The State Water Board voted 4-1 to build Gov. Gavin Newsom’s voluntary agreements into the rules for the Delta, but the Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the Central Valley Project, has said it will pull out and stop funding the program if its objections are not met.
SACRAMENTO — California’s water regulators late Thursday adopted the first major rewrite since 1995 of the rules that govern how much water farms and cities may take from the Sacramento River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of a system that supplies nearly 30 million people and about 4 million acres of farmland.
The State Water Resources Control Board voted 4-1 on Oct. 29, after two days of public comment, to update the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. Board member Nichole Morgan, a civil engineer, cast the lone no vote, Courthouse News Service reported.
The vote settles the state’s side of a fight that has run for years. It does not settle the federal side. The Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the Central Valley Project and jointly runs the Delta pumps with the state, told the board in September that it would stop participating in and funding the plan’s centerpiece if the board went ahead without changes. Whether it follows through is now the biggest unknown for Central Valley growers, urban water agencies and the salmon fishery, and a live issue for the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees Reclamation.
Two pathways to the same standard
The plan gives water users two ways to meet its fish and wildlife objectives. One is the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program, known as the voluntary agreements, in which participating agencies commit some river flows and pay for habitat restoration in exchange for flexibility. The other is a traditional regulatory pathway built mainly on required flows, which applies to anyone who does not join or whose commitments fall short.
The board says the voluntary program would direct roughly $2.9 billion in state, federal and local money to restoration, increase river flows, restore more than 27,000 acres of aquatic habitat, and for the first time recognize “Tribal Tradition and Culture” as a protected use of water. Pending approval by the Office of Administrative Law, the voluntary pathway is to begin no later than Oct. 1, 2027.
“This groundbreaking plan begins a new era of environmental protection, creating enforceable flow standards while giving communities, farms and industry the flexibility to manage their supplies,” the board’s chair, E. Joaquin Esquivel, said in a statement.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who brought water agencies and state and federal partners together behind the voluntary-agreements framework in 2022, said on Oct. 30: “We don’t have to choose between healthy rivers and reliable water supplies — California needs both.”
The federal objections, in Reclamation’s words
Reclamation’s case, laid out in a Sept. 4 letter from Aubrey J.D. Bettencourt, the principal deputy commissioner exercising the commissioner’s authority, is that the final draft broke the deal the parties signed in 2022.
The letter said the draft “keeps the HRL label and changes the terms of the agreement,” raising obligations for participants beyond the 2022 memorandum of understanding. It objected to added export reductions from the federal and state projects of 125,000 acre-feet in dry and below-normal years and 175,000 acre-feet in above-normal years, and to a regulatory default of 55 percent of unimpaired flow.
Reclamation also argued that the state cannot condition the operation of federal reservoirs such as Shasta on state approval. “A federal Record of Decision or biological opinion does not require State Board staff permission to be implemented,” Ms. Bettencourt wrote. She said Reclamation would keep operating Shasta and the Central Valley Project under its biological opinion, its records of decision and Executive Order 14181, President Trump’s January 2025 order directing federal agencies to deliver more water in California.
The letter called the draft “executive and regulatory overreach” and said that if the board proceeded, Reclamation would “cease any further participation or funding” under the voluntary program, review water right permit conditions, consider reopening Endangered Species Act consultation and “maximize deliveries under existing authorities.” The administration’s stated goal, it said, is to “improve water supply outcomes for all of California while incorporating robust, measurable species protection.”
The board’s staff answered in a written response to comments released this month. It said Reclamation’s contracts “do not supersede laws of the State relating to the control, appropriation, use, or distribution of water,” citing a provision of the 1902 Reclamation Act, and noted that Reclamation holds its water rights under permits issued by the board. It said it was “not clear” whether Reclamation and Westlands Water District would withdraw, and that the plan includes procedures to handle a withdrawal.
What a federal exit would mean
No participant has formally withdrawn, the board’s staff told CalMatters. Federal money for the program had been expected to reach $740 million, according to CalMatters.
“We’re still committed to making the (voluntary agreements) pathway work for the other participants. It does complicate things, and we’ll have to work through that,” Eric Oppenheimer, the board’s executive director, told the outlet. He said that if Reclamation leaves, the federal project would be held to the regulatory backstop, and that the board’s modeling shows staying in would mean a smaller water supply hit for Reclamation and its contractors. “But we can’t make them volunteer,” he said.
Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst for the Golden State Salmon Association, told CalMatters that a federal departure would weigh more than any other because the Central Valley Project is “the largest water project in the Central Valley.”
The state’s own water contractors are also unhappy. Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, told CalMatters of the plan’s final form, “It’s unrecognizable,” calling it a “complete system of micromanagement,” while saying agencies were reviewing whether it is workable.
From the other direction, environmental groups and many tribal speakers urged the board to reject the voluntary agreements. “Flow levels will simply be inadequate and temperatures harmful,” said Christie Ralston, a lawyer with San Francisco Baykeeper, according to Courthouse News. Board member Jared Blumenfeld defended the plan’s enforcement: “It’s incredibly enforceable. There’s backstop upon backstop.” Board member Sean Maguire said: “It’s not a perfect plan. It’s our best effort at this time.”
The view from Congress
The sharpest congressional criticism has come from Central Valley Republicans. In a joint statement on the final draft, Representatives David Valadao and Vince Fong said the board had “walked away from that agreement and moved the goalposts,” adding, “While the federal government is working to deliver more water to Californians, the State Water Board keeps finding new ways to take it away.”
The plan’s backers, led by Mr. Newsom, present the voluntary agreements as a way to restore salmon, whose collapse has forced the cancellation of salmon fishing three years in a row, while heading off the legal fights a flows-only rule could bring. Supporters of the voluntary agreements also argue that a federal exit would leave Reclamation under the stricter backstop, a point Mr. Oppenheimer made.
The Inquirer found no public statement on the vote from Representative Bruce Westerman, the Arkansas Republican who leads the Natural Resources Committee, or from Representative Jared Huffman, the Marin County Democrat who is its ranking member, as of Saturday.
What comes next
The plan now goes to the Office of Administrative Law. Board staff are to release a draft implementation method within a year and regulations within two. In the meantime, the questions for California are practical: whether Reclamation formally withdraws, whether Westlands and other federal contractors follow, and how the state and federal pumps are run in the Delta if the two governments are working under different rules.
The water that flows through the Delta is shared by the state and federal projects, and any reduced pumping lands on farms in the San Joaquin Valley, cities from the Bay Area to Southern California, and the fishing ports along the coast.
Callum Petrossian covers the House Natural Resources, Energy and Commerce, and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, from power grids and offshore leasing to water projects, highways and disaster aid, for the Inquirer’s Energy & Environment desk. More from Callum Petrossian
