Economic Sustainability Plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Delta Protection Commission (DPC) | July 19th, 2012

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is a unique place of economic, environmental, historic, and cultural significance. The land and water resources of the Delta suppor

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is a unique place of economic, environmental, historic, and cultural significance. The land and water resources of the Delta support significant agricultural and recreation economies, and the Delta also has an important role as an infrastructure hub for water, energy, and transportation. The region’s rich history boasts of bustling, river-based commerce before the automobile age, and its cultural uniqueness includes the only rural town in America build by early Chinese immigrants. As the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas, the Delta also is a place of striking natural beauty and ecological significance that is struggling with serious environmental degradation problems. Although surrounded by growing cities, the Delta remains a highly-productive agricultural area with rural charms, landscapes, and waterscapes not found elsewhere in California. In recent years, there has been great concern over increasing environmental degradation in the Delta and over court decisions that reduced the quantity of water delivered to southern California through the state and federal water project intakes in the south Delta to protect endangered fish. Combined with additional concerns about the stability of the Delta’s levee system, these concerns led the California legislature to pass the Delta Reform Act of 2009. The Act created the Delta Stewardship Council and charged it with developing a Delta Plan to achieve the coequal goals of “providing a more reliable water supply for California and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem.” Recognizing the potential impact of the Delta Plan on the people and economy of the Delta, the Delta Reform Act stated that the coequal goals of water supply reliability and restoring the Delta ecosystem “shall be achieved in a manner that protects and enhances the unique cultural, recreational, natural resource, and agricultural values of the Delta as an evolving place.” Among the measures to address this goal, the Delta Protection Commission was tasked with developing this Economic Sustainability Plan to inform the Delta Stewardship Council’s development of the Delta Plan. The Legislature established the following guidelines for the Economic Sustainability Plan in the Delta Reform Act of 2009: "The economic sustainability plan shall include information and recommendations that inform the Delta Stewardship Council’s policies regarding the socioeconomic sustainability of the Delta region. (b) The economic sustainability plan shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following: 1) Public safety recommendations, such as flood protection recommendations. 2) The economic goals, policies, and objectives in local general plans and other local economic efforts, including recommendations on continued socioeconomic sustainability of agriculture and its infrastructure and legacy communities in the Delta. 3) Comments and recommendations to the Department of Water Resources concerning its periodic update of the flood management plan for the Delta. 4) Identification of ways to encourage recreational investment along the key river corridors, as appropriate. Since a key purpose of this Economic Sustainability Plan is to inform the Delta Plan under development by the Delta Stewardship Council, this report analyzes the impact of key policies being considered for the plan on the economic sustainability of the Delta. Many of the most significant proposals for the Delta are being developed in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). The policy proposals can be grouped into four categories: 1) water conveyance, 2) habitat creation, 3) levees, and 4) land use regulation. The report also considers many aspects of economic sustainability in the Delta that are unrelated to these water policy proposals including economic development recommendations in the 2008 Delta Vision Strategic Plan.

Economics of a State Water Resources Program

Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) | July 9th, 1957

Economies of Scale and Scope in River Basin Management

Pacific Institute | November 15th, 2004

New approaches to water planning, like Integrated Water Resources Management, are growing in popularity, but have often gotten bogged down, or even been abandoned, becaus

New approaches to water planning, like Integrated Water Resources Management, are growing in popularity, but have often gotten bogged down, or even been abandoned, because stakeholders don’t feel they are getting enough out of these efforts. Economies of scale and scope are the payoff for the tedious, time-consuming work of multi-stakeholder processes and our new report, “Economies of Scale and Scope in River Basin Management,” provides pragmatic guidance for more effective water management. It argues that the river basin management component of an effective management system should identify specifically how and when collaboration between specialized organizations will be socially beneficial, and then mobilize sufficient political will to ensure specialized organizations collaborate when they should. The economic insight this paper offers is that collaboration between specialized agencies is socially desirable when economies of scale or scope exist that cannot be captured by any one specialized organization. Successful integration occurs when these economies are identified and captured, and when more specialized organizations are allowed to manage projects that do not involve such economies. This paper defines economies of scale and scope, describes economies of scope in more detail since this is a phrase that non-economists are unfamiliar with, provides a few examples of each in the US setting, and provides some concluding remarks on implementation challenges.

Eel River Groundwater Sustainability Plan

Humboldt County Groundwater Sustainability Agency | January 29th, 2022

In 2015, Humboldt County received a planning grant from DWR for technical studies and planning which led to the submission in December 2016 of a Groundwater Sustainabili

In 2015, Humboldt County received a planning grant from DWR for technical studies and planning which led to the submission in December 2016 of a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) Alternative, a streamlined version of a GSP. The GSP Alternative was disapproved by DWR in 2019 primarily because objective management criteria had not been established for 10 years; a quantitative estimate of sustainable yield was not developed; and the GSP Alternative did not quantify the impacts of groundwater use on surface water systems and determine at what point they are significant and unreasonable. As a result of the GSP Alternative being disapproved, formation of a Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) was required and development of a full GSP was required by January 31, 2022. This is that document. Due to file size, this document has been divided into sections. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 Click here for the Eel River Valley GSP page at the California Department of Water Resources

Eel River Restoration and Conservation Plan

California Trout | June 30th, 2024

This Eel River Restoration and Conservation Plan (Plan) will build on ... opportunities to guide substantial, collaborative, and long-term restoration and conservation ac

This Eel River Restoration and Conservation Plan (Plan) will build on ... opportunities to guide substantial, collaborative, and long-term restoration and conservation actions to revitalize the Eel River and restore its fisheries. In addition, the Plan has been prepared to expand and coordinate efforts among those who are working on restoration and conservation efforts in the basin to have the greatest effect toward recovery of native anadromous fish populations.

