November 25th, 2013
Delta Dialogues participants, gathered at a hunting club on the Rindge Tract outside Stockton, spent their November session doing some hunting of their own, seeking deeper understanding of alternative conveyances and listing their own criteria for BDCP and other Delta plans.
It was the third straight Delta Dialogues meeting to involve detailed examination of “Multiple Intake Scenarios,” with the diverse group of stakeholders looking at possibilities that might include an intake on the Western Delta and alterations to the BDCP’s proposed intakes in the north of the Delta on the Sacramento River. Some participants also held a phone meeting Nov. 6 to examine aspects of a Western intake, including the impact on the Delta smelt.
The November session of the dialogues, at the Rindge Tract Partners hunting club of Delta landowner and Dialogues participant Tom Zuckerman, felt like an unpromising end and a promising beginning.
The unpromising end came first, with John Cain of American Rivers summing up the phone call and participants appearing to have deeper understanding of why a Western Delta intake would not be a viable alternative (although Zuckerman pointedly said he wasn’t giving up on the idea; a “porous” levee could work and a Western facility might not impact smelt if it’s operated during higher flows, he said).
The promising beginning started in the late morning, and continued into the afternoon – as the conversation switched from the particulars of conveyance alternatives to a conversation about the criteria for Delta plans. The switch was made when facilitators asked about the criteria that drove the BDCP – and what criteria should have governed any such plan and weren’t used.
While the conversation about conveyances hadn’t produced an alternative plan from the Dialogues participants (as some said they had hoped), that conversation seemed to have deepened understanding about what the criteria should be for any Delta plan. Participants listed a variety of criteria, often by listing criteria they didn’t see being met by BDCP: covering the goals of habitat restoration and water supply, limiting the risks that often result from mega-projects, limiting the impact of tunnels on the Delta, considering the Delta as a place with its own interests and needs, trying to find ways to create more water for the Delta’s various stakeholders, and creating greater clarity about terms and governance in the Delta.
The conversation was wide-ranging, and focused particularly on the need to contain risks, perhaps through physical barriers, to the Delta and its economy. Participants said that the alternative criteria they were listing could be brought to bear on BDCP and other Delta plans.
“I really appreciated how the criteria let us focus on what challenges the proposal has,” said Campbell Ingram of the Delta Conservancy, the convener of the Dialogues. “It spotlights a path that might lead to a more acceptable project.”
In response to a conversation about how much agricultural land in the Delta might be lost under the BDCP proposal, participants discussed holding a follow-up meeting, perhaps by phone, before the next regularly scheduled Dialogues session in January. Leo Winternitz of the Nature Conservancy said he thought such a session would be useful, in his view, because comments by North Delta farmer Russell van Loben Sels about the loss of agriculture for habitat were overstated. “It will alleviate some fears and we’ll all come out with a better understanding,” said Winternitz.
Participants also said they could have a sub-group to look at another alternative conveyance, though not in the Western Delta. Instead, they might consider a reduced North Delta diversion in combination with conveyance through the Delta corridor.
Only two more sessions of the dialogues are currently scheduled – for January, and then either February or March – and funding beyond that is uncertain. Participants said they appreciated the Dialogues’ work so far – especially its record to create greater understanding and a record of the path to such understanding – and believe the process could do more, including advancing specific proposals and having more impact on the growing public debate over the BDCP and the Delta’s future.
The challenge for the Dialogues is how to get there.
“I think it’s a good process, but I don’t understand what the result is,” said Winternitz.
“I share Leo’s mystification about how can we take this good will, this willingness to understand… and convert it into something that is real,” said Jason Peltier of Westlands Water District.
Facilitator Kristin Cobble asked participants to be ready to “put on our King Solomon” hats in January and try to figure out “what’s fair for all of us to give and what’s fair for all of us to get.”
Participants said there were other conversations taking place in the Delta, perhaps too many. “I’d be happy to have twice as many meetings with half as many groups,” quipped Zuckerman. Participants also said they’d like to see more participation from government – particularly federal and state agency officials and local county supervisors who are part of the Dialogues, but did not attend November’s session.
Bruce Blodgett of the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau said he was encouraged “that there are alternatives that people are willing to talk about. The more we talk the better it is. It’s the first time we talked about Delta solutions with Delta people.”
November 13th, 2013
Taking what felt like a deep breath after tough recent meetings in Sacramento-area offices, the Delta Dialogues and its participants returned to the outdoors and to a discussion of alternatives to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan conveyance proposals during their October session.
The daylong gathering at Rush Ranch, in Suisun Marsh, was among the best-attended sessions of the dialogues, with representatives from every stakeholder in attendance. Jerry Meral, deputy secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, also attended and participated in the meetings.
“I’m happy to be in the marsh. It’s a lot closer to home, back in the natural world,” said Carl Wilcox of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife early in the meeting. Delta landowner Tom Zuckerman, noting the fall harvest and presence of ducks and geese in the Delta, said he felt optimism, and not just because the time of the year. “I sense the discussion is beginning to open up at long last,” he said, adding that in-Delta stakeholders are beginning to have their concerns heard in debates about the future of the Delta.
The conversation again centered on possible alternatives to the BDCP conveyance, especially the possibilities of multi-intake scenarios that could involve the Western Delta, and the discussion was often difficult, technical and frustrating. John Cain of American Rivers and Jason Peltier of Westlands Water District complained at different points in the day that time was being wasted.
To help things along, facilitator Kristin Cobble, who returned to the dialogues after missing the September session, handed out a picture of a rabbit disappearing down a hole to each participant, and instructed participants to wave the pictures above their heads if the conversation was “going down a rabbit hole.” The rabbits were employed only a handful of times.
