The Extraordinary "Year of Water"

All areas of the state are likely to be affected, from North Coast salmon-spawning streams, to the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary, Lake Tahoe, the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, and the Colorado River basin in Southern California.

Decisions now in the making will affect the future allocation of water among competing interests, assure water quality and environmental protection, and demonstrate California’s commitment to ecosystem management.

Working Together

These decisions, monumental in their long-term effects, will result from a collaborative process among local, state, and federal government agencies and non-government interests concerned with environmental and economic outcomes.

The California Biodiversity Council fosters collaboration and a spirit of cooperation among its members, who oversee and manage our natural and cultural resources in various ways.

This process of collaboration, cooperation, and communication is particularly useful in resolving conflicts over management of natural resources. In California, as elsewhere in the West, the biggest, most contentious, and longest lasting conflicts are over water.

This year, we expect to resolve some of them, using innovative strategies.

Bay-Delta Decision

First and perhaps most far reaching is a decision on the use and allocation of water in the San Francisco Bay estuary and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that is at the heart of California’s water supply system. This natural and man-made network of waterways delivers drinking water to the Bay Area and Southern California, irrigates Central Valley farms that feed the nation and the world, and sustains a once-thriving ecosystem. Two-thirds of the people who live in California get at least some of their water from the Bay-Delta.

Later this year, the federal-state team CALFED, created to carry out the Governor’s Water Policy Framework and the historic 1994 Bay-Delta Accord, will recommend one of three alternative plans for urban, agricultural, and environmental water use.

Less from the Colorado River

Meanwhile, there looms a loss of surplus water from the Colorado River as California is required by neighboring states to live within its legal allotment of 4.4 million acre-feet a year, or 800,000 acre-feet less than currently is available. The volume we must do without could supply about 1 million families a year.

This reduction, which has been long anticipated, could create a shortage in the South Coast and southern desert regions that rely heavily on this source of water.

For years, California has been able to divert surplus water and unused apportionments of Arizona and Nevada, but those days are over. The Colorado River Board of California must now devise a plan so that we can live within our means.

A major water transfer agreement under negotiation for many months would deliver conserved agricultural water from the Imperial Valley to the San Diego Water Authority. The Authority wants to buy 200,000 acre-feet a year from the Imperial Irrigation District, delivered through the Metropolitan Water District’s Colorado River Aqueduct.

Water transfers such as this can help cities avoid feeling a pinch from the Colorado River shortfall and will become increasingly significant as California’s population growth creates greater demand for urban water.

Saving the Salmon

On the North Coast, where coastal rivers flow into the ocean, local, state and federal governments are working together to restore salmon and steelhead fisheries

The principal vehicle for this effort, the Watershed Protection and Restoration Council, was established last year by Governor Wilson to coordinate state programs, now scattered among several agencies, and to involve local government and stakeholders in a comprehensive planning process.

This multi-agency effort also is dedicated to improving coastal streams along the central coast from Monterey to Malibu.

By restoring, enhancing, and protecting coastal stream habitat where salmon and steelhead trout spawn, we can help strengthen fish stocks and the ecosystems of which they are a part.

Environmental Infrastructure

This year, new funding will be available for projects to improve our water-dependent ecosystems.

In December, Governor Wilson awarded $33.1 million in grants from Proposition 204, the voter-passed initiative that provided nearly $1 billion to enhance the water supply and provide for restoration of the Bay-Delta estuary.

Governor Wilson’s budget provides funding to rehabilitate many public facilities among California’s 264 State Parks. Here, visitors enjoy the sunshine outside the Visitor Center at Anza Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County. (Photo Courtesy of California State Parks)

In addition, the Governor’s budget for fiscal 1998-99 proposes $11.5 million for environmental improvements to protect water quality at Lake Tahoe, and $45.2 million for comparable programs elsewhere in the state.

The Governor also has proposed $2.1 billion in bonds to improve California’s environmental infrastructure, including water quality, parks, terrestrial habitats, forests, wetlands, and watersheds.

In California, a dependable supply of clean water is needed for healthy fish, farms, forests, wetlands, watersheds, and cities. That’s why it is essential that we seize the many opportunities that will arise in 1998 to close the gap between current supply and projected demand.

Douglas P. Wheeler is California’s Secretary for Resources. He also chairs the Governor’s Water Policy Council, the Governor’s Flood Plain Management Task Force, the Watershed Protection and Restoration Council, the Southern California Wetlands Clearinghouse, and he co-chairs the Governor’s Wetlands Task Force.