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Estuary Project Releases Bay-Delta Report Card
"Achieve world peace, cure aids and pick up a six pack on the way home," is the way the S.F. Regional Board's Tom Gandesbery describes the wildly varying scope of actions recommended in a 1993 plan to protect and restore the San Francisco Estuary ecosystem while maintaining its use by cities, farms, industry, boaters and fishermen.
Despite both the ambition and minutiae in this Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for the Bay and Delta, despite the fact that all the hopes, fears and pet projects of the over 100 stakeholders that created it are reflected in its 145 action items, despite a devastating cut in wherewithal and political will to implement the plan since its completion, clear progress has been made in implementing 59 of the CCMP's actions and not all of them as easy as buying a few beers.
In a review completed this October, the S.F. Estuary Project evaluated progress on each of the CCMP's 145 recommended actions -from hunting closures to protect Aleutian geese and pump screens to save salmon (six-pack style actions) to wetland protection planning and runoff pollution control for the entire Bay-Delta system (world peace through watershed management). A report card on the final review, which was called the CCMP Workbook and presented at the recent State of the Estuary Conference, can be found on page 6. According to the report card, only two actions have been fully implemented. For the rest, 19 reached a substantive level of implementation (50-75% complete) and 38 a moderate level (25-50%) while 45 actions only saw some minimal progress (up to 25%). Progress on the remaining 41 was negligible or unknown.
This brief article can only highlight a few of the areas of major progress in a plan that covers fish, wildlife, wetlands, water use, pollution, dredging, land use, public education and research and monitoring on an estuarywide basis. Since 1993, new state water quality and flow standards have been created to protect fish and estuary biota, recovery plans have been drafted for many endangered species, and municipal stormwater management, urban runoff pollution education efforts, and monitoring of estuarine and creek conditions have all increased tenfold. Clapper rails are being protected from the jaws of red foxes, salmon from the suck of water pumps, and creek and levee banks from overzealous vegetation control. Farms are using fewer chemicals; industries are recycling more wastes and water; and "Estuary" is no longer a word schoolkids and pump engineers can't say or spell.
Last but not least, watershed management and wetland restoration have become the hottest thing since the hell of the water wars. Private owners, government agencies and environmental groups have together pulled off big gains in the region's tidal wetland acreage (see page 2).
Of course the CCMP implementation picture isn't all roses and lily pads. Truly comprehensive wetland planning, habitat planning and estuarywide monitoring are yet to materialize. Toxic hot spots haven't been cleaned up. Selenium and heavy metals and pesticides are still flowing into some Estuary waterways in amounts toxic to aquatic organisms;exotic species are still arriving in the Estuary from foreign ports at a rate of at least four a year; and most local governments have yet to weave wetland and watershed protection into their land use plans and growth policies.
Reasons onlookers give for why more of the CCMP hasn't been accomplished range from lack of money (a 1994 implementation budget of $6 million per year was cut to $300,000), lack of political will, CALFED stealing the show, and the sheer enormity of a 145-action plan with no priority-setting and commensurate allocation of resources. As a result of these setbacks, many say that what has been accomplished can't really be directly credited to the CCMP.
"Sometimes I think I wasted five years of my life on that thing and all we got was a little more support for what we were all going to do anyway," says Steve McAdam of the S.F. Bay Commission. "Other days I think it did help by creating dialogues between people who weren't on speaking terms and helping them communicate on important issues later."
"You can trace lots of the positive work going on now, including CALFED, back to the CCMP," says Bob Potter of the Department of Water Resources. "The CCMP got us all to an acceptable place where we could go forward." "We're still in the infancy stage of implementation," says the Estuary Project's Marcia Brockbank, "but we've built up a head of steam with this year's report card, conference and priority-setting workshop."
In August, CCMP participants gathered to review the workbook and report card and chose ten priorities for implementation over the next five years. "Setting the ten priorities gave us the direction we've always been lacking," says former Implementation Committee chair Michael Carlin of the S.F. Regional Board. Carlin had hoped the priorities would provide the bodies created to follow-through on the CCMP - namely an executive council, implementation committee and geographic subcommittees, a scientific institute and the non-profit Friends of the S.F. Estuary - with a focus. "I'd like to see task groups form around each of the priority actions," says Carlin.
What else could and should would-be implementers do with the ten priorities? (Priorities include protecting wetlands, better integrating government programs, creating economic incentives for local government, improving urban runoff control, preparing watershed management plans, controlling exotic species introductions, building public awareness about CCMP implementation and Estuary resources, implementing the Regional Monitoring Program, and working with CALFED to address S.F. Bay and CCMP considerations).
ESTUARY did an informal poll of Bay-Delta movers and shakers (most of whom participate in one or more of the implementing bodies) and received the following suggestions for next steps.
