Engineering Within Ecological Constraints (1996) / Chapter Skim
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Lessons in Water Resource and Ecosystem Regulation from Florida's Everglades and California's Bay/Delta Estuary
Lessons in Water Resource and Ecosystem Regulation from Florida's Everglades and California's Bay/Delta Estuary
Pages 163-176
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From page 163... ...
Second, negotiated understandings and agreements involving state and federal resource agencies and local stakeholder groups are effective ways to develop mutually acceptable solutions. Once resolution of such complex environmental matters becomes embroiled in litigation, it becomes extremely difficult to realize an adequate solution.
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From page 164... ...
In response, the state and federal government created an extensive flood control and water conveyance system (Light et al., 1989~. They confined the Kissimmee River into a straight canal, diked Lake Okeechobee to prevent flooding, and reclaimed some 6 million acres of wetlands south of the lake, mostly for agriculture, by building canals and levees to funnel water toward the coast.
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From page 165... ...
LESSONS IN WATER RESOURCE AND ECOSYSTEM REGULATION 165 N W;E S ~ it_ -- -- -- Everglades National Park Boundary South Florida Water Management District Boundary Canals in,; <' ~7~' Florida Keys ,, Am_ - ~IF In Florida ·2 'ad Bay ~ " 2~' FIGURE 1 The Everglades. SOURCE: South Florida Water Management District.
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From page 166... ...
The State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project (two of the largest public works projects in the nation) include diversion facilities in the southern end of the delta to export water southward through the Delta Mendota Canal and California Aqueduct (Figure 31.
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From page 167... ...
In addition, riparian farmers in the delta divert water for irrigation, agricultural water districts in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins take water from the system, and the City of San Francisco and East Bay Municipal Utility District (serving Oakland and Berkeley) store and divert water upstream of the delta for urban use.
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From page 168... ...
WODRASKA AND PETER E VON HAAM ~ Oral ~ · SA(~AMENTO \` BA~EID r: ~ ~ L~ ' ~Hi.: 1 ~ _ Ed Aque6 ;~: A ~ Sld~ MlillLOPOLlTAN WAITS DISTRICT 0~0 SERVICE Am ~ DECO FIGURE 3 Major features of state water project and Central Valley project.
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From page 169... ...
The Role of the South Florida Water Management District In 1983 severe high-water conditions in Everglades National Park eliminated the wading-bird nesting season, and the Everglades Research Center (part of the National Park Service) told the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD)
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From page 170... ...
The Everglades case needed an approach to water management that fostered testing of policies and technical measures on a scale sufficient to be highly informative, while limiting environmental risks. The District developed ITP as a new approach to water management (Light et al., 1989)
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From page 171... ...
The Justice Department filed suit in federal court under state law rather than federal law, because the Federal Clean Water Act did not apply to polluted runoff from farming operations that were discharging phosphorus into the Everglades through a federal water project facility. The water quality standards that SFWMD was responsible for enforcing were narrative, or nonnumeric.
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From page 172... ...
The act will generate more than $700 million over 20 years (more than $300 million from agriculture) for various activities aimed at improving water quality and water supply throughout the historic Everglades, including Lake Okeechobee, the agricultural areas in the region, Everglades National Park, and urbanized areas of the southeast coast.
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From page 173... ...
The Water Quality Control Plan and Decision 1485 also received intense scrutiny under state law in state court. The Racanelli decision in 1986 by a state appellate court declared parts of the State Board's 1978 plan invalid, ruling among other things, that the plan failed to consider the role of all Bay/Delta watershed diverters, focusing instead only on the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project.9 The State Board adopted a revised Water Quality Control Plan in 1991, but EPA disapproved it, claiming that changes made from the 1978 plan were inadequate.
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From page 174... ...
Governor Wilson requested the State Board on April 1, 1993, to stop work on draft Decision 1630, claiming that federal involvement in the Bay/Delta through enforcement of the Endangered Species Act made state action "irrelevant." EPA's Proposed Standards In response to the State Board's action on draft Decision 1630, the EPA proposed a set of standards in January 1994, claiming federal authority under the CWA.~3 The EPA proposal contained a salinity intrusion standard mandating a fixed number of days for meeting a 2 part-per-thousand salinity level at various locations in the Bay/Delta estuary from February through June. EPA reached this formula from statistical analysis of past hydrologic conditions, intending to recreate conditions as they existed in the late 1960s and early 1970s (before significant levels of State Water Project exports from the southern delta and a period that EPA believes had good habitat conditions for fisheries)
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From page 175... ...
In contrast, the Urban Alternative contains a sliding-scale methodology to permit the standard to update itself periodically within the year to ensure that the regulation responds to natural variations of hydrologic conditions. This approach is similar to the iterative testing process in Florida in that the standard would incorporate natural ecological functions to guide regulatory decision making.
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From page 176... ...
12. See letter from Governor Pete Wilson to chairman of the State Water Resources Control Board, April 1, 1993 (Sacramento Bee, April 2, 1993)
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