Water Management Reform: A Proposal for Action
A Framework for All Stakeholders

Introduction

Water is California's most important resource and is by law a public resource, precious to all, and needed by all. Every element of life depends on plentiful and clean water. Water will define the state's future, either because of its scarcity or its abundance.

Our most productive and sensitive natural habitats are all intimately linked with water.

Our goal is good government and a vision to achieve it. We simply want an equitable and sustainable water future for this great state.

Problem

In recent decades, our greatest losses to natural diversity have occurred in our rivers and streams (federal and state ESA listing of once abundant salmon and steelhead), riparian habitats (estimates of habitat loss in the range of 95%), and loss of wetlands and vernal pools (likely greater than riparian loss). Fish and wildlife losses are proportionally severe, as is loss of habitat connectivity.

California State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) is neither acting upon permit applications (therefore new legal use is impossible) nor eliminating illegal diversions (dams and siphons). They do not act on public complaints, unless the complainant proves damage - an impossible standard for a private individual and is, therefore, the job of the state and federal resource agencies.

There is a current practice of unauthorized (i.e. illegal) diversions. There are hundreds of documented cases in Mendocino County alone and more dams are put in every year. At least 276 applications for new appropriative water rights are pending before the California State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) in the North Coast counties. Some applications were filed over 10 years ago!

The Water Board is not levying fines that would reimburse the state for use of public property, remove business advantage of trespass, and encourage filing of applications. Therefore, it is not doing its job and at the same time impedes other government agencies from doing their job. For example, DFG is not enforcing bypass requirements on new or existing dams.

For more than a decade, water management decisions in north coast counties have not incorporated the full breadth of community and public interest concerns.

Proposed Solution

Trout Unlimited and Peregrine Audubon are petitioning the Water Board to propose standards and procedures that assure timely and effective regulation of water appropriations (Mattole River south to San Francisco Bay: Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties). The Department of Fish and Game, the State Land's Commission, and respective county governments are likewise named for failing to meet their regulatory responsibilities dealing with water issues.

The purpose of the petition is to assure that existing regulations are effectively applied to preserve and restore the steelhead and coho salmon fisheries, the riparian habitats and the wildlife associated with these, as required by State and Federal laws under the public trust doctrine.

We call for a Water Board-led process of workshops designed to be collaborative and welcome all stakeholders' views and participation, including conservation interests and the water community (agriculture, riparian landowners, municipalities, districts, and commercial users).

We request full enactment of policies and procedures that are consistent with existing statues and rules (no new rulemaking is required) and are thus within administrative discretion of the relevant agencies.

The Water Board shall formally adopt the Guidelines for Maintaining Instream Flows to Protect Fisheries Resources Downstream of Water Diversions in Mid-California Coastal Streams (1). We also ask that the Water Board develop and adopt procedures to ensure adequate coordination between all relevant State, Federal, and county agencies involved in the approval of permits related to water diversions, and address unauthorized diversions.

We require that the State be given a finite time limit (by June 1, 2006) with future legal action likely should the minimum grievances in this petition not be met.

Conclusions

No part of any community should be left on the sideline during water management decisions.

Clear policy with proper implementation provide certainty and fairness to all stakeholders.

If we act now, it is still possible to ensure or reclaim the future of our native fish, wildlife, and riparian ecosystems while continuing to meet our state's consumptive water demands.

Good government springs from a well formulated vision to which all parts of the community have contributed. It is the objective of this petition to stimulate and help facilitate community and stakeholder-based decisions that will result in an equitable and sustainable water future for California.

(1) "Guidelines for Maintaining Instream Flows to Protect Fisheries Resources Downstream of Water Diversions in Mid-California Coastal Streams" (Dept Fish & Game and Nat. Marine Fisheries Service, May 22, 2000, updated June 17, 2002)

Last revised November 12, 2004
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