The facilitation team also spent considerable time reviewing the rules and practices of the dialogues. In this year’s second phase of the dialogues, nearly half of the participants are new additions who did not participate in last year’s first phase, and facilitators and participants have said it’s important to “strengthen the container” – the metaphor they often use for the dialogues as a contained, safe space where difficult issues can be discussed and understandings reached.
Newer participants were asked to point to their favorite place on the Delta on a map, and in one exercise, all participants were asked to identify things the group had in common.
“We all want to protect the Delta,” was the first.
“We all go to a lot of meetings,” was the second.
After that container-building, the day broke down into four sections.
1. In the late morning, Gwen Buchholz offered a presentation and answered questions about the various alternatives to the conveyance alignments in the BDCP. She described a painstaking multi-year, EIR/EIS process (it took over a year to develop screening criteria, she said) that started in 2008 and is still ongoing. It did boil down many ideas to 15 conveyance alignment alternatives. Find a description of the process here, then an initial screening of alternatives here, and a secondary screening here.
She noted the complexity; it had taken her four hours, she said, to boil down the 200-page appendix explaining the process into a presentation. Despite all the things considered, participants asked about whether variations on some of the alternatives had been considered, or whether combinations of alternatives had been considered. The answer in some cases was no, with Buchholz noting that not every conceivable alternative could be studied and that she and colleagues in other agencies had relied heavily on public comments in the process. They had to answer questions they were asked, she said.
One takeaway from the presentation and conversation was that two tests were crucial to screening alternatives. If the fish agencies said that an alternative wouldn’t work for species, it didn’t have a chance. And if contractors said an alternative wouldn’t work economically, it wouldn’t have a chance either.
Several participants, including Meral, emphasized that the alternatives conversation was important and was continuing. If there’s something better that meets the variety of tests necessary for conveyance, it could be useful. Paul Helliker of state DWR said that viable alternatives could come up late in the process.
2. Following from this conversation, the conversation entered the matrix. Literally, facilitators in collaboration with Cain and Chris Knopp of the Delta Stewardship Council had created a matrix for evaluating and understanding three conveyance possibilities – status quo, the current BDCP proposal, and a multi-intake alternative – on a variety of criteria and questions. The matrix filled two large boards on either side of the screen upon which the conversation was being mapped.
But they only managed to fill in one column of squares on the big matrix. The conversation was detailed, but participants struggled to define terms and decide questions. Several complications were introduced into the process, involving the differences between wet and dry years, and the ability to draw more water in storms.
The conversation was detailed, and full of information, but also frustrating. “I think it’s been great,” said Peltier as they broke for a late lunch. “We are all well meaning and informed, and we can’t even agree on what the questions are.”
Forty minutes were allotted for lunch, but the group decided to go for a walk into the marsh, and it took more than an hour.
Upon their return, Cobble, the facilitator, relayed a conversation she’d had with Meral during lunch, and posed three questions he had raised:
1. What is the largest physical facility in Western Delta that In Delta stakeholders could support?
2. Can In Delta stakeholders live with any North Delta diversion at all?
3. Can the facility be permitted by the fisheries agencies, and would the water contractors be willing to finance it?
The two in-Delta interests — North Delta farmer Russell Van Loben Sels and Zuckerman – both said it was possible to conceive of plans and operations that could be supported, though it would not be easy and the details would be crucial. Van Loben Sels said it was important that any alternatives make as little change and have as little impact as possible. Zuckerman emphasized the importance of having a “firm linkage” between “new dry period yield” of water north of any diversion facility and the operation of such a facility.
Wilcox noted that Western Delta intake could hurt Delta smelt. Pressed on whether there was any chance that a Western Delta intake could pass muster given the presence of smelt and other fish and the velocity of water, he answered: “Very small. Less than 2 percent.”
That precipitated a conversation, including Wilcox, about how to find out more about the impact of a Western Delta diversion. That led in turn to conversation about arranging a meeting or phone call, involving some participants and non-participants, including federal fisheries agencies, to look at the Western option (including impact on fish, questions about where facilities can be located and their size) before the next Delta Dialogues session on Nov. 15.
In closing, facilitators asked two questions: what was most valuable about the day’s discussion? And what question do you most want answered or explored on Nov. 15? In response, members talked about various questions around alternatives, though participants suggested that they needed to come together on specific, simpler questions to drive more productive discussion.
Delta Dialogues participants, gathered at a hunting club on the Rindge Tract outside Stockton, spent their November session doing some hunting of their own, seeking deeper understanding of alternative conveyances and listing their own criteria for BDCP and other Delta plans.
The November session of the dialogues, at the Rindge Tract Partners hunting club of Delta landowner and Dialogues participant Tom Zuckerman, felt like an unpromising end and a promising beginning.
While the conversation about conveyances hadn’t produced an alternative plan from the Dialogues participants (as some said they had hoped), that conversation seemed to have deepened understanding about what the criteria should be for any Delta plan. Participants listed a variety of criteria, often by listing criteria they didn’t see being met by BDCP: covering the goals of habitat restoration and water supply, limiting the risks that often result from mega-projects, limiting the impact of tunnels on the Delta, considering the Delta as a place with its own interests and needs, trying to find ways to create more water for the Delta’s various stakeholders, and creating greater clarity about terms and governance in the Delta.
“I really appreciated how the criteria let us focus on what challenges the proposal has,” said Campbell Ingram of the Delta Conservancy, the convener of the Dialogues. “It spotlights a path that might lead to a more acceptable project.”
Participants also said they could have a sub-group to look at another alternative conveyance, though not in the Western Delta. Instead, they might consider a reduced North Delta diversion in combination with conveyance through the Delta corridor.
Bruce Blodgett of the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau said he was encouraged “that there are alternatives that people are willing to talk about. The more we talk the better it is. It’s the first time we talked about Delta solutions with Delta people.”
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