Environmental Science ENSC 2800

1
Environmental Science ENSC 2800

• Spring 2002 - Class 17
• RESTORING THE BAY-DELTA

2
A Plethora of Agencies and Initiatives

• As you are all well aware by now, there is a
  broad array of actors governmental and
  non-profit - extremely active in researching and
  restoring the Bay-Delta.
• Like the organisms that inhabit the Bay-Delta,
  each actor has its niche, its territory and its
  specializations.
• Some are watchdogs, designed to keep the
  government agencies fulfilling their legal
  mandates e.g. Baykeepers and their citizen
  water quality monitors.
• Others are predominantly educational, like the
  Aquatic Outreach Institute, offering workshops to
  educators and children in keeping urban creeks
  clean and reducing urban pollutants in runoff.
• Others conduct research, like the USGS or the
  SFEI, promoting knowledge about the Bay-Delta and
  its conditions and challenges.
• Yet more have statutory responsibilities for
  enforcing laws and standards to preserve
  Bay-Delta conditions like the US Coast Guard and
  the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Some do almost all the above.

3
SFEP

• Arguably the most active of the Bay-Delta actors
  is the San Francisco Estuary Project (SFEP).
• The SFEP is a cooperative federal-state
  partnership organized through the U.S.
  Environmental Protection Agency's National
  Estuary Program.
• The project brought together 100 private,
  government and community interests (called
  stakeholders) to develop a consensus plan, which
  was then signed by the Governor of California and
  the U.S. EPA Administrator in 1993 the
  Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan for
  the Bay and Delta (CCMP).
• The CCMP remains the only approved, completed
  ecosystemwide plan for balancing environmental
  protection and beneficial use of the Estuary's
  resources and has been used as a report card on
  how the collective efforts concerning the
  Bay-Delta are doing - first for 1993-1996,
  second for 1996-1999, and most recently for 1999-
  2001.

4
The 1993 CCMP Scorecard

• The 1993 CCMP workbook lists 145 actions to save
  fish, conserve water, protect wetlands, reduce
  pollution, and facilitate environmentally sound
  land use decision-making, grouped in ten priority
  management action issues.
• These ten priority action issues were used as the
  basis for the 1993-1996 and 1996-99 scorecards
  but were updated into eight issues for the
  1999-2001 scorecard.
• The first report card 1993-96 totaled up progress
  on all 145 CCMP actions, the second report card
  1996-99 totaled progress on 26 of the CCMP
  actions grouped within the ten priorities, and
  the third one totaled progress on 35 CCMP actions
  grouped within eight revised priorities.

5
1993-1999 Scorecard Priorities

• 1. Expand, restore and protect Bay-Delta
  wetlands.
• 2. Integrate and improve regulatory, planning,
  management and scientific monitoring programs.
• 3. Create economic incentives that encourage
  local government to implement measures to protect
  and enhance the Estuary.
• 4. Improve the management and control of urban
  runoff.
• 5. Prepare and implement watershed management
  plans throughout the Estuary.
• 6. Reduce and control exotic species
  introductions and spread in the Estuary via ship
  ballast and other means.
• 7. Build awareness about CCMP implementation.
• 8. Increase public awareness about the Estuary's
  natural resources and the need to protect them.
• 9. Implement the Regional Monitoring Program and
  integrate the results of scientific monitoring
  into management and regulatory actions.
• 10. Work with federal and state agencies to
  include CCMP recommendations in other planning
  and restoration efforts and funding decisions.

6
The 1999 Scorecard

• The major priorities were reformulated after the
  1996-1999 assessment and presented as only eight
  action issues, the single most important once
  more being the expansion, restoration and
  protection of Bay-Delta wetlands.
• The new issues built on the knowledge and
  experience compiled in the prior years.
• 1. Expand, restore and protect Bay-Delta
  wetlands.
• 2. Prevent the introduction of exotic organisms,
  plants and animals into the Estuary from all
  sources, and control their spread.
• 3. Promote watershed management throughout the
  Estuary.
• 4. Create incentives that encourage local
  government, landowners and communities to protect
  and restore the Estuary.
• 5. Reduce pollution of the Estuary from urban and
  agricultural runoff, and other non-point sources.
  
