WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1994, 10:00 A.M.
--o0o--
	MR. CAFFREY:  Good morning and welcome to this sixth 
in the series of workshops on standards for the Bay-Delta 
estuary.
	My name is John Caffrey.  I am Chairman of the State 
Water Resources Control Board.  
	Let the record show that the full Board is present.
	Proceeding from my far left is our Executive 
Director, Walt Pettit.  Next to Mr. Pettit is Board Member 
Marc Del Piero, and immediately to his left is Board Member 
Mary Jane Forster.  To my immediate right is Board Vice 
Chairman, Jim Stubchaer, and next to Mr. Stubchaer is John 
Brown.  
	At our staff table we have Tom Howard, Senior 
Engineer, and Barbara Leidigh, Staff Counsel.
	We have several other very capable staff members 
available in the front row to assist us as time goes on.
	I will read this for the record.  This is the sixth 
workshop in which the State Water Resources Control Board 
will hear oral comments and recommendations regarding the 
water quality standards for the Bay-Delta estuary.  At this 
workshop the Board will receive a progress report on the 
alternative sets of standards.  
	The Board appreciates the important work the parties 
have put into developing alternative sets of standards for 
the Bay-Delta estuary.
	To maximize the value of this work to the Board and 
to keep everyone updated, the Board's Executive Director, 
Walt Pettit, conducted two publicly noticed technical staff 
workshops with the parties recently.  Additional technical 
information was provided at the two staff workshops along 
with refinements of the alternatives.  We encourage all of 
the parties to continue to work together.  
	As you know, the comments and recommendations 
received during this series of workshops will be used to 
prepare a draft water quality control plan which will be 
released in December, 1994.
	About two months after the draft plan is released, 
the Board will conduct a hearing in which the interested 
parties will have a further opportunity to comment.
	After the hearing, we will make whatever changes are 
needed, provide copies of the revised draft to the 
interested parties, and then hold a Board meeting to 
consider it for adoption.
	If you intend to speak today, please fill out a blue 
speaker card and give it to our staff at the front table.  
You have seen them, they look like this.  We would 
appreciate your submitting those as soon as possible.
	Conduct of the workshop:  Today's proceedings are 
described in the notice.  Additional copies of the notice 
are available from staff.  
	This workshop will be informal, and today we want to 
hear from the parties on the key issues specified for this 
workshop which are in the notice.
	Each party will have 20 minutes for an oral 
presentation, and we would appreciate it if you do not 
repeat yourselves or at least repeat what others have said.
	If you indicate that you are in agreement with what 
others have said, it will shorten the time that we need to 
spend here today.  If you need additional time, please 
explain why the additional time is necessary.  If we are not 
able to provide you all the time you think you would like, 
we encourage you to submit your presentation in writing.
	In the interest of time, we ask that parties avoid 
repeating details already presented, as I said earlier.
	We will accept and we encourage written comments.  
You need to provide the Board and the staff 20 copies of any 
written comments and recommendations and make copies 
available to the other parties who are here today.
	A court reporter is present and will prepare a 
transcript.  If you want a copy of the transcript, you must 
make arrangements with the court reporter.  
	There will be no sworn testimony or cross-examination 
of the parties today, but the Board members and staff may 
ask clarifying questions.
	I believe we have about a dozen cards and within 
those dozen cards there is one group presentation.
	Today's key issue is carried forward from the fourth 
and fifth workshops.  It is:
What fish and wildlife standards should the 
State Water Resources Control Board evaluate as 
alternatives in this review?
	We will call the parties in the order that we have in 
other workshops; first, elected officials for the State, 
Federal and local governments; second, representatives of 
State and Federal and local agencies; third, all others in 
the order of the submission of their speaker cards.
	Unless there is some real difficulty with scheduling, 
we would like to do our best to stay within that order.
	You may continue sending written materials to Mr. 
Pettit and/or Mr. Howard.  If you do that, we ask that you 
send 20 copies of your materials, and also, send copies to 
the parties that have participated in these workshops.  
	Any materials received by the Board will be made 
available for inspection by interested persons. 
 	We thank those parties who have been using these 
workshops as an opportunity to help the Board develop a plan 
that will provide reliable and reasonable protections for 
the estuary and all its beneficial uses.
	Before we proceed, I would turn to my fellow Board 
members and see if there's anything they wish to add at this 
time.
	All right.  And before we get into today's 
proceedings, I have the pleasure of deferring to Mr. Brown 
and asking him to introduce a couple of guests.
	MR. BROWN:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
	Today is Career Day at Valley High School, and 
there's two gentlemen in the audience that are aspiring to 
become members of that engineering profession.
	Carlos Ruiz, if you would stand, please, who is a 
senior at Valley High School; and Wayman Brown, a junior at 
Valley High School.  
	Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today 
(applause).
	MR. DEL PIERO:  Mr. Chairman, does that mean all the 
engineers have to be on their best behavior today?
	MR. CAFFREY:  I think so, Mr. Del Piero.
	Let me say on behalf of the whole Board, Wayman and 
Carlos, welcome, and we hope that the legacy that we all 
leave with you as you come into the profession will be one 
which does not have to grapple with this problem.  
Hopefully, we will solve it before you get here.  All right  
(laughter).   
	That's probably the best joke I have come up with so 
far (laughter).
	MR. DEL PIERO:  And he delivered it with a straight 
face, too.
