The Bay-Delta Plan is not new or innovative. It’s a betrayal.
Photo: DWR
From the board of the California Water Impact Network
Yesterday, the State Water Board adopted a plan that does nothing to meaningfully change decades of water grabs that have decimated our largest watershed, the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay ecosystem. This plan does not fulfill the state’s legal duties to protect aquatic species and will be challenged in court. Its adoption is yet more evidence that corporate agriculture holds too much political power and ratepayers, tribes, Delta communities, and the environment are paying the price.
C-WIN recently filed suit against the Department of Water Resources, which operates the State Water Project, one of two systems that pump unsustainable amounts of water out of the Delta. The other system, the Central Valley Project, is run by the federal government, and has aggressively violated environmental law under the Trump administration. These two systems are supposed to be regulated by the State Water Board, but the Board’s regulatory requirements and its enforcement of those requirements have prioritized water exports over healthy rivers.
“These agencies continue to fail California communities that want affordable water and rivers that support salmon and other species,” said Carolee Krieger, C-WIN Executive Director. “C-WIN and its allies will continue to show up in court to demand compliance with California’s water protection laws.”