Environmental Science ENSC 2800

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Environmental Science ENSC 2800

• Spring 2003
• RESTORING THE BAY-DELTA

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A Plethora of Agencies and Initiatives

• There is a broad array of actors governmental
  and non-profit - extremely active in researching
  and restoring the Bay-Delta.
• Like the organisms that inhabit the Bay-Delta,
  each actor has its niche, its territory and its
  specializations.
• Some are watchdogs, designed to keep the
  government agencies fulfilling their legal
  mandates e.g. Baykeepers and their citizen
  water quality monitors.
• Others are predominantly educational, like the
  Aquatic Outreach Institute, offering workshops to
  educators and children in keeping urban creeks
  clean and reducing urban pollutants in runoff.
• Others conduct research, like the USGS or the
  SFEI, promoting knowledge about the Bay-Delta and
  its conditions and challenges.
• Yet more have statutory responsibilities for
  enforcing laws and standards to preserve
  Bay-Delta conditions like the US Coast Guard and
  the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Some do almost all the above.

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SFEP

• Arguably the most active of the Bay-Delta actors
  is the San Francisco Estuary Project (SFEP).
• The SFEP is a cooperative federal-state
  partnership organized through the U.S.
  Environmental Protection Agency's National
  Estuary Program.
• The project brought together 100 private,
  government and community interests (called
  stakeholders) to develop a consensus plan, which
  was then signed by the Governor of California and
  the U.S. EPA Administrator in 1993 the
  Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan for
  the Bay and Delta (CCMP).
• The CCMP remains the only approved, completed
  ecosystemwide plan for balancing environmental
  protection and beneficial use of the Estuary's
  resources and has been used as a report card on
  how the collective efforts concerning the
  Bay-Delta are doing - first for 1993-1996,
  second for 1996-1999, and third for 1999- 2001.

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The 1993 CCMP Scorecard

• The 1993 CCMP workbook lists 145 actions to save
  fish, conserve water, protect wetlands, reduce
  pollution, and facilitate environmentally sound
  land use decision-making, grouped in ten priority
  management action issues.
• These ten priority action issues were used as the
  basis for the 1993-1996 and 1996-99 scorecards
  but were updated into eight issues for the
  1999-2001 scorecard.
• The first report card 1993-96 totaled up progress
  on all 145 CCMP actions, the second report card
  1996-99 totaled progress on 26 of the CCMP
  actions grouped within the ten priorities, and
  the third one totaled progress on 35 CCMP actions
  grouped within eight revised priorities.

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1993-1999 Scorecard Priorities

• 1. Expand, restore and protect Bay-Delta
  wetlands.
• 2. Integrate and improve regulatory, planning,
  management and scientific monitoring programs.
• 3. Create economic incentives that encourage
  local government to implement measures to protect
  and enhance the Estuary.
• 4. Improve the management and control of urban
  runoff.
• 5. Prepare and implement watershed management
  plans throughout the Estuary.
• 6. Reduce and control exotic species
  introductions and spread in the Estuary via ship
  ballast and other means.
• 7. Build awareness about CCMP implementation.
• 8. Increase public awareness about the Estuary's
  natural resources and the need to protect them.
• 9. Implement the Regional Monitoring Program and
  integrate the results of scientific monitoring
  into management and regulatory actions.
• 10. Work with federal and state agencies to
  include CCMP recommendations in other planning
  and restoration efforts and funding decisions.

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The 1999 Scorecard

• The major priorities were reformulated after the
  1996-1999 assessment and presented as only eight
  action issues, the single most important once
  more being the expansion, restoration and
  protection of Bay-Delta wetlands.
• The new issues built on the knowledge and
  experience compiled in the prior years.
• 1. Expand, restore and protect Bay-Delta
  wetlands.
• 2. Prevent the introduction of exotic organisms,
  plants and animals into the Estuary from all
  sources, and control their spread.
• 3. Promote watershed management throughout the
  Estuary.

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Additional Elements

• 4. Create incentives that encourage local
  government, landowners and communities to protect
  and restore the Estuary.
• 5. Reduce pollution of the Estuary from urban and
  agricultural runoff, and other non-point sources.
  
