Snow was appointed Bay-Delta program manager in February by Assistant Interior Secretary Betsy Reike and California's Secretary for Resources Douglas P. Wheeler. He previously served for seven years as general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, a wholesale water agency with a $200 million budget, which supplies 95 percent of the water in the region.
"The challenge is to craft a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Bay-Delta problems," Snow said. "We must move away from traditional piecemeal problem-solving and develop a balanced comprehensive program in which everyone makes progress and everyone gets results. My role is to manage the development of a joint state and federal strategy for this kind of long-term improvement of the Delta."
Snow assumed his new role in April, working with CALFED, the team of federal and state agencies that manage Bay-Delta resources; and a new citizen's policy advisory group, the Bay-Delta Advisory Council (BDAC). CALFED is comprised of the California Resources Agency, California Department of Fish and Game, Department of Water Resources, California Department of Food and Agriculture, Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency, State Water Resources Control Board, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Snow's responsibilities include overseeing the preparation of environmental documentation required under the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act for the long-term plan.
The Bay-Delta Agreement, signed Dec. 15, 1994, by the State of California and the federal government with approval of the stakeholders, provided water users three years of certainty about their water supplies. During this time. the San Francisco Bay, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary will be operated according to new water quality standards that comply with agreed-upon principles of the December accord, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. In the meantime, CALFED will design a long-term plan to "fix" the Delta and restore it to environmental health so that it can dependably serve the needs of water users and the ecosystem far into the future.