	MR. CAFFREY:  All right.  We will begin today's 
proceeding with a presentation from our Executive Director, 
Mr. Walt Pettit.  We are kind of anxious to hear what 
progress may have been made in the workshops that he 
conducted in trying to winnow down and hone down the 
alternatives.
	Mr. Pettit, we would certainly love to hear from you.
	MR. PETTIT:  I think I will use the podium so you 
don't have to do a partial left face.
	MR. CAFFREY:  If that's more comfortable for you, 
that will be fine. 
	After we hear from Mr. Pettit, we will go to the blue 
cards and ask you besides whatever you had planned to 
present, if you have comments on what he has presented to us 
on relatively short notice.  If you are able to comment on 
what Mr. Pettit says today, it would be appreciated, and if 
you can't, of course, please do so in writing as soon as 
possible.
	Good morning, Mr. Pettit.
	MR. PETTIT:  Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Board 
members.
	Mr. Del Piero, I thought the presence of the guests 
today meant that everybody had to defer to the engineers in 
the crowd.
	MR. DEL PIERO:  That's not what it means.
	MR. PETTIT:  Missed again.
	Mr. Chairman, as you indicated, at the conclusion of 
the last workshop you directed the staff to hold a series of 
staff workshops, which we did do.
	The intention was to try to facilitate a consensus 
with the objective of bringing to you today a preferred 
alternative that reflected consensus.  The bad news is we 
are not able to bring you a preferred alternative today.  
The good news is that a lot of progress has been made and we 
are hopeful that it will continue.
	The time lines for bringing this all to fruition are 
getting to be of increasing concern, and I will refer to 
that a little bit later, but we are still hopeful that we 
can bring this to a successful consensus.
	I should back up a little bit and probably bring this 
discussion into a little more narrower context or a little 
more narrower focus.  As you know, we had previously 
identified at least nine alternatives for consideration as 
potential sets of Delta standards, and we had DWR run water 
supply impacts analyses on at least those nine sets of 
standards as well as all the other things they were doing.
	The intention of all of us and all of the parties, I 
think, was to strive toward a solution that would result in 
a set of technically credible standards that still had 
acceptable water supply impacts.
	Now, attention in recent days and weeks has focused 
in on three of those alternative sets of standards.  The 
first one is the proposal developed by the California Urban 
Water Agencies in conjunction with some of the west side 
agricultural interests.
	There was a second alternative set of standards that 
was developed by the consultants, primarily from Kern County 
Water Agency; and, of course, a third set of standards 
central to this issue is the U. S. EPA set, because if we 
are to achieve the objectives of the framework agreement, we 
have to come up with a set of standards that is either equal 
to or considered equivalent to EPA's and EPA could adopt 
them.
	I believe that any successful package that we develop 
is going to be a refinement of one or more of those 
particular three sets of standards.  In fact, I understand 
that the two water user proposals basically now are merged 
and you have a handout on your dais that I haven't had a 
chance to look at yet which may reflect that.
	We have either a common proposal or at best we are 
down very close to a single option from the user community.
	There are still some problems in resolving the 
differences that stand in the way of consensus and some of 
them are relatively amenable to solution and some of them 
are still relatively serious.  For example, the water users' 
proposals approach the X2 standards differently from what 
EPA does.  I don't think that's an insurmountable problem at 
all.  We still don't have consensus and haven't had a great 
deal of discussion on how we present the Suisun Marsh and 
the tidal wetlands, and what standards we use there.
	There's also still some discussion on the flow 
requirements in the San Joaquin River and the appropriate 
way to express controls on the export pumps.
	The biggest issue, however, is to the instruction 
that you gave me when this process started, and that is 
that, at least as I understand it, that a preferred 
alternative must have the shelf life contemplated in the 
framework agreement.
	I understand that the water users believe that the 
proposals now on the table accomplish that; that is, that 
the improvements that would be achieved by other standards 
are sufficient that the salvage numbers at the export 
pumping plants that have been used as an expression of the 
take limits could be removed if these standards were 
implemented.
	The federal agencies at this point, I think, believe 
that additional measures, and that translates to additional 
water, are required to achieve that certainty.  And the 
federal agencies are in the process now of trying to develop 
criteria and resultant numbers that would achieve that 
certainty that they need to lift the numbers at the pumping 
plants or raise them substantially.
	We hope to have the information from the federal 
agencies quite soon so that they and we can continue 
discussion with the Club Fed agencies.
	As that proceeds, the State Board staff will either 
try to facilitate that effort as best we can or get out of 
the way, whichever approach seems to be most promising.
	As you know, Club Fed is facing a December 15 due 
date for promulgating their final standards.  The Board has 
also confirmed and the framework agreement reflects that we 
intended to put out a water quality control plan sometime, a 
draft plan, sometime during the month of December.  Time is 
getting very short to meet those deadlines for all of us.  
However, given the progress that has been made, I don't 
recommend any change in the approach that's being taken at 
the moment.
	Now, if you have questions about the specific 
standards, the rest of the staff and I can attempt to answer 
them at this point, or any time during the proceeding.  
However, given the state of the discussion, I'm not sure 
that that will produce much in the way of results right at 
the moment anyway.
	I think Club Fed representatives, and I believe 
that's Mr. Wright, are prepared to either confirm or correct 
my perspective on where we stand at the moment, and there 
are a number of others here, as you have indicated, who wish 
to address you today.
