State official: Local residents will have say in new Bay-Delta plan

Karla Nemeth of the California Natural Resources Agency listens to a question at Monday's Walnut Grove Rotary Club meeting at Wimpy's Marina. (Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel)

State official: Local residents will have say in new Bay-Delta plan

By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 6:11 AM PDT

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Karla Nemeth made no bones about it when she addressed the Walnut Grove Rotary Club on Monday.

She works for the Schwarzenegger administration, which wants to ship more Delta water to the southern San Joaquin Valley and to Southern California.

"A lot of people really hate this," Nemeth told what she envisioned to be a hostile audience full of residents of the Highway 160 corridor. "I get this."

Rotarian Larry Emery, pastor of Walnut Grove Presbyterian Church, complained about Northern Californians, and especially Delta residents, not having sufficient representation in deciding the Delta's future.

"We don't have any representation except at these kinds of meetings (like Rotary)," Emery said. "When it comes to decision making, we're not at the table."

Nemeth, communications director for the California Natural Resources Agency, the lead agency in developing the Bay-Delta plan, said the plan will involve input from local jurisdictions.

Daniel Wilson, a sixth-generation Delta farmer, said he has trouble understanding how Delta and other regional interests can be represented on committees related to the peripheral canal proposal, considering that the only way to get the canal built will be to get rid of Delta-area interests.

Bay-Delta Conservation Plan timetable

Late summer-early fall: Public workshops on draft plan.
December or early 2010: Public review and hearings throughout the state on draft environmental impact report/environmental impact statement (EIR follows state regulations; EIS is a federal document).
June 2010: Hearings on final EIR/EIS.
December 2010: Final decision on plan by California Department of Fish & Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service. Other agencies will be involved in the permitting process.
Source: Karla Nemeth, California Natural Resources Agency

Nemeth focused her presentation at Wimpy's Marina on the controversial Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, which is centered on preserving fish and land animals and their habitats while delivering water to 25 million Californians to the south.

Nemeth acknowledged the conflict between water flows and protecting endangered species over the years.

"We haven't done a very good job at it," she said.

Delta waters, especially the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, have nine endangered fish species and 37 land species, Nemeth said.

"If this was just a water project, it would look a lot different," she added.

Salmon, near and dear to the hearts of many in the Lodi area, is getting the most attention, especially when it comes to fighting off predators.

Wildlife biologist Chuck Hanson, a consultant for the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, said after the meeting that to goal is to keep juvenile salmon going through the Delta and out the Golden Gate. Instead, many of them go south in Old and Middle rivers to Clifton Court Forebay northwest of Tracy, where some of them are eaten by predator fish like small-mouth, large-mouth and striped bass, white catfish and Sacramento Pike Minnow.

The goal is to protect native fish that are state or federally listed as endangered or threatened, especially salmon, Hanson said.

The Bay-Delta plan will also focus on helping salmon as they head downstream from the confluence of the Mokelumne and Cosumnes rivers east of Thornton, Hanson said. This part of the plan helps juveniles migrating to the Golden Gate and adult steelhead salmon heading upstream to Lake Camanche by trying to control parts of the Mokelumne River subject to tidal influences, he said.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

wtf wrote on May 12, 2009 11:42 AM:

" "Nemeth, communications director for the California Natural Resources Agency, the lead agency in developing the Bay-Delta plan, said the plan will involve input from local jurisdictions."

Why is it, then, that my gut reaction to this statement is: She lies? ;)

Came across the following, and surprise, surprise! Arnold is in this bunch...

http://green-agenda.com/index.html

Make sure to read the quotes. These people are taking very real concerns of the public regarding pollution - usually by mega-corporations - and turning it into their hand in our pockets. Ron Paul has it right: protect private property rights and this would pretty much take care of the pollution problem. "

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