• 6. Strengthen public awareness about the
  Estuary's natural resources.
• 7. Expand the regional monitoring program to
  address all key CCMP issues, including pollution,
  wetlands, watersheds, dredging, biological
  resources, land use and flows and integrate the
  results of scientific monitoring into management
  and regulatory actions.
• 8. Promulgate baseline inflow standards for San
  Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun Bays to protect
  and restore the Estuary ecosystem.

7
Scorecard

• Provided to you is the summary scorecard for
  1996-1999 and for 1999-2001.
• The 1996-1999 and 1999-2001 full scorecard
  reports can be obtained from the SFEP but for
  convenience, have been posted as .pdf files on
  the server linked to your posted materials page.
• Much of the work done in compiling these
  scorecards and building the understanding of the
  Bay-Delta are included in the SFEP Estuary
  Newsletter, back issues of which (generally
  without tables and figures) are available online
  back to 1995 (http//www.abag.ca.gov/bayarea/sfep/
  news/newsletter/estsearchlist.html).
• If you are looking for any last minute updates to
  your essays over the next two weeks, both of
  these sources will be very useful although most
  of you will already have seen them while browsing
  the SFEP web site provided you at the start of
  the quarter.

8
Recent Progress

• An assessment of what has been done and
  accomplished the last three years is a useful
  indicator of the kinds of initiatives needed,
  particularly since for most of the goals set in
  the CCMP, only some (0-25) or moderate (25-50)
  progress has been achieved so far.
• Acquisitions of fields, creekbanks, islands,
  floodplains and other former, current and future
  wetlands tripled from 1999 to 2001, with at least
  33,042 acres secured and protected, up from
  10,183 from 1996-1999 and 18,677 from 1993-1996.
• Interestingly, according to SFEP 2001, in the Bay
  region, 122 acres of wetlands were filled and 204
  acres gained as a result of CWA Section 401
  certification waivers and development mitigation
  projects from 1999-2001.
• In support of wetlands, a range of different
  agency planning initiatives were finalized and
  went into fundraising and/or implementation
  phases the Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals,
  Restoring the Estuary, CALFED, the Bay Plan, and
  the Joint Aquatic Resource Permit Application
  Center.

9
Progress on Invasives

• 1999 saw a new state law passed (AB 703)
  requiring midocean ballast water exchange for all
  ships coming into California from more than 200
  miles offshore.
• The theory is that this exchange will harmlessly
  jettison unwanted hitch-hikers in an environment
  that they will not survive in and thus will not
  modify, similarly any new hitch-hikers will not
  be suited to the Bay-Delta when this mid-ocean
  water is discharged here.
• Since January 2000, 90 of vessels entering
  California ports have complied, spurred on by a
  successful program of inspections and enforcement
  by the State Lands Commission.
• Active control programs, including eradication
  efforts, got underway for Atlantic cordgrass,
  purple loosestrife, water hyacinth, giant reed
  and Chinese mitten crabs.

10
Pollution Reduction

• Watershed management efforts accelerated,
  particularly in San Jose, Santa Clara and
  Oakland.
• TMDLs were established or in progress on copper,
  nickel, mercury and PCBs for the Bay region, and
  for selenium, mercury, pesticides, boron and
  several other contaminants in the Central Valley.
• State initiatives to reduce copper in brake pads
  and encourage electric vehicle use continued.
• A dozen erosion control workshops per year were
  offered to cities and others performing
  construction and other land-disturbances.
• Maps of sewage pumping stations for boaters were
  given out at marinas to prevent direct discharge
  of sewage into the Bay-Delta.
• Central Valley water quality officials began
  efforts to crack down on irrigation return flows
  and make them comply with pollution prevention
  standards.
• The EPA implemented efforts to phase out the use
  of diazinon and chlorpyrifos.

11
Water Flows

• CALFEDs Record of Decision agreed by the
  consortium of federal and state agencies in 2000
  set requirements for a maximum allowable ratio of
  export rates to water inflow rates.
• The Federal Central Valley Project Improvement
  Act requirement that 800,000 acre feet per year
  of water previously used for irrigation be
  released to support fisheries was finalized in
  2000).
• CALFEDs Environmental Water Account was
  inaugurated, selectively purchasing water from
  rights holders to release to the Bay-Delta flows
  at critical times to support anadromous fishes.
• For a fuller accounting of these various issues
  and progress made in the last three years and the
  three years before, consult the .pdf scorecards.