	I guess the bottom line from my standpoint is I would 
recommend that you maintain your current direction to staff 
as to how we should proceed.
	With that, I will try to take any questions you have.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you very much, Mr. Pettit.
	Are there questions of Mr. Pettit from the Board 
members?
	I was wondering, Mr. Pettit, if we have any recent 
runs from DWRSIM on the water costs of the latest versions 
of the alternatives.
	MR. PETTIT:  No, I think a couple are being run at 
the request of the federal agencies.  I have not seen the 
results yet.  I don't think we have anything new that we 
have asked for; do we, Tom?
	MR. HOWARD:  No, not yet.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Maybe this question I am about to ask 
is more appropriately placed to Club Fed.  	You mentioned 
that, if I heard you correctly, Club Fed is looking at 
additional needs for water over what U. S. EPA has offered 
as their alternative.
	Do you know if there has been any analysis by Club 
Fed of the other two alternatives?
	MR. PETTIT:  Yes, there have been detailed 
comparisons of the various EPA standards with the standards 
in the other two alternatives, which now may be a single 
alternative, so line by line and standard by standard, yes, 
there have been a number of comparisons.
	The technical folks have been meeting almost 
continuously to look at the merits of the various proposals.  
I think they were at least scheduled to meet again 
yesterday.  I have not heard the results of that.
	MR. CAFFREY:  All right, thank you very much, Mr. 
Pettit.  
	Please join us back up here.
	MR. PETTIT:  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  And we will go to the presentations -- 
let me read the cards that we have so you will all know the 
approximate order of how we intend to proceed.
	First, we will have a presentation by Club Fed, Wayne 
White and Patrick Wright; then, Laura King of East Bay 
Municipal Utility District; then, we will hear from Greg 
Gartrell, the joint water users; and then, William R. 
Johnston of San Joaquin River Tributary Agencies; then, we 
will have a group presentation from Steve Hall, Roger Fontes 
and Richard McCann, representing ACWA; and then, we will 
hear from Gary Bobker and David Fullerton representing the 
Bay Institute and the National Heritage and the 
Environmental Defense Fund; and then, we have Patrick 
Porgans, a member of the public, and Lon House, if I am 
reading that correctly.
	So, that will be the general order that we will try 
to follow.
	Let us begin then with the presentation from Club 
Fed, Mr. White and Mr. Wright.
	Good morning, gentlemen, welcome.  We are anxious to 
hear what you have to say.
	MR. WRIGHT:  I am Patrick Wright from U. S. EPA, San 
Francisco.  
	We are pleased to be here again at the Board's last 
workshop.  I thought that it may be appropriate, since it is 
the last workshop, just to reflect back briefly on how far 
we have come in the last year or so when we started this 
process, and to just briefly go through the number of 
concerns and issues that all the parties raised or have 
raised over the past year, and to reflect on how we have 
tried to address each of them.
	As we developed our federal proposal last year, we 
heard a number of different concerns.  One was that we 
should try to develop standards; that is, jointly with the 
State, that provide as much flexibility as possible for 
project operations, and I think it is fair to say that 
through the consensus-based approach, we have had through 
the sharing of information among the biologists and 
technical people, that we have come up with an approach to 
the standards that substantially reduces the water supply 
impacts while retaining our target level of protection, so I 
think we really have come through with respect to that 
particular commitment.
	Secondly, we heard that whatever standards emerge 
from this process should be based on sound science and 
particularly on movement away from a single-species approach 
to more of a habitat-based approach, and I think again, it's 
striking when you look at all the different proposals that 
have been suggested to the Board, the degree to which all 
parties now are in agreement that we do need to take a more 
comprehensive view of the estuary not only for certainty for 
the biological resources, but for certainty for water users 
as well.
	So, I think when you look at the different 
alternatives, the differences truly are a matter of degree 
rather than reflecting fundamental differences of approach 
toward protection of the estuary.
	Third, we heard that the Federal Government really 
needed to come up with an integrated federal package, that 
people didn't want to hear a different set of 
recommendations from EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service and 
NMFS, et cetera.  
	As you know, we worked real hard last December to 
come up with a coordinated package, and I think you will 
find this year the package will be hopefully equally 
coordinated and integrated, and will pull in a number of 
different federal agency actions and programs to try to 
deliver the kind of certainty that people have been asking 
for.
	Fourth, while a number of commenters said that EPA's 
proposal was a step in the right direction, everyone 
emphasized the need for the State to get back into the 
picture.  It's certainly been EPA's goal from the beginning 
to have State-approved standards, and I am pleased to say 
that through the framework agreement, we at EPA particularly 
are pleased that the Board's commitment through that process 
is to develop draft standards and final standards next 
spring, and we have made the commitment again through the 
framework agreement that we will withdraw the federal 
standards if those State standards are approvable under the 
Clean Water Act.
	And I am happy to say that we have had some excellent 
discussions with your staff over the past several weeks and 
months, and remain optimistic that while there are still 
some differences out there, as Walt mentioned, we do have a 
process in place that we think can lead to mutually 
acceptable standards.
	Fifth, we heard a large number of parties say that we 
need to look toward to a more equitable allocation of water 
supplies regardless of what standards emerge, and that is, 
that all users who divert supplies from the Delta should 
bear some responsibility for protecting the estuary.
	Again, the framework agreement reflects this concept 
by establishing a process for determining the State and 
Federal projects' fair share for the standards next year 
while the State Board goes through the water rights process 
to determine the obligations of the other parties.
