Sacramento River

Final Value Planning Study Report for Through Delta Facility, Sacramento, California

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | July 1st, 2007

Financing Delta Improvements and Environmental Mitigation

California Research Bureau (CRB) | September 1st, 2008

Resolution of the Delta’s water supply, water quality, and fish problems may involve building various structures, possibly including gates, pumps, canals, levees, and d

Resolution of the Delta’s water supply, water quality, and fish problems may involve building various structures, possibly including gates, pumps, canals, levees, and dams, and undertaking landscaping rearrangements to improve habitat for several species of flora and fauna. Resolution also involves changing water flow regimes in ways that would make more or less water, but probably less, available for human uses. This work and these changes will cost serious money. Cost estimates for many of these actions have not yet been developed. This paper explores approaches to financing these “improvements” and “mitigations.” While a little abstract, this is abstraction that matters. It will determine from whose pockets a good deal of money will come. California has a long history of financing water projects. The first section of this paper reviews this history, in hopes of identifying water-financing principles that might be adapted to Delta improvements and mitigation. Some deep-seated controversies about how Delta improvements should be financed have roots in this history, and it may be helpful to point them out. A core idea in California’s approach to financing water projects is that beneficiaries should pay for them. Decades ago, this was a straightforward proposition – people or water districts should pay for the necessary dams, canals, and pumps and the costs of operating them in proportion to the amount of water they received. In the current age of rising environmental sensitivity, it is a little muddier. An alternative formulation that applies, at least crudely, to housing developments and highway projects, is that project proponents should pay to mitigate at least some of the environmental harm that their project is likely to cause. The second section of this paper explores this controversial subject. It seems unlikely that any consensus can be reached about how to finance facilities in the Delta without reaching some agreement about how to deal with this matter. This paper was first issued in July, 2008. This version contains a few clarifications made in response to the Blue Ribbon Task Force’s reviewers. The author is grateful for their suggestions.

Fire and Water: Assessing Drinking Water Contamination After a Major Wildfire

American Chemical Society (ACS) | August 2nd, 2021

We investigated patterns of volatile organic compound (VOC) contamination in drinking water systems affected by the California 2018 Camp Fire. We performed spatial analys

We investigated patterns of volatile organic compound (VOC) contamination in drinking water systems affected by the California 2018 Camp Fire. We performed spatial analysis of over 5000 water samples collected over a 17 month period by a local water utility, sampled tap water for VOCs in approximately 10% (N = 136) of standing homes, and conducted additional nontargeted chemical analysis of 10 samples. Benzene contamination was present in 29% of service connections to destroyed structures and 2% of service connections to standing homes. A spatial pattern was apparent. Tap water in standing homes 11 months after the fire contained low concentrations of benzene in 1% of samples, but methylene chloride was present in 19% of samples, including several above regulatory limits. Elevated methylene chloride was associated with greater distance from the water meter to the tap, longer stagnation time, and the presence of a destroyed structure on the service connection; it was inversely associated with certain trihalomethanes. Nontargeted analysis identified multiple combustion byproducts in the water at 2/10 homes. Our findings support the hypothesis that pyrolysis and smoke intrusion from depressurization contributed to the benzene contamination. Further research is needed to test the hypothesis that methylene chloride may be generated from the dehalogenation of disinfection byproducts stagnating in galvanized iron pipes.

Fire influence on land–water interactions in aridland catchments

Oxford University Press (OUP) | January 9th, 2025

Wildfires have increased in size, frequency, and intensity in arid regions of the western United States because of human activity, changing land use, and rising temperatu

Wildfires have increased in size, frequency, and intensity in arid regions of the western United States because of human activity, changing land use, and rising temperature. Fire can degrade water quality, reshape aquatic habitat, and increase the risk of high discharge and erosion. Drawing from patterns in montane dry forest, chaparral, and desert ecosystems, we developed a conceptual framework describing how interactions and feedbacks among material accumulation, combustion of fuels, and hydrologic transport influence the effects of fire on streams. Accumulation and flammability of fuels shift in opposition along gradients of aridity, influencing the materials available for transport. Hydrologic transport of combustion products and materials accumulated after fire can propagate the effects of fire to unburned stream–riparian corridors, and episodic precipitation characteristic of arid lands can cause lags, spatial heterogeneity, and feedbacks in response. Resolving uncertainty in fire effects on arid catchments will require monitoring across hydroclimatic gradients and episodic precipitation.

