Transforming How California Uses Water

Protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta, an ecosystem in crisis

A section of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta including Mandeville Island.

Water has long been a contentious issue in California and the semi-arid West. But in 2009, severe drought, economic recession and the collapse of state fisheries have made the need for water policy reform more urgent than ever.

The fundamental problem with water in the California is that the rules governing its use date back to the Gold Rush era. Water is still regulated as an essentially unlimited resource, one that costs very little to use. This has led to waste and environmental degradation. Cheap water, for example, has encouraged farmers to irrigate low-profit crops in desert environments even as populations grow.

Environmental Defense Fund has long argued for market-based solutions to the state’s unsustainable practices. As EDF’s Cynthia Koehler and Laura Harnish wrote in The Huffington Post in June 2009:

"California is blessed with an abundance of water, but is hampered by laws, infrastructure and habits from another time. There are solutions, including better ways of moving water among users, rational pricing and institutional reform. These are win-win solutions that will benefit everyone in the state.."

In California, EDF's work to protect water resources and restore rivers and deltas focuses on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta, the largest estuary on the U.S. Pacific Coast.

California’s Everglades

While San Francisco Bay is famous, its connection to the largest estuary on the West Coast is not. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta, created by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and the salt water of the Pacific Ocean, provides critical spawning habitat for fish such as salmon and steelhead. It is also a rich feeding ground for migratory birds on the Pacific flyway and home to more than 750 plants and animals.

An economic engine

The Bay-Delta’s tributaries, sloughs and watersheds are vital to California’s economy, supporting commercial and sport fishing, shipping, agriculture, recreation and tourism. Some of the largest dams and canals in the world have been built to store, channel and pump the Bay-Delta’s water, irrigating some of the world's most productive farmland in the San Joaquin Valley and providing a portion of the drinking water to 25 million people in the Bay Area and southern California.

An ecosystem in crisis

The San Francisco Bay-Delta has become a major switch point for moving water from the north, where water is more plentiful and people are fewer, to the south, where continued population growth has created a desperate thirst. The human need is great, but so, too, is the cost. New trends suggest that something is seriously amiss with wildlife in the Delta. Resident fish species like the Delta smelt and Chinook salmon are at an all-time low, while exports of water are at an all-time high.

These declines ripple through the natural ecosystem and critically affect people. Partly because of low river levels, commercial salmon fishing off the coast of California and Oregon has been closed for the past two years for the first time in history, causing estimated losses of nearly $300 million and devastating fishing communities.

Farmworkers and farmers are getting hit by unreliable water deliveries in the Central Valley, worsening severe economic hardship in the nation's breadbasket. Unemployment has spiked in the San Joaquin Valley. And across the Golden State’s cities, water is being strictly rationed. The three-year drought has reignited old battles among cities, farmers and conservationists over water.

Solutions for the Bay-Delta

The prolonged drought provides the opportunity to reform California's water use and create a resilient system for our cities, farms and natural environment. EDF develops solutions that balance water needs sensibly among users. Innovation, water use efficiency, and robust water markets can help move Western water management into the 21st century.

Our staff:

• work with state and federal legislators and key stakeholders;
• are part of an effort to develop a long-term, sustainable Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
• participate in Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision process and are following up on its recommendations in the legislature.
• talk about our balanced approach to western water policy at our blog: On the Water Front

The following Environmental Defense Fund water experts are working to restore the San Francisco Bay Delta and can by reached by calling 415-293-6050:

Laura Harnish, regional director, specializes in restoration of large scale ecosystems such as the coastal Louisiana wetlands, the Colorado River Delta and the San Francisco Bay Delta. She advocates for market-based solutions to water supply management in light of challenges posed by global warming.

Spreck Rosekrans, economic analyst, specializes in water project operations, specifically how freshwater diversions for cities and farms can be made while improving the timing and volume of flows that sustain ecosystems.

Ann Hayden, senior water resource analyst, examines water management and policies throughout the state and works to ensure the adequate protection and restoration of aquatic resources and habitats. Ann is involved in the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan that seeks to recover imperiled species while considering the improved management of Delta water supply operations.

Cynthia Koehler, senior consulting attorney, works on federal and state water policy and legislation. She is an environmental attorney with 20 years of experience in natural resource protection specializing in endangered species and large scale restoration.

For more information, contact:
Jennifer Witherspoon, California communications director of Environmental Defense Fund: jwitherspoon@edf.org or 415-293-6067.

Posted: 26-Apr-2007; Updated: 28-Jul-2009