	Sixth, we heard rather strongly that it wasn't enough 
for the State and Federal Governments to deal simply with 
water quality standards in the short term, that we also 
needed to begin the long-term planning process on Delta 
solutions with the Federal Government as a full partner.
	And, again, I am pleased to say that we have made a 
tremendous amount of progress in setting up that long-term 
process.  We still have quite a number of details to 
resolve, but we are all hopeful that that process can be up 
and running early next year.
	Seventh, we heard that we needed to have an open 
process, that if this was going to work, we needed to have 
the full involvement of the parties and interest groups.  We 
at EPA have tried to do that in our standard setting process 
to be as open and above board as possible with all the 
parties, and we are pleased that the Board has adopted that 
approach in these hearings.  I think it has really 
contributed to the success of our efforts so far.
	And then, finally, as I have mentioned, a major theme 
has been certainty in shelf life.  We in Club Fed have been 
working very hard over the past month or two to try to 
determine all the possible federal actions that might occur 
over the next several years to determine which of those 
actions may or may not have potential impacts on water 
supplies.
	So, in conclusion, I think we have in the past year 
made tremendous progress in trying to deliver on these 
commitments and to try to resolve what remaining differences 
we have.  I think all of us were hopeful we would arrive 
here today, as Walt said, with a consensus package.  
Unfortunately, we are not quite there yet.  
	I think Walt gave a fairly accurate summary of some 
of the differences that remain, but we certainly don't think 
any of them are insurmountable, and I think we are confident 
that we have established a process that will lead to 
mutually acceptable standards that have broad-based support.
	We know for that to happen it has to happen very 
quickly, but we on the federal side are committed to do 
whatever it takes to try to get there.
	I will turn it over to Wayne to say a few more things 
about the ESA process.
	MR. WHITE:  Mr. Chairman and members, my name is 
Wayne White.
	I would like to take a moment to talk about the 
ongoing process under the Endangered Species Act, the 
Section 7 consultations and the operations of the projects, 
and Section 7 consultation on the EPA water quality 
standards.
	As you well know, December 15th is, once again, a 
magic date for the federal side of this coordinated effort, 
and we are looking to complete our consultations by that 
date, December 15.
	We continue to work closely with the project 
operators.  And the emphasis of our discussions at this 
point are looking at providing that certainty relative to 
incidental take.  That has always been an unknown.  We are 
working to get to a point where it is a known factor and the 
actual operational impacts are minimal at worst.
	Also, another emphasis we are pursuing is the 
implementation of the framework agreement and looking at 
sharing the impacts of those operations throughout the 
users.
	The other thing that we are trying to end up with at 
the end of this consultation is, in fact, to put the State 
in the lead where it belongs as part of the water quality 
plan, development of the plan and its implementation.
	And in that regard, we are looking at providing that 
certainty while the State goes through that process, that 
roughly three-year process.
	And as we look to the future in the development of 
the water rights implementation, we are looking at the 
opportunities and the tools that we have within the 
Endangered Species Act specifically, and I have mentioned 
this before to the Board, the opportunity to use a special 
4D rule that would basically redefine take such that 
anything that falls within the plan's implementation would 
by definition not be take under the Endangered Species Act, 
the same approach we have taken with the State down in 
Southern California on the natural community conservation 
planning effort.
	Under that approach, the operations of the projects, 
the implementation of the plan would be a no-jeopardy under 
the Endangered Species Act.  Take would not be an issue.
	And this would lead us into a parallel action that 
the federal side and the State side would continue on the 
implementation of the framework agreement, and the 
development of the long-term plan in the ultimate 
implementation of the CVP Improvement Act.
	Let me summarize quickly in bullet form.  What 
Patrick and I have said as far as the objectives we are 
trying to pursue from Club Fed and with Cal Fed, and that is 
our first objective, is to get this into a State lead where 
it belongs, that our approach is multispecies/ecosystem 
protection that provides protection and starts to lead 
toward recovery of the endangered and threatened species, 
and that precludes the listing of additional species, that 
certainty is provided and that take does not become an 
additional burden upon the projects, and certainty in that 
additional species would not be listed as a result of water 
allocation within the Delta.
	I would footnote that because you may come under a 
situation where you have to list a species for other 
reasons, but that the outcome would not be an impact as far 
as water movement and implementation of a State water 
quality plan; and that we have sharing of the impacts among 
all the users.
	Another objective that we are pursuing now is to see 
if the Delta portion of the plan can also meet the needs of 
the Central Valley Project Improvement Act doubling plan, 
and that finally, Cal Fed and interest groups dropped to a 
consensus on what the long-term solution to the Delta and 
the Central Valley watershed is.
	And with that, we would be glad to take questions.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you very much, gentlemen.  I will 
look to my fellow Board members. 
	Mr. Stubchaer.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   I am very encouraged to hear your 
definition or the potential addressing of the take problem 
with the 4D rule.  
	What time period do you envision could be given 
certainty by implementation of that rule and the other 
measures you have mentioned?
	MR. WHITE:  As we look at it right now, and this is 
something we need to sit down and to bring in all the 
players to talk about and see where it worked and how it 
worked before, but the 4D rule, the special 4D rule which at 
this point is only eligible under strict interpretation of 
the act for threatened species, so it deals with the Fish 
and Wildlife Service side of the listed species, and we 
would see this 4d rule meshing with your water rights or 
water plan implementation, that that defines under the act 
what take is or is not.
