State Agency Is Losing Patience on Delta Cleanup

State regulators this week threatened to take steps that could curb water shipments to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley if long-sought water quality standards aren’t met in the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

After decades of delays in enforcing salinity limits in the delta, the State Water Resources Control Board on Wednesday gave California’s two major water projects an ultimatum: meet the standards or your delta pumping will be curbed.

“We think this is an historic order,” water board spokeswoman Liz Kanter said. “We’re taking a hard line.”

But state and federal water managers protested, saying the board was holding them accountable for pollution they didn’t create.

“They’re foisting their lack of addressing that problem onto the water projects,” said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources. “I could cut exports, but it won’t fix the problem. So what good will that do?”

The department operates the State Water Project, which along with the federal Central Valley Project pumps enough water from the delta east of San Francisco to supply two out of three Californians and much of Central Valley agriculture.

High salinity levels caused by agricultural drainage into the delta and its feeder rivers have long been a problem in the south delta, particularly for farmers who draw irrigation water from delta channels.

The state drafted salinity standards in 1978, but repeatedly postponed their implementation. A key standard finally took effect last year and has so far been met because wet conditions have meant there is plenty of water to dilute salinity. But that could change in drier years, resulting in violations.

Water managers plan to install a series of barrier gates in delta channels to improve water flows and reduce salinity. But the barriers will not be in operation for three years.

In the meantime, Wednesday’s board order directs the state and federal projects to consider other steps if it appears that salinity standards will be exceeded.

The options could have a significant effect on water operations. They include reducing delta exports, releasing more water from upstream reservoirs and recirculating water through the San Joaquin River, one of two major rivers flowing into the delta.

If water quality conditions are not met, the board order also says, the state and federal projects will be barred from using each other’s pumping facilities -- a prohibition that would effectively reduce exports.

Johns, of the Department of Water Resources, argued that the south delta’s salt problems are caused by local discharges, not by the water exports. “It does not benefit water quality in the south delta if we shut our exports off,” he said.

But an attorney for the South Delta Water Agency, which serves Tracy and south delta farmers, insists that federal water project diversions from the San Joaquin have harmed water quality to the point there is no environmental cushion left to absorb delta discharges. Moreover, he said, the giant federal pumps change the water circulation patterns in the south delta, decreasing mixing that could reduce salinity.

“To me it’s disingenuous of them to say ‘Those aren’t our problems,’ ” agency attorney John Herrick said. “We’re kind of tired of having those impacts visited upon us, and we want them to meet the standard.”