Fish and Game Commission Twenty-Second Biennial Report for the Years 1910-1912

State of California | December 31st, 1912

Fish Bulletin 133. Ecological Studies of The Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary Part 1: Zooplankton, Zoobenthos, and Fishes of San Pablo and Suisun Bays, Zooplankton and Zoobenthos of the Delta

California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) | September 9th, 1965

The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers have a common estuary. These two streams meet in the center of California's central valley to form the Delta (Figure 1). A hundred y

The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers have a common estuary. These two streams meet in the center of California's central valley to form the Delta (Figure 1). A hundred years ago the Delta was an extensive tidal marsh, but it has been almost entirely reclaimed for agriculture. The Delta now includes about 738,000 acres of land and water, 700 miles of navigable channels, and 30 large, below sea level islands. About 39,000 acres are covered by water. Some Delta channels are edged with narrow stretches of intertidal marsh but most of them have steep banks of mud or are covered with large cobbles to prevent erosion. They vary in width from a few hundred feet to a mile and are seldom more than 30 to 40 feet deep. In some areas there are small "waste" islands that flood during high tides. These waste islands and levees that surround all Delta channels are covered with an assortment of emergent aquatic plants, grasses, forbs, shrubs, and trees. Water heading toward the sea from the Delta passes through Suisun Bay, which is merely the wide combination of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers below the Delta. Thirty-six percent of Suisun Bay is flooded by less than 3 feet of water at mean lower-low tide, and at this stage about 3,000 acres of intertidal zone is exposed. Richard Painter (see p. 40) has included a map of the 6-foot contour. From Suisun Bay the water flows through the 6-mile long and up to 100 feet deep Carquinez Strait into San Pablo Bay. Almost 60 percent of San Pablo Bay's 73,000 acres is less than 6 feet deep at mean lower-low tide. San Pablo Bay has a much more extensive intertidal area than Suisun Bay. San Pablo Bay water flows into San Francisco Bay and then through the narrow Golden Gate into the Pacific Ocean. The investigations reported on in this bulletin were geographically limited to the upper and middle portions of the estuary—from the Delta through San Pablo Bay. We have not investigated below San Pablo Bay. McCarty et al (1962) described south San Francisco Bay, and Storrs, Selleck, and Pearson (1964) described north San Francisco Bay. Gillian (1957) wrote an interesting and useful popular account of the entire bay.

Fish Collections and Secondary Louver Efficiency at the Tracy Fish Collection Facility: October 1993 to September 1995

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) | May 29th, 1998

Fish Restoration Program Agreement Implementation Strategy for Habitat Restoration and Other Actions for Listed Delta Fish

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | March 6th, 2012

The Fish Restoration Program Agreement (FRPA) (Appendix A), between the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the Department of Water Resources (DWR), was signed on Octob

