EPA Plan to Protect Delta May Curb Southland Water

Seeking to shore up the water needs of sensitive ecosystems, federal authorities Monday outlined a proposal for environmental regulations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that could profoundly limit deliveries to Southern California.

U. S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, offering water agencies a preview of environmental standards they will propose formally on Dec. 15, estimated that the new regulations would require additional freshwater flows into the delta of about 540,000 to 1.1 million acre-feet a year, depending on rainfall.

That could reduce exports south to farms and cities about 8% to 18%. The water would come from reservoirs located upstream from the delta that supply Southern and Central California.

State officials said their calculations put the potential cut in water available to farms and cities at about 25%.

“This set of standards has the potential to drastically impact the water supply reliability of the State Water Project and consequently the financial integrity of the project, so we are extremely concerned,” said Robert Potter, deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources.

The proposed environmental protections attempt to reverse dramatic declines in fish populations in the delta by reducing the amount of saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay.

To hold back the seawater, federal officials said more fresh water must be allowed to flow into the sensitive delta estuary, particularly during dry years. The amount of freshwater flow is controlled by the upstream dams.

The EPA, which has been critical of the state’s efforts to protect the delta, moved to impose its own controls after the state Water Resources Control Board, under direction from Gov. Pete Wilson, abandoned efforts to set new interim standards. The new federal standards are expected to be adopted early next year.

Officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which gets about half of its water supplies in most years from the state, said they are worried about the potential impact of the new rules. But they said so many details are undecided that it is too early to accurately measure the impact on water supplies.

“We are very concerned about all the uncertainty out there,” said Timothy Quinn, director of MWD’s state water project and conservation division. “Under some of the approaches that have been suggested, the economic impacts on us could be substantial.”

Quinn said a key issue that is undecided is how the burden of complying with the new standards will be spread among all users. If water users upstream from the delta are required to reduce the water they take from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, he said that could lessen the impact on water supplies in Southern California.

Calling the new standards long overdue, environmentalists charged that the Department of Water Resources was exaggerating the potential effect of the regulations in an attempt to build up opposition.

“I think the numbers from DWR are reflective of their vested interest in doing everything they can to stop these standards,” said David Behar, executive director of the Bay Institute of San Francisco. “I think DWR has a history of Chicken Little scenarios when it comes to environmental protection because the more you can exaggerate impacts the greater your potential for a successful campaign against them.”