Task Force Named to Find Water Solutions : Environment: The governor directs the panel to find long-term answers to problems caused by exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that will end the battle between ecologists and consumers.

Eight months after he said it was one of the most important elements in his long-range water policy, Gov. Pete Wilson on Wednesday appointed a task force to find long-term solutions to the problems caused by exporting water from California’s most vital waterway, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Wilson announced the formation of the 21-member Bay Delta Oversight Council and ordered it to come up with politically workable solutions to the tug-of-war between environmentalists and water users over the sprawling estuary.

For years environmentalists have contended that excessive pumping from the delta by California’s two giant water delivery systems--the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project--has accelerated the decline of fish and wildlife species that depend on the water for survival. They have argued that exports to farms and cities must be curtailed in dry years to preserve the delta habitat.

Urban and agricultural water interests have fought efforts to reduce exports, saying the loss of a dependable water supply would damage both farm and urban economies and create human hardship.

In announcing his appointments, Wilson said the mission of the new council is to “develop solutions that provide safe, reliable water supplies for cities, adequate long-term water supplies at a reasonable cost for agriculture, and the restoration and protection of fish, wildlife and threatened and endangered species.”

His directive has prompted many to predict that the council will call for the construction of an isolated canal that would bypass the delta and carry water directly from the Sacramento River, upstream from the delta, to pumps that would send it south. Water destined for farms and cities now reaches the pumps by flowing from the Sacramento River through the delta’s channels.

Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler said Wilson sought to appoint a balanced council that would provide equal representation to competing interests.

“We expect that these people who represent the broad spectrum of California water interests will examine the environmental and economic issues related to moving water from north to south in this sensitive estuary and return with recommendations which . . . once and for all will enable us to fix the delta,” said Wheeler.

He acknowledged that the formation of the council had taken a long time but he said it was necessary for Wilson to consult with “a huge number of people” in order to ensure that the panel was adequately balanced.

Members of the council include Metropolitan Water District Chairman Mike Gage of Los Angeles; Ray Remy, executive director of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; as well as company executives, environmentalists, representatives from agriculture and other regional water officials.

Wheeler said short-term delta problems are being addressed by the State Water Resources Control Board, which was designing interim standards to regulate water quality in the delta.

The proposed standards are expected to have a dramatic impact on exports from the delta after they are announced today. To improve delta water quality and protect fish and wildlife, the new standards are expected to require that the state and federal systems release more water from reservoirs into the delta and take less out for farms and cities, particularly during dry periods.

The federal Central Valley Project is required by a new law to provide 800,000 acre-feet of water for the environment each year. Officials expect that the new standards will require that the projects provide at least another 400,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot of water is roughly the amount three Los Angeles families use in a year.

The proposals are also expected to call for the creation of an environmental fund to be financed by an additional fee on water exports.

Urging water officials to face the “disturbing truth: the delta is broken,” Wilson proposed a long-term water policy for California in April and announced that two key elements would be the creation of the delta council and the formulation of new standards. He ordered the board to come up with the standards within six months and said he would give the council three years to devise long-range solutions to the delta’s problems.

On Wednesday, critics said they considered his delay in appointing the council to be a setback.

“We’re very concerned that it took so long to get this thing off the ground. They’ve thrown away eight months of time,” said George Baumli, executive director of the State Water Contractors, an association of water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, that purchase from the State Water Project.

If the governor had made the appointments quickly, Baumli said, he could have taken advantage of a new mood of cooperation that existed at the time between the competing interests. Since then, he said, the hearings on the interim standards and the passage of the federal legislation reforming the operation of the CVP seemed to have again polarized the interests.

A vast maze of channels and sloughs, the delta is the point where California’s two mightiest rivers--the Sacramento and the San Joaquin--converge and flow out to sea. It is a critical habitat for fish and wildlife as well as a vital transfer point in the massive California plumbing system that collects water from the Sierra and moves it south to farms and cities.