Time to Look Forward for Solutions on California Water Issues

The Sacramento Bee’s editorial this morning makes a key point about water issues.  It’s time to look forward and focus on solutions.

Much of the past year has been consumed with a fundamentally backward-looking debate about the biological opinions (BOs) protecting Bay-Delta salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and smelt.   Water users have filed a dozen lawsuits challenging the BO’s.  Next week, NRDC will devote its limited resources to helping defend those new BOs during several days of evidentiary hearings where water users will rehash many of the same arguments that have been heard and rejected time and again.  This one will involve dozens of attorneys from high-priced lawfirms and a number of out-of-state “experts” who are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to show that the pumps should be allowed to continue killing thousands of fish a week.  The water users continue to pursue these arguments despite the National Research Council’s confirmation that the protections in the BOs are “scientifically justified.”

NRDC and our allies have also had to spend far too much time defending against the attempts of a few to push for federal legislation in the Senate and the House to block Endangered Species Act protections – a misguided effort that would do little to relieve the effects of three years of drought on the State’s water supplies and much to further imperil the continuing existence of California’s 150-year salmon fishing industry.    

It’s time to stop arguing over the past and focus on sustainable solutions for the future.  Far too much time and effort has been spent over the past year looking backwards – at the BOs – rather than looking forward to work on solutions.  This opportunity should not be missed.

California has never been more in need of an emphasis on solutions.  We need to implement California’s new policy of reducing water use 20 percent by 2020 – and develop more effective agricultural conservation programs.  We need to implement new policies to help capture urban stormwater, to reduce pollution and generate water supplies.  The state must implement new groundwater monitoring requirements.  The State Water Resources Control Board must determine the flows needed to restore a healthy Bay-Delta ecosystem.  The Delta Stewardship Council is about to begin work on a comprehensive Delta Plan.  And a great deal of work is required by the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan process to tackle key unresolved issues in the Delta.

Together, this list represents a remarkable opportunity to develop practical, comprehensive water solutions.  However, the more time water leaders spend looking backwards, the less time they can spend working hard to ensure that forward-looking efforts to design solutions are successful.