2 Threaten to Quit Delta Panel Over Wilson Action

Two members of a committee seeking long-term solutions to environmental problems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have announced that they will withdraw from the group unless Gov. Pete Wilson reverses his decision to drop interim protections for the estuary.

“I think (most) of the environmentalists will be withdrawing from the process,” said David Fullerton of the Natural Heritage Institute, one of seven environmentalists on the 23-member Bay Delta Oversight Council. The council, appointed by Wilson last year, includes representatives from agriculture, cities and environmental groups.

In letters delivered to Wilson on Monday, Fullerton and Chelsea Congdon of the Environmental Defense Fund told the governor that they would no longer participate in the committee because of his policy switch on the so-called interim delta standards.

Wilson ordered the State Water Resources Control Board a year ago to develop temporary protections for the delta, but last week directed the agency to abandon the process. Wilson said new requirements under the federal Endangered Species Act have made the state regulations irrelevant and complained that the federal government had preempted California’s water policy.

In making his announcement last week, Wilson said he still wants the Bay Delta Oversight Council to continue its search for long-term solutions to problems in the delta, which provides about two-thirds of the state’s drinking water. But Fullerton, Congdon and others said Wilson’s decision made it impossible to continue unless the committee is restructured.

“I agreed to join in a multi-year effort to develop a long-term ‘solution’ to the problems facing the bay-delta estuary based on an explicit pledge from you that the state would commit to improved interim protections for the resource,” Congdon wrote.

“Your decision to retreat from the interim standards . . . leaves the state without a foundation for long-term problem solving, or even a policy to base it on.”

Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for Wilson, said the governor had not reviewed the letters, but he said the members would be replaced if they quit the committee.

“We would have to replace them because it is important for the process to move forward,” Eckery said. “The process can’t and shouldn’t be stopped for individuals. It is important work.”