Draft Water Quality Control Plan Released: Calls for 55% Flows/ 1Million AF Greater Water Loss vs Voluntary Agreements

The State Water Board a week ago released a 6,000 page draft Update to its Water Quality Control Plan for the Delta, the rival to the Voluntary Agreements, the Executive Summary is available also. Two article perspectives on the draft release one article by Dan Walters and one by Cal Matters' Rachel Becker . They give a good initial perspective on the plan. Becker states that the draft report focuses a lot on the middle approach providing for "minimum flows of at least 55% of the amount of water that the rivers would have carried were they not dammed or diverted, resulting in an average of about 1.5 million acre-feet more water flowing out through the Delta, state water official Diane Riddle said at a media briefing.?

"That’s more than the flows that would result from the “voluntary agreements” deal reached by the Newsom administration and water suppliers, which results in about 500,000 to 700,000 additional acre-feet flowing through the Delta, according to Riddle — less in extremely wet or dry years."

Without the Voluntary Agreements as much as 1Million acre feet of water additional could be lost a year on average that couldn’t be exported south to farms and cities, or a total of 1.5Million acre feet which is enough to supply about 4.5 million households or hundreds of thousands of acres of farm land.

We need to work together Districts, NGOs, Tribes, all people and interests to ensure the success of the VAs so that California can have an adaptive plan based on efforts within our control to try and actually help endangered species. With habitat improvements, recharge, water banking, smart water transfers, infrastructure and faster streamlined adaptive regulations: compressive cooperative approaches to planning. No more fighting with each other if we are going to be ready for California's security. We need the Odd Couple Partnerships that made this country great Ag and Municipalities, NGOs and Water Districts, and the like: the best way to find solutions Partnerships of necessity, we already need each other lets make it a official so we can get real deals done achieve the great opportunities at our finger tips. The past decade has made this need clear: with harsh droughts and 2023 with flooding causing both create devastation and more water than many were ready to capture.

It is going to come down to what always made California great Meritocracy: focus less on who came up with what idea or who can execute it but moving forward together with the best ideas championing the best ideas. If we don't we will be classless, thirsty, and hopeless. We have the science and need to support the technology to challenges through partnerships, and forward looking financial planning. So we can move water where it is needed, store it in those precious wet years in the least resisted ways, and we need good policy that is practical and doable. If not our Environment, our People and our Economy will be at a huge loss.... you can bank it on!