	That's where we see that lock and key coming 
together.
	Before then, we haven't looked close enough at it to 
see if it fits in there somewhere, but this would be another 
tool, and again, drawing the analogy with Southern 
California, it is kind of a lock/key system with the State 
legislation, and that natural community conservation 
planning legislation, defines what take is, so it is a State 
process that defines on a federal level what take would not 
be.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   If it does not apply to endangered 
species, how do we get around the taking with the problem of 
salmon at the pumps?
	MR. WHITE:  If you will allow me to speak for the 
National Marine Fisheries Service to some degree, there are 
opportunities.  One of the things we are trying to deal with 
right now are more candidate species, I think some of the 
issues we are trying to look in the sense of certainty, 
because we have elevated the standard by which we are all 
look at this process now, and that is certainty.  
	We all want certainty so we don't have to come back 
and list species.  We all want certainty so we don't have 
take.  Certainty is a two-sided road.  Something has to come 
for certainty to be offered.
	If, in fact, we can provide the certainty for those 
candidate species, then within the act the National Marine 
Fisheries Service could look at the opportunities to 
downgrade or reclassify an endangered species to a 
threatened species because we have some protective measures 
in place.  Then, a 4D rule would fix. 
	There's another provision within the act that some 
have interpreted to say you could provide a 4D fix for an 
endangered species.  That's never been tested before, so 
it's unclear if that's really a tool that we have.
	But, if we step into this three-year process and we 
have in place in the Delta the certainty measures that we 
need, then NMFS could look at it, they could propose to 
reclassify their endangered listed species to threatened, 
and could propose a 4D rule at the same time.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Mr. Stubchaer, would you yield to me 
for clarification.  I am a little confused and I want to 
make sure --
	MR. WHITE:  I've been doing this for 20 years and I 
get confused all the time.
	MR. CAFFREY:  I appreciate your efforts in this, 
Wayne, but I thought I heard you say that the 4D rule would 
be tied to our implementation phase which is water rights.  
	How do you activate the 4D rule or provide the 
certainty between, say, January 1, 1995, and when we 
complete our water rights?  That's the critical obvious 
area.
	MR. WHITE:  Understood.  4D probably isn't the answer 
in this three-year period, that, in fact, the certainty 
that's provided is provided in the biological opinions, in 
the framework agreement under, I think, No. 5 or No. 6 in 
the Points of Agreement where it says the State Board will 
seek agreement with the project operators to implement their 
portion of the water quality standards.
	I think through that regulatory process or that 
administrative process, we can provide in our administrative 
records clearly that certainty is there and that should we 
be petitioned to list species we can show on our 
administrative records that there are regulatory mechanisms 
in place that provide the protection so species would not be 
listed.
	That is how I see the three-year fix, the biological 
opinion, and then agreement that, in fact, biologically 
those things are provided.
	MR. CAFFREY:  So the critical element for certainty 
in the three-year hiatus depends entirely on the voluntary 
configuration, if you will, that the two projects hopefully 
can create for operation until then, and then, within the 
Section 7 consultation, I presume it would take some 
modification of the operation plans under the Section 7 
consultation, or are you going to encompass everything into 
one new one?  How would that work?
	MR. WHITE:  We are trying to incorporate the 
provisions of what comes out of all the discussions in the 
biological opinion, so it's implemented in the biological 
opinion as a result of the biological opinion.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you.
	Mr. Stubchaer, please proceed.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   Going on to another matter, you 
mentioned the CVPIA, trying to possibly integrate the 
requirements of that act into the standards.  Do you have 
any specifics on that?  Have you done any studies that 
indicate how much of the 800,000 acre-feet of water required 
by that act for environmental purposes would be usable for 
Delta purposes?
	MR. WHITE:  What we are in the middle of is a 
multitude of analyses and computer runs, and I wish I had a 
penny for every minute the computers are running to do all 
these different runs.
	We have not completed the analysis.  We need to know, 
first, what the operations of the projects are going to be 
this year.  Then we need to overlay on that what we are 
putting together as the technical position on the flow needs 
for the doubling plan.
	When you get that picture, then you can start to make 
some policy decisions on where the 800,000 acre-feet is 
going to fall.  If the doubling plan falls all within the 
operations, then it is somewhat of an easy decision.  If you 
have a lot that falls outside of the operations of the 
project, then you have a problem.
	We have a mandate to double the anadromous fish runs.  
We are concerned that the standards deal with the Delta but 
a lot of our problems are upriver and it's going to take in 
the long run, in our view right now, based on what we have 
put together, it's going to be more than 800,000 acre-feet.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   From just the CVP?
	MR. WHITE:  It will take more than 800,000 acre-feet.  
We have authority to buy water from willing sellers so we 
know we have 800,000 under the act.  Any additional water 
would come as a result of willing sellers, and where and how 
that water will be used is an ultimate question you have.
	If it is simply up in the watershed and not in the 
Delta, then you can use it upriver and put it to other 
beneficial uses after it fulfills instream flow needs.
	So, there's a lot more questions than I have answers.
	We need to do those two analyses first to really see 
what those differences are, and then, you can make a policy 
call on where the 800,000 goes.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Mr. Brown.
	MR. BROWN:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
	The CVPIA identifies the 800,000 acre-feet, but it 
also identifies another 120,000 acres of wetlands that need 
to be developed, or the Secretary is required to develop, 
which would require another half a million acre-feet.  