Effective at Any Scale: Watershed-based Decision Support Tools

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | July 1st, 2016

EcoAtlas  tools apply the USEPA’s three-level wetland monitoring and assessment framework for wetland and stream protection in a variety of California watersheds, an

EcoAtlas  tools apply the USEPA’s three-level wetland monitoring and assessment framework for wetland and stream protection in a variety of California watersheds, and it can be adjusted to more generally support natural resource planning, assessment, monitoring, and reporting. EcoAtlas operationalizes the Wetland and Riparian Area Monitoring Plan (WRAMP) by enabling users to assess the abundance, distribution, diversity, and condition of wetlands in the landscape or watershed context.

Elsinore Valley Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan

Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District | December 23rd, 2021

The Elsinore Valley Subbasin is located within the service area of Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District (EVMWD or District). No other agencies overlap the boundaries

The Elsinore Valley Subbasin is located within the service area of Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District (EVMWD or District). No other agencies overlap the boundaries of this subbasin therefore no inter-agency coordination was required for the development of this GSP. Two outside technical experts participated as the technical advisory committee for the GSP development. EVMWD conducted public outreach throughout the development of the GSP.

Ending groundwater overdraft without affecting food security

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | June 14th, 2024

Enduring Solutions on the Colorado River

Arizona State University (ASU) | August 16th, 2024

As we work to reduce water use on the post-2026 Colorado River, two paths lie open before us. One is to incentivize conservation by giving water users the chance to bank

As we work to reduce water use on the post-2026 Colorado River, two paths lie open before us. One is to incentivize conservation by giving water users the chance to bank saved water for later use. Known most commonly as Intentionally Created Surplus (ICS), and more broadly in a series of increasingly creative implementations as “Assigned Water,” this creates short term savings. But in the long run, the approach entitles the users to take the water back out of thE bank. The other involves permanent reductions – “System Water.” Water use is reduced for the benefit of the Colorado River as a whole. Investment in Assigned Water, attractive to water managers because of the allure that they can get their water back, has crowded out investment in the more durable System Water reductions that will be needed to bring the Colorado River into balance. As we develop new operating rules for the river, we need to be mindful of the differences involved. Accounting for water as Assigned Water is a means to reduce total water use in the short-term but the basin requires a means to reduce total water use over the long-term. Enduring solutions on the river can only be found by addressing overallocation, which at its most basic means that there needs to be more unassigned water in Lake Mead. Click here for Part II

Engineer’s Report for the North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency: Proposition 218 Procedures for Benefit Assessments

North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (NFKGSA) | January 15th, 2018

The North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (NFKGSA or Agency) recently formed with the primary purpose of compliance with the Sustainable Groundwater

The North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (NFKGSA or Agency) recently formed with the primary purpose of compliance with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). As a Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), the Agency may develop, adopt, and implement a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) for sustainable management of groundwater for that portion of the Kings Subbasin (Subbasin) underlying the Agency. The newly formed Agency needs to implement an assessment rate structure that is sufficient to fund Agency operations and required activities pursuant to SGMA. The NFKGSA will develop, in coordination with other GSAs in the Kings Subbasin, a GSP that provides for achieving groundwater sustainability in the Kings Subbasin of the San Joaquin Valley Groundwater Basin underlying the Agency by January 2040. SGMA requires that a GSP be submitted to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) by January 31, 2020 since the Kings Subbasin is considered a high priority, critically overdrafted subbasin. Based on the Agency’s needs, the NFKGSA Board of Directors is requesting landowner approval to levy assessments to generate sufficient revenue to fund both annual Agency operation costs and expenses associated with the development and implementation of a GSP. The annual operational costs have already begun and are used to fund Agency operations and activities required by SGMA, including retaining consulting firms and legal counsel to provide Agency oversight and lead the Agency through the steps for SGMA compliance. Expenses consist of administrative support, GSP development, and GSP implementation, with GSP development occurring over the next several years and GSA administration and GSP implementation anticipated to be on-going expenses. The administrative annual expenses include an assumed annual 3% inflation factor. The assessments are planned to apply equally to all assessable lands within the Agency’s boundaries. The Assessment Roll provided in Attachment D identifies the acreage for each assessable parcel according to the 2017 tax rolls of Fresno County and Attachment E identifies the acreage for each assessable parcel according to the 2017 tax rolls of Kings County. The following table provides an example schedule of the proposed assessments during the next five years that are the subject of this Proposition 218 Engineer’s Report. The actual assessment rate will be set annually by the Board, based on the budget needs, but will not exceed the proposed maximum rate. Assessments will continue beyond Fiscal Year 2022-23, but at this time the assessment rate after this initial five-year period is unknown because the GSP Implementation costs will not be fully determined until the GSP is developed. The projects that will be proposed as part of the GSP implementation to attain sustainability and maintain the threshold levels established in the GSP will likely require supplemental funding and assessments greater than the maximum assessments recommended in this report, and approval by the landowners in a future Proposition 218 election will be required.