Thursday February 8, 2024
The Independent —
The Bay Delta Plan should focus more on the amount of water flowing through rivers and less on habitat restorations to restore its ecosystems, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) comments submitted to the State Water Resources Control Board.
The Water Board, which is in the process of revising its draft Bay Delta Plan for public review, will decide what river-flow requirements and water-quality controls will govern uses within the Sacramento River watershed. The EPA’s comments came as part of the plan’s public comment period, which closed on Jan. 19.
The largest in the state, the watershed provides water for some two million people, including those in the Tri-Valley.
In their own written comments, environmental groups, such as Friends of the River and Restore the Delta, have pushed for increased flows in the rivers. Such flows would reverse the decline of river and delta ecosystems, which depend on the water at certain times of the year to support the different stages of fish life cycles, according to these groups.