Webb Tract water transfer - a sign of the future.

Via @stopperipheral, perhaps the most dedicated Delta issues twitterer, comes news of this announcement of an in-Delta water transfer by the owners of Webb Tract.

Unsure if this was a new policy of the folks at the Delta Wetlands Project, the DNP dug around a bit at the State Water Resouces Control Board’s website.

Turns out it wasn’t a new policy. At the website, we found a notice for an earlier Delta Wetlands Project water transfer application, dated December 31, 2008. The Webb/Bouldin application proposed to transfer 17, 941 acre-feet of water to the Met from May to September 2009. The Webb tract application is to transfer 4,500 acre feet. Add a year, same time and place.

The DWP owns Webb Tract, Bouldin and Bacon Islands, and most of Holland Tract. They are trying to make some money, and clearly there is more money in selling water than corn.

Anyway, the SWRCB website is a really rich source of information. The DNP found, within a minute, this paper on Delta ecosystem investments by the folks at U.C. Davis Delta Solutions Program.

This paper provides background for discussion on prioritizing ecosystem investments in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Ecosystem investments involve the allocation and expenditure of financial resources, land, and water to improve ecosystem attributes, principally to support desirable plant and animal species. A framework using ten ecological criteria is provided for organizing these investments into a portfolio (or into regional portfolios) that can guide investment prioritization and timing. This framework is meant to be used in conjunction with non-ecological criteria, also presented. This portfolio contains 34 potential investments that are drawn mostly from the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, the CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Program Conservation Strategy, and the Delta Regional Ecosystem Restoration and Implementation Plan. Means to prioritize these investments are discussed.

Check out the appendix, which gives a breakdown of the ecosystem investment potential of 34 sites in the Delta. The breakdown is detailed, and revealing. The DNP was surprised to learn that Bacon Island, for example

...will be used as a water storage facility. It also has the potential to be utilized as a rearing habitat for species requiring open water habitat. Such an investment meets the needs of improving water supply while potentially assisting species of concern in the Delta.

Bacon Island, which the DWP wants to make a reservoir, has been the subject of 20 years of public hearings and environmental review. It may become a reservoir. To continue with Bacon Island:

If the flooded island were to become inhabited by invasive species it could easily be drained and repopulated with desirable species again.

Or alternatively, repopulated with invasive species. Since when did “invasive” and “desirable” become mutually exclusive categories, by the way? For many, including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, the invasive striped bass is something to preserve. It isn’t clear why the invasive/desirable point is even relevant.

Bacon Island’s management policy has changed recently. No trespassing on the island is now enforced. The DWP has gone to plan B for entering the water development market. Stakes high.

Here’s UC Davis on Dead Horse Island, just north of Giusti’s:

Love that phrase, “shovel-ready.” And, just for good measure, since their “levees failed repeatedly,” let’s get it over with and “breach” this island’s levees for keeps. Any wonder why people in the Delta don’t like the UC Davis folks and their black-and-white view of the Delta’s future?

The UC Davis program and the Delta Wetlands Project are glimpses into two different futures of the Delta.

In the Davis future, the Delta is turned into a landscape of breached levees, brackish water and managed habitats.

In the DWP future, the Delta is a landscape made of equal parts polders turned reservoirs and polders turned mitigating managed habitat.

The two are mutually exclusive, since polder reservoirs collecting brackish water have no value in the water market.

Delta Wetlands has now more than once fallowed its fields in order to sell their water to the Met. Since water is only getting more valuable and land getting harder to maintain, surely this is a sign of the future. Unless, that is, Delta landowners develop and are allowed to develop other sources of income and exchange.

As the water transfers precedent set by the Delta Wetlands Project suggests, the Delta’s land-owning corporate interests are interested in developing water. That is not the only development scenario available to the region. Work together folks.