	It also identifies 200,000 acre-feet more out of the 
Trinity for environmental purposes. 
	So, that total may be as much as 1.5 million acre-
feet from the CVPIA.
	Also, in the CVPIA I read it as a requirement and not 
an option for the Secretary to look at alternatives or 
options to restore those quantities of water diverted away 
from the Central Valley Project for environmental purposes.
	What's the progress on doing that, and I would like 
to add I think the importance of developing those options, 
whether it is water marketing, transfers or conservation 
practices, a multitude of things agriculturally and for 
domestic water also, the importance of developing those 
options as quickly as possible so there's less negative 
impact that has to be addressed with the current contractors 
for those waters.
	MR. WHITE:  I think we all know what the possible 
options are, and within those options are those alternatives 
that we have.  Some will fit better in trying to fix 
particular aspects of the wetlands enhancement exercise, so 
I don't think we have thrown anything off the table and have 
closed our minds to the various opportunities out there.  We 
aren't yet at that point.
	That piece of legislation has a lot in it, as you 
well know, and the analyses, the policy decisions have all 
yet to be really finalized.
	We have got a long ways to go and we have all been 
terribly busy focusing in on the Delta and the exercise that 
we are in right now to really get all the answers to the 
various tasks that we have in the CVPIA.
	MR. BROWN:  Those are such large quantities of water 
and can have such a tremendous impact, of course, in the 
analysis that you are doing right now, I suggest that the 
work you are doing right now without having that information 
available to you is extremely difficult.  
	I am wondering how you are able to do that.
	MR. WHITE:  Engineers have to be on good behavior 
today; is that right?  Well, you know, there's no doubt 
about it.  I can tell you it's not an easy exercise because 
I am striving to live through it. 
	What we are trying to do is look at what we think are 
the major ones, those that are really going to have a 
significance.  Right now, the doubling plan is the big one.  
Full water for refuges and wetlands, there is a whole lot 
going on out there in the wetlands area, the Joint Valley 
Ventures Project -- I mean, there's other avenues to pursue 
some of that through cooperative private land and water 
holders.
	The doubling plan is the big one and that's the one 
we are trying to get a handle on and trying to determine; 
first, at the technical level what measures would be needed 
in the sense of flow.  We are almost at that point, and 
then, once we have the project operations, then we can start 
to really understand what some of those impacts are.
	But we are well aware of the point that you draw out.  
My hair used to be a different color.
	MR. BROWN:  The emphasis, I guess I am trying to make 
is expediency and the real necessity of coming up with those 
options to restore those quantities of water, so we don't 
let them lag far behind.  The longer they lag, the more 
severe the impact is going to be.
	Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Mr. Del Piero.
	MR. DEL PIERO:  You indicated you wanted to speak for 
the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine 
Fisheries Service.
	Is it safe to assume we are going to get a decision 
on the splittail by December?
	MR. WHITE:  As part of our December 15 decision, that 
will be included in there.
	MR. DEL PIERO:  Okay.  After the first of the year, 
is it possible, not probable but possible, that 
recommendations will flow for the winter run may increase?
	MR. WHITE:  After the first of the year?
	MR. DEL PIERO:  Yes.
	MR. WHITE:  What we are trying to do -- in fact, it's 
all incorporated in our discussion right now.  One of the 
issues that the National Marine Fisheries Service is trying 
to do with the collective group is -- we all know we want 
the shelf life, we want certainty, and one of the unknowns 
is, as a lot of people continue to point out, in the sense 
of take.  What does it really mean when you have take limits 
on a project in the sense of numbers?  
	To provide certainty, as I pointed out earlier, is a 
two-way road.  You need something in exchange, so they are 
looking at additional measures and putting those on the 
table now that will provide that certainty. 
	I don't think -- I mean, our whole effort is not to 
revisit this after the 15th so that everyone understands 
where we are going, that you all can get on with your 
process.  Maybe I put some more emphasis on the CVPIA.
	MR. DEL PIERO:  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Ms. Forster?
	MS. FORSTER:  Just for a little historical memory, 
let's talk about take for a few minutes.
	Why do we have to have take anyway?  I mean, if we 
come up with some standards that are far superior to what we 
have been doing over the years for the environment, why do 
we have to have take?  Did take come along because people 
didn't think standards were doing that well and, therefore, 
take would be another way of getting more water?  And if we 
come up with this new standard, isn't there some reasonable, 
practical way we could say that we have now made that not a 
necessity?
	MR. WHITE:  Well, this has nothing to do with picking 
on the project.  This has to do with the implementation of 
the Endangered Species Act and congressional mandate that 
deals with the question of incidental take that has to be 
authorized and dealt with during a Section 7 consultation, 
and then, the resulting biological opinion.
	I said I have a long history in this act and it 
clearly states in the act that it was amended to include 
this provision for incidental take.  We are obligated in the 
biological opinion to identify what incidental take will 
occur and to provide reasonable and prudent measures that 
minimize and mitigate that take.  That's a requirement of 
the act.
	What we want to get to is; one, so we have standards 
and operations that the take in a sense can be lowered 
because the protective measures are so good, and then, 
eventually, as I view it, coupled in with your process to 
get the -- let me explain what the special 4D rule is.  That 
is a mechanism where we can simply redefine take so that for 
an action that we know is no longer take under the act, 
that's the point I would like to get to, so there's no take 
under the implementation of the State Water Plan.
