Despite huge spending, California delta nears collapse

By: SAMANTHA YOUNG and ERICA WERNER - Associated Press | Friday, October 12, 2007 7:22 PM PDT ∞

SACRAMENTO -- The mighty river delta that supplies water to two-thirds of California's population and is one of the most important wildlife habitats on the West Coast is in worse shape than ever despite $4.7 billion in government spending.

The ambitious venture launched seven years ago to restore and protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has spent most of its budget on projects hundreds of miles away, according to an Associated Press review.

While many of those projects are regarded by environmentalists and policymakers as worthwhile in their own right, they have done almost nothing to achieve the main goals state and federal lawmakers laid out when they created the California Federal Bay-Delta Program, or CalFed.

Now California's endless water wars are flaring anew, with experts declaring the state's key water source -- and the delta's wildlife -- to be in crisis once again.

"In many respects, we're right back where we were," said Tina Swanson, a fish biologist with the San Francisco-based Bay Institute.

CalFed, as the program is known, has four objectives: increase the reliability of water deliveries; improve water quality; reduce the risks of a catastrophic breach in the delta's extensive system of earthen levees; and restore the delta's ecosystem for plants, animals and fish.

With those goals largely unrealized, a federal judge stepped in this summer to limit the state's water pumping operations to protect a native fish, prompting fears of a statewide water shortage next year. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers, meanwhile, are considering plans to spend billions more on California's water systems, with much of that money targeted again for the delta.

The AP's review of CalFed spending reveals how the agency has been unable to deal with the delta's most basic problems, even as it slides further toward collapse.

For example, CalFed agencies initially proposed spending $950 million to eliminate mercury, organic carbons and other contaminants from the water that flows to some 25 million Californians out of the delta. In reality, the agency has spent just 13 percent of that -- about $125 million -- and produced little if any improvement in water quality.

Joe Grindstaff, CalFed's director for the past two years, acknowledged the program's many shortcomings.

"Fundamentally, the system we devised didn't work," he said.

Instead of attacking the problems CalFed was intended to solve, the $4.7 billion allotted to the program acted like a grab-bag for the 14 state and federal agencies that have access to the money.

The vast majority has been spent on hundreds of relatively non-controversial projects outside the delta, due to a combination of political disputes, diffuse leadership and parochial money-grabs.

Meanwhile, native fish species have plummeted, pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants are worsening water quality, invasive species are crowding the West Coast's largest estuary and inland delta, and scientists agree the delta's antiquated levees would not withstand a major earthquake that could cut off water supplies to millions.

CalFed was supposed to address all those issues.

In response to a request from the AP, CalFed provided a detailed accounting of projects funded during fiscal years 2005-06 and 2006-07, and, prospectively, 2007-08. CalFed officials said they could not account for projects funded from 2000-2004, but said they are finalizing a list that should be ready later this year.

The available data show an astonishing array of more than 300 projects in the last three years.

The spending ranges from $150,000 funneled to a San Francisco education group to teach environmental science to elementary school children, to more than $113 million to improve the taste of tap water in Southern California, hundreds of miles from the delta. Among the other projects:

-- $40.2 million to tear down five dams along Battle Creek in rural Shasta County -- about 160 miles from the northern point of the delta -- to restore 42 miles of habitat for salmon and steelhead trout.

-- $483,669 to three educational programs, including $169,032 to a Los Angeles area group called Amigos De Los Rios. That money was to design a 17-mile loop of parks and greenways through 10 cities in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles. "Kids for Our Creeks," an environmental education program for K-8 students, got $82,811.

-- $118 million on studies in the last seven years to build or expand dams in Northern and Central California, three of which are outside the delta.

-- $5.7 million on government public affairs, communications, legal fees and human resources.

"Money was flying out the door all over the place," said Jeffrey Mount, chair of the CalFed science panel.

Agency officials say more money was spent outside than inside the six-county delta region, though they can't offer a precise breakdown. Overall, CalFed's money mostly went to create more water supplies for thirsty Southern California and to improve habitat along Northern California rivers to boost the native Chinook salmon and steelhead trout populations, according to the data released by the agency.

Nearly two-thirds of the 130,757 acres targeted by CalFed projects for ecological restoration -- 81,727 acres -- is outside the delta, according to the Department of Fish and Game.

Consequently, there has been "low progress" protecting the native fish of the delta and eliminating invasive species in the Bay-Delta estuary -- two goals stated in the Record of Decision that created CalFed, according to a draft performance review completed this summer by the agency.

"If you look at the big picture of CalFed, the macro picture, I would say CalFed's a dismal failure because -- details aside -- CalFed promised to restore the delta," said Steve Evans, conservation director of Friends of the River, an environmental group based in Sacramento. "Overall, the delta today is worse than it was seven years ago, and that is a fundamental failure of CalFed."

