Delta Stewardship Council Keys to Success – Realistic Phasing

Around the world, Americans are notoriously energetic and impatient.  That’s both good and bad.  I learned this first hand when I taught in China after I finished graduate school more than 25 years ago.   I was struck by how common it was for the average Chinese citizen to talk about time in a very different way.  My students would regularly say that China would be a world economic power, but that it would take 50 years.  (It’s only been 25, so they’re well ahead of schedule.)   While I was there, a journalist wrote about an event that leaders in a nearby village considered to be relatively recent.  The event was the Manchu invasion, which happened in 1644.  Americans, by contrast, feel more comfortable with a planning horizon that stretches somewhere from the coming quarter to the next few years.   That approach is not going to work in the Delta.  Developing a Delta Plan with realistic phases will be a key to enabling the Council to succeed.  These will be long phases.

Let me give a couple of examples.

The Delta Vision Strategic Plan calls for large scale Delta habitat restoration “on the order of 100,000 acres.”  Designing and implementing a restoration program on this scale will be a long-term effort.   Given the complexity of the Delta ecosystem, detecting long-term, system-wide improvements in ecosystem health as a result of this restoration will also be a long-term endeavor.  The scientific community agrees that habitat restoration is one essential component of an effort to restore the Delta ecosystem.  But it won’t happen overnight.

The BDCP process is evaluating options for a Peripheral Canal, tunnel, or pipeline through, around or under the Delta.  Most experienced observers anticipate that it will take 20-25 years to design, permit and construct such a facility – under the best of circumstances.  So for the next quarter century, we may be managing the plumbing system we have today, with modest changes.

A Delta-wide flood management effort will not be less time-consuming.

And finally, there’s climate change.  This is where you can really see the importance of a realistic planning horizon.    Professor Jeffrey Mount of U.C. Davis famously concluded that there is a 2/3 likelihood of large scale failure in the Delta by 2050, as a result of sea level rise driven by climate change and other factors.   The Public Policy Institute of California proposed a controversial “do not resuscitate” policy for some Delta islands.   After the PPIC report came out, I sat down with a good map, a piece of paper and a Sharpie.  When I was done, the paper was nearly blank.  I learned that there are few islands we can walk away from today, even if we want to .  Most Delta islands have highways, rail lines, towns (or cities), gas storage facilities, aqueducts and other important infrastructure. 

There’s a paradox here.  It’s hard to see how we can save all Delta islands if sea level reaches three feet or more.  But we can’t just walk away from the Delta.  The solution here is realistic phasing. Let’s face it.  Even if we wanted to, we can’t just abandon Sherman Island.  It’s perhaps the most vulnerable Delta island, but it is also bisected by an important highway and is a key to preventing the loss of other islands to the East.  For the next several decades, we have little choice but to try to protect Sherman Island.  That’s why one of NRDC’s early recommendations for the Council is to work on a management plan for Sherman Island. 

After the first 25 years of the implementation of the Delta Plan -- call it Phase 1 - we’ll know more about sea level rise and climate change.  We’ll see the effectiveness of our management decisions during Phase 1.  As we look forward, Phase 2 may look quite different.  And Phase 3 is still looking through a glass darkly.   But let’s not kid ourselves – we’re looking at long phases here.

As a people, Americans don’t naturally think in quarter-century increments.   We’re not always very good at maintaining focus and patience when realistic solutions require a decade -- or decades.  There are important exceptions to this generalization, of course.  Think about the decades-long efforts involved in the interstate highway system, the federal reclamation program, cleaning up traditional municipal sewage, or the work of the Corps of Engineers.

In California water, however, patience has not been our strong suit.  The Delta Stewardship Council should see this as a growth opportunity. 

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