- Have each member of the Implementation Committee (IC) report to the committee on a regular basis about what their agency or organization is doing to advance each of the priorities - i.e. "hold their feet to the fire." Will Travis, Bay Commission
- Have the IC develop specific quantitative goals for each of the ten priorities (such as restoring 10% of the Estuary's historic wetlands or reducing stormwater pollution by 20% by the year 2005). Such goals can help us "get the public excited and double the size of the choir for Estuary protection, which will make it easier for all of us to get political support and dollars." Geoff Brosseau, Bay Area Stormwater Management Agencies Association
- Develop "task-oriented" action plans for each of the ten priorities. Solicit proposals for IC endorsement. Roger James, Consultant, formerly of Santa Clara Water District
- Have the Executive Council mandate a truly comprehensive, coordinated Estuary monitoring program in which scientists and resource managers are all "measuring the same thing at the same time and space scales" and in which common indicators are used to express the Estuary's health. Bruce Thompson, S.F. Estuary Institute
- Hold scientific briefings for state and federal legislators and staff on exotic species problems and potential solutions in the Bay-Delta - "now is a good time because there's no pending legislation so a briefing could be considered education rather than lobbying." Andy Cohen, Biologist
- Create a center for marine and aquatic invasions at the S.F. Estuary Institute with support and cooperation from the IC. Such a center is necessary to attract newly available national research funds. Cohen
- Have the IC encourage small but fast-growing urban communities in the Delta to get up to speed on runoff control. Bay Area and big valley cities such as Stockton and Sacramento are making progress but smaller Delta cities remain a "major hole" in Estuary stormwater management planning. Tom Mumley, S.F. Regional Board
- Develop more linkages with air quality and transportation planning to reduce related stormwater pollution - CCMP Pollution action 2.5. Get the agencies to take cross-media pollution more seriously than "lip-service." Brosseau
- Develop interagency, stakeholder and scientific consensus on what are key elements of any watershed management plan in the Estuary, and on what indicators can be used to evaluate their success. Mumley
- Launch a program for extending the Wetland Ecosystem Goals Process (a scientific estimate of the mix and quantity of wetland types necessary to maintain a healthy Bay ecosystem) up into the Estuary's watersheds. Such a program would help watershed planning efforts establish local priorities. Trish Mulvey, Friends of the S.F. Estuary
- Have the IC's Geographic Subcommittees recommend priority watersheds for planning efforts to the full IC. Priority setting should involve screening watersheds based first on significance of aquatic resources and second on "where there are communities interested in partnering with government to do watershed management plans." Have the IC endorse priority projects and recommend them for funding to state and federal "money machines." Tim Vendlinski, U.S. EPA
- Prepare an appendix providing relevant technical and legal justification to accompany the recent ABAG/Estuary Project guidebook Improving Our Bay-Delta Estuary Through Local Plans and Programs: A Guidebook for City and County Governments. Mulvey
- Create incentives for local government to protect Estuary resources based on the Williamson Act model, in which local governments losing property tax revenues due to the act are partially reimbursed by the state. Under the act, landowners can get a reduction in property taxes by signing contracts to keep their land in agricultural or open space use for 10 year periods state compensation to local government is currently $35 million per year/$5 acre for prime land. Margit Aramburu, Delta Commission
- Create new regional offices or procedures (such as the one-stop, interagency Bay dredging permit office) which help reduce local government need to process permits, and thus saves them staff time and money. Aramburu
- Hold a forum to discuss land prices for wetland acquisition and landowner incentives such as mitigation banking. Work to develop consensus on and establish a fair market value for property which reflects the real costs and benefits to the public of wetland preservation. Ellen Johnck, Bay Planning Coalition
- Make sure CALFED provides enough freshwater flows for all those freshwater wetlands they plan to restore. Barbara Salzman, Marin Audubon Society
- Have the IC encourage appropriate committee members to stand more strongly behind and implement a recent interagency memorandum of agreement to protect seasonal wetlands in the North Bay. Salzman
- Raise money and develop a long-term commitment to keeping GIS data on Estuary wetlands and watersheds up-to-date and publicly accessible. Mulvey
- Cultivate new legislative champions for CCMP implementation, and make them aware of the associated potential local political gains. Steve McAdam, Bay Commission
- Put more Bay in the CALFED Bay-Delta program. Recognize that the Bay is part of the solution to Delta-centered problems, and that S.F. Bay restoration projects will benefit endangered fish and contribute to ecosystem health. S.F. Bay Joint Venture consensus
- Educate those placing all their eggs in the CALFED basket and saying that the CCMP is no longer "cutting edge" about the CCMP's broader scope and value as an already-approved, consensus plan. Many interviewees
- Hire an expert lobbyist with political savvy to go to meetings and keep the CCMP in the forefront - "we could all chip in and pay for it." Margaret Johnston, S.F. Estuary Institute
- Have Friends of the Estuary produce and promote a CCMP-based regional vision of what a restored Estuary would look like. Then hold workshops and field trips for decisionmakers to show them examples. Mulvey
- Update the CCMP report card on the regular basis - Friends of the S.F. Estuary recently made plans to do this. Mike Lozeau, BayKeeper
Most of these suggestions address critical gaps in current estuarine protection efforts, have small price tags, and suit the skills and people assembled in the CCMP implementing bodies. Obviously there are dozens of other ways in which the new priorities could be tackled. This list will hopefully inform the current dialogue on what should be the future focus of CCMP implementation, and on how the IC, Friends and other can best contribute.
"The CCMP laid down a positive vision for change endorsed by government, business and environmental interests. The problem is that agency folk like those dominating the IC can't be aggressive advocates for change, they have to be slow by the book," says the Audubon Society's Arthur Feinstein. "Agency folk have to maintain the connection with stakeholders that are advocates for change, so they in turn can influence decisionmakers," says U.S. EPA's Harry Seraydarian. Perhaps it is at last time recognize the CCMP as more than a list of "what everyone would have done anyway" and acknowledge it as a hard-won consensus vision of an environmentally and economically sound future worthy of new champions.
Contact: Marcia Brockbank (510)286-0780. For a copy of the CCMP Workbook, call (510)286-0460
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