Although there has been little measurable progress inside the region CalFed was designed to restore, supporters of the agency's spending point to tangible achievements elsewhere. They say the peripheral projects have indirectly alleviated pressure on the 1,153-square-mile delta, a land mass about the size of Rhode Island.

In one example, a rapidly growing area more than 300 miles from the delta secured $1 million in CalFed money to help expand a wastewater recycling plant. Instead of pumping water out of the delta, a plant in the San Bernardino County city of Chino hopes to recycle 100,000 acre feet of water each year.

"Everybody benefits by us reducing our demand for water out of the delta, so that's how we qualified," said Richard Atwater, general manager of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency. "Instead of taking water out of the delta and irrigating our parks and golf course, we're using recycled water."

Architects of CalFed say local groundwater storage, recycling, conservation and desalination projects throughout the state have generated 800,000 to 1 million additional acre-feet of water per year, or enough drinking water for 4 to 5 million people.

"CalFed has been effective in some areas, and there is a great deal of work to do in others," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "CalFed was never meant to be the be-all and end-all. It was a methodology to try to get the federal government and the state working together."

Other members of Congress, particularly Republicans who favor more spending for dams and reservoirs, predict that congressional support will not be there when CalFed comes up for federal reauthorization in 2010.

"It's tried to bring people to the table, but at the end of the day you have to look at results," said U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare. "It appears that all the problems have gotten worse."

In several cases, CalFed has approved multimillion-dollar grants to water agencies around the state to install technology to treat drinking water. The Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles is slated to receive $60 million in water treatment equipment at three of its plants.

It's not the way Southern California wants to tackle the delta's water quality problems, but so far, there's been no consensus on how to reduce the organic compounds and salinity of the water that runs through the delta itself, said Roger Patterson, Metropolitan Water District assistant general manager.

The same has been true for combatting the explosion of invasive species of fish, clams, algae and other organisms into the delta and in trying to curb pesticide runoff from farms in the nation's most fertile region. Some biologists blame agricultural runoff for the decline of native fish such as the threatened delta smelt.

"They haven't done a whole lot on the interior of the delta," said state Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden. "Nobody wants to face the controversial problem."

State and federal officials began talking about the partnership that became CalFed in the early 1990s. At the time, California was coming off a drought that sharpened disagreements among water users, worsened the decline of fish species and made water quality problems more pronounced.

Negotiations culminated in the CalFed plan in August 2000, heralded by its creators as "the largest, most comprehensive water management program in the world."

But rather than devise a single, coherent solution for the delta -- something nobody could agree on at the time -- CalFed took a piecemeal approach.

Major decisions about dams and canals were shelved in favor of a spending spree by the state and federal agencies brought under the CalFed umbrella.

"CalFed, in effect, punted," said Jason Peltier, an official at the Westlands Water District in the Central Valley, who until recently was a deputy assistant secretary at the Interior Department. "That punt was understandable because people weren't ready seven years ago to grapple with what has historically been the mother of all third-rail issues in California water -- which is how do you effectively separate water for farms and cities from the fish in the delta."

The program's management design created more problems.

CalFed was never given the authority or political clout to decide how to spend its own money. Its 24-member board, comprised of state, federal and local officials as well as members of the public, only could sign off on grants recommended by state agencies. The federal share, meanwhile, was decided in Washington as part of the annual budgeting process.

Politicians in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., steered funding to pet projects. In Congress, lawmakers forged a political compromise to win votes for CalFed by morphing the program into a water bill for all of California, said Richard Pombo, then-chairman of the House Resources Committee.

Powerful lawmakers sought benefits for their districts, such as $3 million for a study -- yet to be conducted -- of building a dam on Alder Creek in El Dorado County. That was a priority of Rep. John Doolittle, R-Rocklin, then a member of the House Republican Leadership.

In Sacramento, state lawmakers eliminated local levee maintenance funds in the annual state budget, finding they could use CalFed money instead. Even with that, however, levees were not adequately repaired. California voters last year approved $4.1 billion in bonds to strengthen levees, in addition to increased assessments in certain flood-prone communities such as Sacramento.

California lawmakers grew so fed up with what they viewed as CalFed's ineffectiveness and lack of oversight that they disbanded it as a stand-alone agency last year, sticking its board under the authority of the California Resources Agency.

Its administrative budget was slashed from $177 million in 2003 to $12 million last year as staff and projects were reassigned to other state agencies.

CalFed initially was envisioned as a 30-year program, but at this point no one can say what will become of it, even a year from now.

-- Samantha Young reported from Sacramento, while Erica Werner reported from Washington, D.C.

