Some landscapes, like Yosemite, are literally carved in stone.  Others, like the San Francisco Bay-Delta, being formed of humbler and less permanent stuff, are subject to dramatic changes over time.  Indeed, we're only starting to understand what a dynamic system California's largest aquatic ecosystem is.  Today, we're at a pivotal point in our thinking about the Delta.  But it's often hard to see the shift in thinking on a day-to-day basis.  To do that, one must start with a little history.

The first Delta that Californians knew was a 1,000 square mile labyrinth of tule wetlands and sloughs -- the largest estuary on the West Coast of North or South America.  Native Americans lived for months on floating rafts, feasting on abundant fish and wildlife.  Riparian forests were flooded every spring by water flowing from more than a dozen rivers draining the estuary's vast watershed. Early European travelers were sometimes lost for days in the maze of Delta channels.  This was truly the Natural Delta.

That Delta is gone.   From the Gold Rush to the early days of the last century, a growing agricultural industry (including my relatives) converted the Delta to dozens of leveed islands supporting thriving farms.  Winter rains continued to draw remarkable displays of ducks, geese, swans and sandhill cranes.  Fishermen plied Delta waters in search of striped bass and millions of salmon that still passed through the Delta each year.  When you visit today, this is the landscape you still see - the Agricultural Delta.

During the Great Depression, plans emerged for a new vision of the Delta as California's greatest water supply.  With the construction of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project a new system was created -- the Water Supply Delta.  The Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water Resources were created to make this vision a reality.  Most of today's current legal protections for the Delta and our regulatory agencies were shaped during this period.  By the early 1990's, it was clear that the Water Supply Delta was causing catastrophic impacts on our fisheries.  That trend has accelerated, leading to ESA listings and the closure of California's salmon fishery in 2008.

Beginning just 17 years ago, with the passage of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, a serious effort was begun to move to a new vision. This vision for the Delta did not seek to eliminate water supply, but rather to strike a balance -- providing water supply while responding to the decline of the Delta ecosystem, to the legal imperative to protect it and, most importantly, responding to a change in values.  Today, the public demands environmental protection.  The CVPIA, CALFED, the Bay-Delta Accord were all attempts to facilitate this transition. Today, the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan process is still struggling to find this balance.  The Delta Vision Task Force Strategic Plan summarized this new vision as one reflecting the "co-equal goals" of water supply and ecosystem health.  Today, this paradigm shift to a Shared Delta is still not complete.   

(It's worth noting that the current real estate crisis has temporarily slowed another transition -- the rapid development that has been leading to the Suburban Delta.  This has been one of the fastest growing parts of the state over the past decade.  400,000 people live in the Delta today.  This trend could lead to truly disastrous results.)   

The Delta Vision Task Force also worked to tackle another, more fundamental, rethinking of the Delta.  One of the classic paradigm shifts discussed in the history of science is the emergence of plate tectonics among geologists.  Plate tectonics reflected a new understanding of the forces literally shaping our world -- moving continents around like jigsaw puzzle pieces.  This shift from static to dynamic continents was a dramatic change in thinking.  The same thing is happening today in the Delta. 

The Delta is subject to profound natural forces that will shape the future of the place we see today.  Oxidation has caused Delta soils to subside.  As a result, some Delta farm land is now 30 feet below sea level - and is continuing to sink.  Pressure is building on the Bay Area's earthquake faults, with serious implications for the 1,100 miles of levees that protect Delta islands.  Sea level rose by seven inches at the Golden Gate since 1900 and significantly more is expected in the coming century.  Climate change will also increase the magnitude of flood events flowing down the Bay-Delta's major rivers.  (The Delta is one of the three most important places where Americans must confront the potential impact of climate change on our land -- the other two are New Orleans and Florida's long coastline.)    

All of these natural forces are increasing over time.  The groundbreaking work of Prof. Jeff Mount of UC Davis concluded that, without major changes, there is a 2/3 likelihood of a catastrophic failure of multiple Delta islands.  Such an event would have disastrous consequences for farmers, water supply, Delta residents, the environment and the web of infrastructure that crisscrosses the Delta (including highways, railroads, power and gas lines and more).   The fundamental realization here is that the Delta is a dynamic place shaped by powerful natural forces.  It is not the static, malleable system we have assumed it to be for the past century and a half.   This is the Dynamic Delta. 

In the past, we have largely overlooked these natural forces.  But we will either plan to account for these forces, or we will watch as they determine the Delta's future.  Without a dramatic shift in our thinking and without a visionary new plan, we will not succeed in deciding the fate of the Delta.  The Delta Vision Task Force's Strategic Plan is an ambitious and largely successful effort to grapple with these paradigm shifts - encouraging a new vision of a Shared, Dynamic Delta (while keeping the Suburban Delta at bay.)

Are our government agencies up to meeting these new challenges?  The conclusion of the Delta Vision Task Force was a resounding "no."  Our current state and federal agencies have not succeeded in the transition to the Shared Delta.  They did not slow the development of the Suburban Delta. And have barely begun seriously confronting the Dynamic Delta.  The Delta Vision Task Force concluded that far reaching governance reform - reshaping our existing agencies and creating a new Delta Council and a new detailed plan -- is essential if we are to meet the major challenges we face in the Delta. 

This governance reform debate is only beginning in the state legislature, with the introduction of two bills certain to change dramatically over time -- AB 39 and SB 12, introduced, respectively, by Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D, San Rafael) and Senator Joe Simitian (D, Palo Alto).  The transition to plate tectonics was not debated in California's capitol.  The transition to the Dynamic Delta will be.  It should be interesting.