• 6. Strengthen public awareness about the
  Estuary's natural resources.
• 7. Expand the regional monitoring program to
  address all key CCMP issues, including pollution,
  wetlands, watersheds, dredging, biological
  resources, land use and flows and integrate the
  results of scientific monitoring into management
  and regulatory actions.
• 8. Promulgate baseline inflow standards for San
  Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun Bays to protect
  and restore the Estuary ecosystem.

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Recent Progress

• An assessment of what has been done and
  accomplished the last three years is a useful
  indicator of the kinds of initiatives needed,
  particularly since for most of the goals set in
  the CCMP, only some (0-25) or moderate (25-50)
  progress has been achieved so far.
• Specific data is provided on each of the goals
  for the delta from which a quantitative
  assessment of progress can be gained.
• Acquisitions of fields, creekbanks, islands,
  floodplains and other former, current and future
  wetlands tripled from 1999 to 2001, with at least
  33,042 acres secured and protected, up from
  10,183 from 1996-1999 and 18,677 from 1993-1996.

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Progress on Invasives

• 1999 saw a new state law passed (AB 703)
  requiring midocean ballast water exchange for all
  ships coming into California from more than 200
  miles offshore.
• The theory is that this exchange will harmlessly
  jettison unwanted hitch-hikers in an environment
  that they will not survive in and thus will not
  modify, similarly any new hitch-hikers will not
  be suited to the Bay-Delta when this mid-ocean
  water is discharged here.
• Since January 2000, more than 90 of vessels
  entering California ports have complied, spurred
  on by a program of inspections and enforcement by
  the State Lands Commission.
• Active control programs, including eradication
  efforts, are underway at many locations for
  Atlantic cordgrass, purple loosestrife, water
  hyacinth, giant reed and Chinese mitten crabs.

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CALFED Bay-Delta Program

• The CALFED Bay-Delta Program was established to
  develop a long-term comprehensive plan that will
  restore ecological health and improve water
  management for beneficial uses of the Bay-Delta
  system.
• It has four major objectives
• 1) to restore the ecological health of a fragile
  and depleted Bay-Delta estuary
• 2) improve the water supply reliability for the
  States farms and growing cities that draw water
  from the Delta and its tributaries, including 7
  million acres of the worlds most productive
  farmland
• 3) protect the drinking water quality of the 22
  million Californians who rely on the Delta for
  their supplies
• 4) protect the Delta levees that ensure its
  integrity as a conveyance and ecosystem.

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The biggest in the world

• The CALFED Bay-Delta Program is the most
  intensive, expensive effort to restore a riverine
  estuary system anywhere in the world.
• According to CALFED officials is it
• the largest, most comprehensive water management
  program ever developed
• the most complex and extensive ecosystem
  restoration project ever proposed.
• one of the most intensive water conservation
  efforts ever attempted.
• CALFED is driven by a consensus-based,
  negotiation driven plan of action known as the
  Record of Decision (ROD), signed in 2000 after
  five years of debate and study.

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CALFED Institutions

• The CALFED Bay-Delta Program began in May 1995 as
  a cooperative, interagency effort of 18 State and
  Federal agencies with management or regulatory
  responsibilities for the Bay-Delta.
• Additionally, over 100 other representatives of
  agricultural, urban, environmental, fishery, and
  business interests, Indian tribes and rural
  counties have contributed to the process.
• This stakeholder group has developed programs
  that will commit California taxpayers, water
  users and the Federal government to invest as
  much as 6 billion over the next decade on CALFED
  programs.

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Record of Decision

• The ROD, formally called the Record of Decision
  for the CALFED Bay-Delta Final Programmatic
  Environmental Impact Statement and Report
  (EIS/EIR) represents the culmination of the
  National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the
  California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
  processes brought to bear on the problem of
  fixing the Bay-Delta.
• The ROD reflects a final selection of a long-term
  plan called the Preferred Program Alternative,
  which includes specific actions to fix the
  Bay-Delta.
• It built on the earlier 1994 Bay-Delta Accord,
  formally called the Principles for Agreement on
  Bay-Delta Standards between the State of
  California and the Federal Government, which has
  been implementing interim measures for
  environmental protection in the Bay-Delta up to
  the signing of the ROD.

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