California Water Initiatives
Since Trout Unlimited founded the California Water Project in 2000, it has become a leading legal, science, and policy advocate focused on California water law and its effects on trout, salmon, and steelhead. Through reform of California’s system of water rights administration in California’s north coast, strategic agreements for instream flow protection in key watersheds, cooperative programs with water users, and hydropower reform efforts, we are achieving lasting streamflow protection for salmon and steelhead and changing how water rights are managed in California.
Stream Flow Protection
California’s legal regime for administering water rights has largely failed to protect either the interests of water users or the flows necessary to support aquatic life. For example, there are now about 500 pending applications for new water rights in California, including 300 clustered along the north central coast. The numbers tell only part of the story. Most of these applications have been pending for many years, and many water users have chosen to divert water without a valid water right—and without ecological safeguards. Building on nearly 20 years of work by TU chapters and volunteers in the area, we are turning the situation around.
- Legislative Mandate for Instream Flows. TU championed legislation ordering the State Water Board to implement a new policy to maintain instream flows in coastal streams from the San Francisco Bay to the Mattole River. Written by Sen. Kuehl and signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, the statute (A.B. 2121) requires the Board to adopt a comprehensive system for protecting stream flows as it administers water rights. A.B. 2121 covers about 5,900 stream miles and 3.1 million watershed acres in Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Napa, and Humboldt Counties.
- Water Rights Petition. TU filed a formal Petition with the Water Board and other state agencies demanding top-to-bottom changes to the water rights system, including compliance, monitoring, and enforcement. We filed the Petition jointly with the Mendocino County chapter of the National Audubon Society and immediately convened a stakeholder group to work through the issues presented by A.B. 2121 and the Petition.
- Coastal Streamflow Stewardship Project. Traditionally, water diverters have been regulated individually, if at all, with little regard to how their actions relate to other diversions in the area or contribute to cumulative impacts on the stream. The Coastal Streamflow Stewardship Project will pilot a new model for administering water rights in California so that the river comes first. It will replace permit-by-permit regulation with a system that sets performance-based measures for streamflow and other habitat conditions and creates stream management plans. Groups of water users can then cooperatively manage diversions to achieve more cumulative protection and more cost-effective results than any water user could achieve alone.
Although California’s laws enable instream flow dedications, the concept is still in its infancy compared to other western states. Here too, Trout Unlimited is helping to pave the way.
- Yuba River. On the Yuba River, TU served as the lead legal voice for a collection of conservation groups in the development of the lower Yuba River Accord, an innovative settlement agreement. With successful pilot programs in 2006 and 2007, California’s SWRCB approved the agreement, which provides significantly higher instream flow requirements to better protect the river’s wild Chinook, which are the Central Valley’s best, last remaining wild Chinook populations. These higher flow requirements range from an increase of 25,000 acre-feet in dry years to over 170,000 acre-feet of water in wet years. A multi-million dollar fisheries fund will also improve knowledge about the Yuba’s fisheries. TU’s work on behalf of the Yuba’s signature salmon and steelhead has been recognized as essential to the success of the settlement agreement.
- Lagunitas Creek. TU worked tirelessly with the North Marin Water District to resolve disagreements over NMWD’s water plans for Lagunitas Creek, near Point Reyes Station in Marin County. The result was a robust agreement that allows the district to meet its customers’ needs and dedicates a portion of the District’s water rights to instream use. This dedication preserves and enhances habitat, fish and wildlife in Lagunitas Creek, which is home to nearly 10 percent of the state’s returning native coho salmon.
- Proposed Nestle Plant in McCloud. TU is working to protect the McCloud River from a massive new water bottling facility proposed by Nestle on the flank of Mt. Shasta. The plant would draw water from a critical tributary to the McCloud River. With our allies, CalTrout and the McCloud Watershed Council, we recently forced Nestle and Siskiyou County to withdraw a critically flawed environmental impact report and start over. For more information, see Protect Our Waters.
For more information - contact: California Water Project
Brian J. Johnson
Director, California Water Project; TU Staff Attorney
1808 B 5th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
Ph: 510-528-7880
Fx: 510-528-7880
Email: bjohnson@tu.org