The Fish Restoration Program Agreement (FRPA) (Appendix A), between the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the Department of Water Resources (DWR), was signed on October 18, 2010. FRPA addresses specific habitat restoration requirements of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) biological opinions (Biological Opinions) for State Water Project (SWP) and Central Valley Project (CVP) operations. FRPA is also intended to address the habitat requirements of the DFG Longfin Smelt Incidental Take Permit (ITP) for SWP Delta operations. The primary objective of the FRPA program is to implement the fish habitat restoration requirements and related actions of the Biological Opinions and the ITP in the Delta, Suisun Marsh, and Yolo Bypass and is focused on 8,000 acres of intertidal and associated subtidal habitat to benefit delta smelt, including 800 acres of mesohaline habitat to benefit longfin smelt, and a number of related actions for salmonids. DFG and DWR intend that habitat restoration actions implemented in compliance with the USFWS biological opinion that also meet the habitat restoration requirements of the ITP will operate to satisfy the acreage requirements of the ITP. The purpose of this Implementation Strategy is to describe the process by which DWR and DFG will implement the FRPA program, and to satisfy Section B of FRPA. Section B of FRPA requires DWR, with assistance from DFG, to develop an Implementation Schedule that will identify restoration actions, estimated costs, targeted acreage, and a timeline for DWR’s implementation of restoration actions to satisfy DWR’s obligations under the Biological Opinions and ITP. Appendix B lists the specific habitat restoration requirements of FRPA, the Biological Opinions, and the ITP that pertain to this program. This document lays out the strategy to address these requirements. In addition, DWR and DFG will complete the necessary environmental compliance documents to implement site specific habitat restoration projects; this may include tiering from existing programmatic documents where appropriate. Pursuant to FRPA, DFG will work cooperatively with and assist DWR in establishing the management and financial framework necessary to implement the FRPA program. DWR, with assistance from DFG, will begin a process to fund, plan, and implement actions, including aquatic habitat restoration to benefit delta smelt, longfin smelt, and winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon (hereafter referred to as Covered Fish Species) to mitigate impacts to these species caused by the SWP Delta operations. Specifically, these actions include: • Delta Smelt Biological Opinion Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (RPA) Component 4; • NMFS Biological Opinion RPA Actions 1.2.6 and 1.6.2 in partnership with the US Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation); • NMFS Biological Opinion RPA Action Suite 1.6 and 1.7. FRPA will not be lead, but will provide funding and technical support assistance only; • ITP Condition 7. DWR’s obligations focus on delta smelt, longfin smelt, and winter-run and spring-run salmon, and may also benefit steelhead, sturgeon, and other native fish species.

Fish-Habitat Relationships Along the Estuarine Gradient of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California: Implications for Habitat Restoration

Estuaries and Coasts (Springer) | June 6th, 2018

Estuaries are highly variable environments where fish are subjected to a diverse suite of habitat features (e.g., water quality gradients, physical structure) that filt

Estuaries are highly variable environments where fish are subjected to a diverse suite of habitat features (e.g., water quality gradients, physical structure) that filter local assemblages from a broader, regional species pool. Tidal, climatological, and oceanographic phenomena drive water quality gradients and, ultimately, expose individuals to other habitat features (e.g., stationary physical or biological elements, such as bathymetry or vegetation). Relationships between fish abundances, water quality gradients, and other habitat features in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta were examined as a case example to learn how habitat features serve as filters to structure local assemblages in large river-dominated estuaries. Fish communities were sampled in four tidal lakes along the estuarine gradient during summer-fall 2010 and 2011 and relationships with habitat features explored using ordination and generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs). Based on ordination results, landscape-level gradients in salinity, turbidity, and elevation were associated with distinct fish assemblages among tidal lakes. Native fishes were associated with increased salinity and turbidity, and decreased elevation. Within tidal lakes, GLMM results demonstrated that submersed aquatic vegetation density was the dominant driver of individual fish species densities. Both native and non-native species were associated with submersed aquatic vegetation, although native and non-native fish populations only minimally overlapped. These results help to provide a framework for predicting fish species assemblages in novel or changing habitats as they indicate that species assemblages are driven by a combination of location within the estuarine gradient and site-specific habitat features.

Five Guiding Principles for Effective Voluntary Agreements

University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) | January 3rd, 2024

California has increasingly emphasized efforts to develop voluntary agreements (VAs) with water users as a means of achieving regulatory goals in certain watersheds. In t

California has increasingly emphasized efforts to develop voluntary agreements (VAs) with water users as a means of achieving regulatory goals in certain watersheds. In theory, a VA can combine the protectiveness of a regulatory backstop with the creativity and flexibility of a negotiated deal to produce outcomes as good as, or better than, those achievable through strict application of regulatory requirements alone. However, reality has not always measured up to this ideal. This policy paper uses the Bay-Delta watershed as a case study to inform five principles to guide the appropriate use and evaluation of VAs.