A look at current planning for the delta's future

When the California Federal Bay-Delta Program was signed in 2000, it was planned as a 30-year program to improve water management in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and restore the ecological health of the West Coast's largest estuary, which covers 1,553 square miles, an area the size of Rhode Island.

Seven years in, the delta's condition has worsened. With CalFed's future unclear, other efforts are under way to solve the delta's myriad problems. Among them:

-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Taskforce.

Schwarzenegger created this independent task force in September 2006 and gave it until Jan. 1, 2008, to submit recommendations on a state strategy to deal with the competing demands on the delta. A strategic plan on implementing the recommendations is due by Oct. 31, 2008.

-- Possible voter-approved water bond.

Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature are working on a water bond that could be presented to voters as soon as the Feb. 5 primary. The governor has proposed a $10.3 billion bond that would earmark $3.5 billion for dams and $2.4 billion for delta protection. Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, has his own $6.8 billion water bond that would let communities apply for grants to build a dam, as well as $2 billion for the delta.

-- Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

The California Resources Agency is leading an effort formalized in October 2006 to come up with a plan to preserve species and ecosystems in the delta. A steering committee has developed four Conservation Strategy Options and hopes to select one and develop a conservation plan around it over the course of next year.

-- Delta Risk Management Strategy.

The CalFed program requires assessing risks to the delta's water supply from floods, earthquakes, climate change, sea level rise and other events, as well as how to manage them.

The state Department of Water Resources hired a private firm to do the assessment but recently rejected its first draft after CalFed's science panel determined the findings were essentially useless. The final assessment will be part of the Delta Vision report and is due to the Legislature by Jan. 1.

AT A GLANCE: Delta Spending

The California Federal Bay-Delta Program was formed primarily to improve water quality, strengthen levees and rejuvenate populations of native fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

More than $4.7 billion in state and federal taxpayer money has been spent through CalFed since 2000 on projects in every corner of the state. While water experts say many of the projects were worthwhile, a majority of the money was spent outside the region on projects that have not led to many improvements in the delta's health.

CalFed officials could not provide detailed spending for all seven years of the program. The Associated Press obtained a list of projects funded since 2005, however. That breakdown shows money flowing to a variety of peripheral programs, such as water treatment plants in Southern California and fish projects far away from the delta. In addition, millions have been spent on administrative costs and studies that have failed to produce tangible results.

Here is how some of the money has been spent since 2005:

RESTORATION PROJECTS

-- $40.2 million to tear down five dams along Battle Creek in rural Shasta County, restoring 42 miles of historical habitat for salmon and steelhead trout.

-- $15.1 million to poison northern pike in Lake Davis, in the Plumas National Forest in northeastern California, for fear the predator will escape downstream and eat native fish in the Sacramento River and its tributaries.

-- $7.3 million to monitor and improve habitat for salmon and steelhead trout in Lower Clear Creek near Red Bluff. About 200 Chinook salmon returned to the river during the latest spring run after the California Department of Fish and Game tore down a dam in 2000.

WATER GRANTS

-- $113 million to install water treatment equipment to make the water imported from the delta taste better in Southern California.

-- $36 million in water recycling and wastewater reclamation projects in San Jose, Long Beach, Palo Alto, San Diego, north San Diego, and Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

-- $21.2 million in grants for unspecified desalination projects around the state.

EDUCATION

-- $150,000 to a San Francisco education group called "Kids for the Bay," which teaches environmental science to elementary school children.

-- $169,032 to a Los Angeles area group called Amigos De Los Rios to design a 17-mile loop of parks and greenways through 10 cities in the San Gabriel Valley.

-- $164,637 for the state Department of Fish and Game and the community organization Yolo Basin Foundation. The money was to design a public education center at the Yolo Bypass, an expanse of farmland and wildlife habitat immediately west of Sacramento that is used to divert floodwaters from the Sacramento River.

STUDIES

-- $8.2 million to complete the governor's Delta Risk Management Strategy initiative, a study of the risks to the delta's water supply, roads, utility lines, agriculture, tourism and recreation industries.

-- $4.2 million to pay for state and federal agencies to craft a Bay Delta Conservation Plan, launched to set parameters for water pumping that abides by federal and state wildlife laws.

-- $3.3 million on Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force to analyze some of the very issues CalFed was designed to tackle.

-- $118 million in the last seven years on studies assessing plans to build Sites Reservoir in a valley north of Sacramento, a dam at Temperance Flat in the Sierra foothills above Fresno, expand the Contra Costa Water District's Los Vaqueros Reservoir and raise Shasta Dam at Lake Oroville.

STAFF

-- $5.7 million for public affairs, communications, legal fees and human resources.

-- $1.5 million to pay 46 local watershed coordinators around the state to develop county plans for local water supplies and flood control.

-- Sources: California Federal Bay-Delta Authority and California Legislative Analyst's Office.