Draft of Delta Plan Coming by Year’s End

The continuing search for a politically acceptable means of apportioning water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta advanced Monday with a joint announcement by Gov. Pete Wilson and U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt that a draft of the final plan will be released by year’s end.

Even that plan, however, may only signal the beginning of a multiyear process aimed at repairing years of environmental damage to the delta while meeting agriculture needs and growing urban demands. Under this scenario, the outgoing governor, who has made a solution to the problem a major goal of his administration, will defer the final resolution to his successor.

At a joint news conference, Wilson and Babbitt said the public has until the end of June to voice preferences on several possible approaches to ending what has long been the state’s most insoluble water conflict. The comment period on a March draft plan had initially been set to end on June 1.

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The March draft provoked the ire of some interests, environmental groups in particular, by proposing among the three alternatives a new version of the Peripheral Canal rejected by voters in 1982. Once again, the purpose of such a canal would be to divert delta water to the San Joaquin Valley and growing cities to the south.

Although neither Babbitt nor Wilson indicated a preference, they sought generally to allay concerns raised by the earlier draft.

“We will work on a series of interim assurances to guarantee that all users--all major water groups--have a comfort level during the period that is necessary to implement whatever decision is taken,” Wilson said.

A key issue, Babbitt said, will be “providing assurances to all stakeholders--urban, agriculture, environmental--that this process will work in a way that nobody is disadvantaged relative to others.”

Babbitt said that instead of delegating the federal role to a deputy, as he has in the past, he would become directly involved in future discussions and negotiations.

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Wilson said he would include about $30 million in his revised 1998-99 budget for environmental reviews, for San Joaquin River water rights purchases to enhance salmon runs, for establishing a water transfer program and for conducting environmental studies related to two proposed reservoirs in Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valley.

Fed by the state’s two major northern river systems, the delta is California’s largest fresh-water source. But the ecological health of the delta has suffered heavily as up to two-thirds of its water in some years has been diverted before reaching the ocean.

A task force of state and federal agencies known as Calfed has been working to develop a new way to divide the water that will satisfy the major interest groups--agriculture, both north and south of the delta, cities, and environmental organizations seeking to repair the delta’s wetlands and protect what is left of native fish populations.