeting Clean Water Act standards.

Restore the Delta staff commends our supporters for staying engaged and holding government entities accountable that fail to work toward ecological restoration of the Delta. That is why Restore the Delta will be holding an upcoming community event so that we all can continue to stay informed.


So What Exactly Is An Alternative Conveyance Water System? Or Peripheral Canal? Or Is It A Pipe? And What Would It Do To The Delta?

Restore the Delta will be hosting a community seminar entitled “So What Is a Peripheral Pipe?” on September 19, 2007. This event will feature a community update on Restore the Delta activities, a talk on the effects of a peripheral pipe on the Delta by the Delta’s famous water rights attorney Dante Nomellini, and several other noteworthy environmental speakers.

The event will be held at the Sunset Bar and Grill at Tower Park Resort 14900 W. Highway 12, Lodi. A dinner buffet will be available at 6:00 p.m. The program will begin at 6:30 and last until 8:15 p.m. Dinner costs $20 per person, including tax and gratuities, and is payable at the door. Restore the Delta will provide coffee and dessert.

In addition, Restore the Delta will be asking for a free will donation to cover the program and to help with general fundraising. Please RSVP to Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla at your earliest convenience (Barbara [at] restorethedelta.org) in order to confirm your attendance at dinner and the event.

Both dinner and the program are open to the community, and because Restore the Delta is a community organization, we have secured several scholarships so that interested students, or community members living on a limited income, can attend dinner and the event free of charge. To arrange for a scholarship, please contact Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla at Barbara [at] restorethedelta.org. Scholarship awards will remain confidential.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla
Campaign Director
Restore the Delta
Making the Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable by 2010!
Barbara [at] restorethedelta.org
http://www.restorethedelta.org
ph: 209-479-2053
PO Box 691088
Stockton, CA 95269