	But until we get to that point, we are obligated by 
the provisions of the act and the interpretation by our 
solicitors, that we have an obligation to deal with the 
incidental take of a federal action in the biological 
opinion.
	Does that answer your question?
	MS. FORSTER:  Now I remember.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Would you yield, Ms. Forster?  I am 
confused again.
	Wayne, does that mean that the Section 7 scheme, for 
lack of a better term, that would result from the voluntary 
operational plan of the two projects would be without take 
requirements because you know ahead of time what the plan is 
for, or does that mean that between now and the conclusion 
of the water rights process, we would still be dealing with 
take limits because of Section 7?
	MR. WHITE:  Yes, there will be take limits, but what 
we are attempting to do through the consultation process is 
have them at a level, the actual limit on that take is so 
high such that the probability of getting to it to impact 
the operations of the project are greatly minimized.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Your feeling is that a properly 
configurated operation plan would minimize the impacts of 
any take limit that you would have?
	MR. WHITE:  Yes.  What we are looking at right now, 
just to give you kind of a general sketch, what we had last 
year was a single-level 14-day running average.  When you 
hit that, we got together and made changes.  What we are 
doing is the equivalent of a two-step process which says 
here is a warning level, project operations.  You haven't 
hit the upper limit, but maybe you need to look at what 
opportunities you have in the projects to change or shift.
	Last year they were shifting pumping loads from one 
project to the other.  There's things they could do and 
still export the levels that they want.
	And then, there would be a higher level that says, 
now we need to do something because you are at that level 
that's above that that we authorized in the biological 
opinion.  But it is the idea of raising that level up 
because of the protective measures, the additional 
protective measures that you are providing and, therefore, 
the relative take is not as important to the species because 
we are doing other things to insure protection for the 
species.
	Does that --
	MR. CAFFREY:  I am hopeful that that can be 
translated into a definition of reliability that people can 
accept.
	MR. WHITE:  Yes.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Ms. Forster.
	MS. FORSTER:  I just had a question.  It is not very 
technical.  It is more like how do you feel.
	I have been reading all the alternatives and I am 
truly impressed with the new thoughts and new technical 
opportunities for better operations, real sensitivity to the 
months that the fish are spawning and the fish are moving, 
and I want to know, in your opinion, and I am just a novice, 
I am not a fisheries biologist, but it looks like such a 
significant improvement to me.
	Do you feel that way about this, too?  Do you think 
that you and the National Marine Fisheries Service just in 
the shift from where we were in 
D-1485 or even in '91, do you see vast improvement in what 
they have come up with technically about how to deal with 
some of these issues versus five years ago?
	MR. WHITE:  Absolutely.  Just the fact that the 
parties are more able to sit down and talk and have 
constructive dialogue, not destructive dialogue -- that's 
been a major change.  We are getting close.  We're not that 
far apart.  But there are provisions of the various 
alternatives that we need to be able to understand why they 
are recommended biologically.  What is the force of some of 
those provisions?
	When we got into this we made it abundantly clear we 
were looking for EPA standards or equivalents.  I think that 
equivalents are where people are really getting constructive 
dialogue, things that get you the same things which are 
tweaked here and not over there, so yes, I feel a lot 
better.  I hope you do, too.
	MS. FORSTER:  I do.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Mr. Stubchaer.  
	MR. STUBCHAER:   A question on take.  What about take 
by predators such as striped bass?  Is there anything in the 
plans to address that?  Is it still wise for us to include 
enhancement of striped bass in the water quality standards 
and implementation?
	MR. WHITE:  This is really a question I hate to 
answer.  The best way to answer it is that, in fact, we have 
data that shows that both those species occur in high 
numbers together, so you can have them both co-existing.  
	How you deal with that now in depressed populations 
and what that means is a very difficult analysis to 
understand.  I mean, we have an obligation under CVPIA to 
double anadromous fish and that includes striped bass.  They 
can co-exist.  We know they have and we need to build the 
best process to get to that, that includes a whole lot of 
measures outside just the question of water.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   That's interesting.  I didn't know 
it included non-native fish in the document.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Mr. Stubchaer.
	Let's just say, gentlemen, that we certainly heard 
from Mr. Pettit and our staff that you two gentlemen as well 
as your compatriots, but you two especially, worked very 
hard to try and solve this complex puzzle, and all of us on 
the Board do appreciate that.
	Having said that, I must say to you that time is so 
critical that we are quickly running out of it.  So, if we 
are going to be able to do what we need to do in terms of 
legal documentation that requires us to put a duly 
authorized legal draft plan out for the public to review by 
the end of this year, the very complex problems that you are 
still groping and grappling with need to be solved in days, 
as I see it, and I hope you are able to do that, and I must 
also say, and I will speak for myself in this regard, you 
heard Mr. Pettit talk about a cluster of alternatives, and 
we must assume from his statement that there certainly are 
differences among those three alternatives, but there are 
similarities as well, and I would say it would be 
problematic if what you eventually end up with sort of moves 
too far adrift from any of these clusters because I'm not 
sure what it would mean.
	It seems as our staff is zeroing down now on a 
configuration of standards, or at least three groups of 
alternatives from which you might be able to develop some 
reasonable kind of mix.
	Hopefully, what you come up with stays in that 
ballpark and still provide the shelf life and everything 
else; otherwise, I don't know where this will put us all.
