Sacramento, California: Water Board Adopts Bay-Delta Plan in 4 to 1 Vote, First Major Update Since 1995

California's State Water Resources Control Board voted 4 to 1 late on Thursday to adopt an updated Bay-Delta Plan, the first major update to the Sacramento and Delta protections since 1995. The vote in Sacramento followed two days of debate at which more than 200 people spoke. A large majority of those who addressed the board opposed the voluntary agreements at the center of the plan, the Los Angeles Times reported, and the board adopted it anyway.

The plan changes how the state governs pumping and river flows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the heart of the California water system. Instead of requiring every water agency to limit pumping under one set of minimum flow rules, the plan lets an agency choose negotiated agreements under the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program. An agency on that path commits to certain river flows for the environment and pays for projects that restore habitat for fish in the Delta. Agencies that do not take that path face a traditional regulatory pathway with enforceable safeguards, the governor's office said.

The numbers behind the Delta

The Delta provides water for nearly 30 million people and 4 million acres of farmland. Water agencies have pledged $2.9 billion under the voluntary agreements program, and the governor's office said the plan promotes the restoration of more than 27,000 acres of aquatic habitat. The Los Angeles Times reported that agencies have committed under the agreements to restoration work on about 20,000 acres of floodplain habitat and more than 5,000 acres of tidal wetlands. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which delivers water for 19 million people, supported the plan.

Board Chair E. Joaquin Esquivel called the adoption a modernized regulatory approach and a generational shift that is long overdue in the way the state manages the Bay-Delta. Board member Nichole Morgan, who grew up fishing in the Delta, cast the sole no vote. Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot spoke for the plan at Thursday's hearing. Nina Hawk, the Metropolitan Water District's chief of Bay-Delta resources, called the adoption a landmark achievement in moving toward collaborative, science based decision making to provide reliable water for California's people, businesses, and wildlife.

What happens next

The adoption followed four rounds of draft language, more than 200 days of public comment, tribal and environmental justice listening sessions, and public workshops, the governor's office said. The updated plan now goes to the Office of Administrative Law for approval. After approval, board staff will release a draft implementation methodology within one year and develop implementing regulations within two years. Governor Gavin Newsom championed the voluntary agreements approach and brought local, state, and federal partners together in 2022 to build the framework that Thursday's vote wrote into the plan.

For Sacramento, the decision closes a hearing process that ran at the CalEPA building on I Street over October 28 and 29. For the cities and farms that draw water through the Delta, the choice each agency now makes, a negotiated agreement or the regulatory path, will set river flows and habitat spending for years.