Debate over options for California’s ailing Delta region reflects deep divisions over water

California water regulators have released a long-awaited analysis of options for managing flows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where fish populations have been declining and the ecosystem has been deteriorating. “We will lose salmon runs and stocks — and species — if we don’t get water in our rivers.” Environmental groups and tribes say the voluntary approach would reduce protections, and they want to see the board set flow requirements that would ensure sufficient amounts of water pass through the delta and into San Francisco Bay, and also take other measures to protect the deteriorating aquatic ecosystem. “We’re ready to do something better.” A coalition of water agencies supported the voluntary measures in a letter to the State Water Board, calling them “Agreements to Support Healthy Rivers and Landscapes” and saying they “will improve environmental conditions more quickly and holistically than traditional regulatory requirements, while providing more certainty to communities, farms, and businesses.” In the Central Valley, Westlands Water District is one of the major agricultural suppliers supporting the agreements. In August, the EPA accepted a complaint in which tribes and environmental justice groups accuse the State Water Board of discriminatory practices and mismanagement that they say have contributed to the delta’s ecological deterioration. Gary Bobker, program director of the Bay Institute, said that in 2017 the State Water Board detailed a path for setting new standards for the delta based on the best available science.