Recently, the State Water Resources Control Board held comprehensive hearings on the update of the Bay Delta Plan that governs how much water flows from the state’s rivers though the largest estuary on the Pacific coast. The ecological health of the San Francisco Bay Delta estuary has been at risk from inadequate freshwater flows and climate change.
The state’s draft plan was criticized by Delta farmers, the fishing industry, environmental advocates and dozens of individuals. Scientists warned it will lead to ecological collapse of the estuary.
The hearings also exposed friction between tribal nations living in the Bay Delta watershed and the state government’s water planning and policies. Representatives from several tribal nations roundly criticized the plan that is on the table. They say they were not consulted early enough and that their sovereignty as nations was not considered.
At the crux of the plan are a set of voluntary agreements dubbed Healthy Rivers and Landscapes that depend on a promise by water districts and contractors to provide more water from the state’s rivers, along with habitat improvement for salmon spawning and rearing.
But Delta advocates say that plan will not provide sufficient water to benefit the estuary, which is plagued by toxic algae blooms and fish species on the brink of extinction.
Tribal nations of the Bay Delta watershed have had a deep and abiding link with the estuary for time beyond memory. That ancient link to the landscape, its waterways and a thousand wild species living there is still strong among the tribal people that live there now. Their ancestors managed the landscape for millennia.
In modern times, tribal sovereignty and collaboration have been shunted aside by mainstream society and its agencies. That friction surfaced in recent hearings of the State Water Resources Board over the Bay Delta Plan. Tribal nations indicated they still feel largely left out of the process and their status as co-equal governments ignored.
Vincent Pena is the tech manager for the Wilton Rancheria of the Sacramento Valley. He expressed the power of those ancient ties to the land.
“Wilton Rancheria maintains deep ancestral cultural and subsistence ties to the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta.
“The tribe’s interests in the delta are not abstract, historic or symbolic only. They are ongoing living responsibilities grounded in cultural practice, subsistence activity, stewardship obligations and intergenerational continuity.”
Northern California’s Hoopa Tribe in the Klamath River watershed has been impacted by the state’s water planning, but their concerns have been ignored according to Regina Chichizola, executive director of Save California’s Salmon.
She asserted that tribal beneficial uses should be more than simply words on a page. “Tribal beneficial uses should not just be established but protected. It’s just an exercise on paper.
“If you don’t actually protect them, there should be mitigation measures with enforceable outcomes. And truthfully, any voluntary agreements that do not meet instream flow objectives and protect beneficial uses should be rejected.”
Pena observed that the draft Bay Delta plan did not provide meaningful early and ongoing government-to-government consultation that directly affects tribal interests.
“The revised draft plan and its associated environmental analysis fail to reasonably protect tribal beneficial uses and other protected beneficial uses, rely impermissibly on unenforceable and discretionary implementation mechanisms and do not adequately analyze or mitigate impacts to tribal cultural resources, public trust resources or tribal sovereignty interests.”
Chichizola reminded State Water Board members that the 2018 version of the Bay Delta Plan allowed for 75% of the water flowing from rivers in the Delta watershed to stream into the estuary. Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration has worked to change the water flow parameters to align with the priorities of the state’s agricultural industry.
The Bay Delta Plan update currently on the table calls for a maximum unimpaired flow from rivers of 55% and as low as 35%, or even less depending on climate conditions.
It was a lost opportunity, Chichizola indicated, stating that adoption of the 2018 plan would have prevented excessive water exports to Central Valley farms that have had devastating impacts on salmon and other species.
“In the time [that] salmon runs have gone down 65% to 95% depending on species, almond acreage has gone up and water use has gone up. And that is the direct consequence of the stalling that the voluntary agreements has caused.”
Brian Wallace has Nisenan and Washoe heritage and was chair of the Washoe Tribe east of Lake Tahoe. Wallace suggested that to achieve equity in collaborating with the state, tribal nations must have decision authority, resource parity, data sovereignty and informed consent. And he underscored the importance of Tribal Ecological Knowledge in managing watersheds.
“You know, for 15,000 years, the indigenous peoples that are represented in these hearings have governed these waters since before history was history. Salmon filled these rivers, watersheds sustained massive populations without crisis.
“And now, for the last 150 years, as we’ve been able to witness, the state has managed these waters. The result has been species collapse, perpetual drought and escalating conflict that creates all this emotion that you’re feeling in these hearings.”
The Yurok nation is another reservation impacted by state water policy and the Bay Delta plan. Frankie Meyers has been a tribal consultant. His emotions boiled up as he discussed the longstanding dismissal of indigenous knowledge by state officials in water policy and planning.
“How incredibly frustrating it is for me to be sitting in another room in front of you all again, listening to our strong, powerful tribal leaders tell the same story to you all over, and over, and over again.
“And yet here we are moving toward an agreement and a proposal that perpetuates systemic racism, that perpetuates unjust treatment of tribal nations and erasure of this history as a state.
“We’re talking about tribal nations. These are not citizens, they’re not individuals, they’re not stakeholders. They are tribal nations.”
State Water Board members acknowledged historical wrongs and how they have carried into modern times. They indicated a willingness to engage more deeply with tribal nations in crafting water policy in the future.