	Ms. Forster.
	MS. FORSTER:  I have one more non-technical practical 
question.  
	I understand that you had a meeting at San Francisco 
on Friday with your counterparts and maybe Betsy Rike was 
there, and I understand just from rumor that the plan was 
that they hoped within two weeks that you would have what 
the federal package looks like.
	I guess I want to know if that's true and if that's 
the plan.
	Here is what I think is so difficult, and maybe I 
just don't understand if we are sharing openly or we just 
wait until December 15 and surprise each other.  I would 
think with the expectation that the State would be in the 
lead that the State would develop standards that matched 
your standards, and we have to develop this document and get 
going on it, that you would try to keep that commitment and 
give us your best shot, and then we know that we have some 
very sound data to work with that we can see if we can match 
it or the equivalent, because we have, as John says, we only 
have a few weeks left, so I am hoping that the rumor is true 
that in this two-week time frame, everybody will just do the 
best they can.
	We all have learned from this process.  We don't know 
exactly what's right, so we do the best we can with all the 
meetings and data that we have had and we have it in our 
lap, and we look at it and we do the best we can in taking 
into consideration that Californians have done the best they 
can.
	Is that a fair time frame to have expectation for?
	MR. WRIGHT:  That is our hope.  That is the process 
we have set up.  We hope to have by next week when we do 
have a larger Cal Fed meeting, at least a framework for the 
total federal package,  so it will have a EPA standard, plus 
NMFS' thinking as to what's necessary for spring run and 
winter run.
	Again, that's the framework along with the total 
potential water supply impacts of that combined federal 
package.
	What we may not have, unlikely to have, is every 
other element of the package worked out in detail in terms 
of exactly how the take limits would read, exactly what the 
contribution of the 800,000 is, exactly how it fits in with 
the doubling plan, and at least we hope to have the 
framework there that will give folks a sense of closure at 
least with respect to the larger picture and the impacts.
	MR. WHITE:  Secretary Wheeler was also there.  It was 
a very productive and good meeting.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Good to hear that.
	Mr. Stubchaer.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   I have a question about this 
doubling.  Are you expecting the water quality standards we 
adopt to address the doubling, or is that the CVPIA's 
problem?
	MR. WHITE:  The objective that we would like to 
collectively pursue is, in fact, the Delta plan as it's 
being developed in all of these discussions, addresses the 
needs of the doubling plan so that everybody knows the cost 
of water in the Delta for all of this.
	If there is additional cost, it would be instream, 
upriver, not in the Delta.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   It is a new twist because doubling 
is quite different from the restoration that we have been 
talking about previously.
	MR. WHITE:  I mean, it is the jargon of the piece of 
legislation.  It refers to doubling the anadromous fish 
populations.
	MR. WRIGHT:  I think part of what Wayne is saying is 
that you try to address the certainty issue.  The Service 
doesn't want to be in a position a year from now of 
releasing a doubling plan that may impact water supplies by 
several hundred thousand acre-feet.  We want to try now to 
make sure that the standards that are adopted are consistent 
with the Fish and Wildlife Service's current thinking, at 
least with respect to the Delta, so that we don't have a 
problem a year from now or two years from now.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   Consistent with but not necessarily 
by themselves it will implement the doubling.
	MR. WHITE:  Right.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Ms. Forster.
	MS. FORSTER:  Has that been a discussion among all 
the parties?  I haven't heard it before in any of our 
workshops until now.
	MR. WHITE:  It is something we talked about last 
Friday.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Does the CVPIA law as it is written 
require the doubling or does it require a written plan, for 
instance, to accomplish that?
	MR. WHITE:  It requires a plan and implementation 
with the objective of doubling anadromous fish where 
reasonable.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Where reasonable.
	MR. WHITE:  Well, in some cases doubling is going to 
be --
	MR. CAFFREY:  We certainly don't think you will be 
unreasonable in your interpretation of that.
	MR. WHITE:  As I have always been?  I was on good 
behavior.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   A doubling from what level?
	MR. WHITE:  Sixty-seven to 91 is the level we are 
supposed to double from.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   The average, or the highest year or 
the lowest year?
	MR. WHITE:  Average, not the lowest and not the 
highest.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Anything else from the Board members?  
Anything from Mr. Howard?
	MR. HOWARD:  I had one question for Mr. White. 
	Right now you are working on redrafting the 
biological opinion for Delta smelt.  I assume that that 
opinion will likely call for outflow similar to the X2 
proposals that have been discussed.
	Presently we have two X2 proposals that are being 
brought forward to the Board, one formulated by EPA and one 
by the urban/ag interests. 
	Would you comment on these alternatives with respect 
to the needs of Delta smelt and whether or not it is your 
opinion that one or the other might be required under the 
biological opinion?
	MR. WHITE:  What we are looking at right now is the 
EPA standard or equivalent again, and looking at an 
implementation of that standard relative to a fair share 
approach for the two projects.
	MR. HOWARD:  So, in your opinion, is the alternative 
formulated by CUWA equivalent to the X2?
	MR. WHITE:  It is very hard to speak to that right 
now because we are trying to understand the differences 
alone from the EPA standard and the new CUWA proposal.
	First, you have got to understand those differences 
before you can really comment on that.  Our approach to this 
point, until that proposal came around was based on the EPA 
2X.  We have all of a sudden thrown in a new picture.  
	The Chairman made a comment about working days.  I 
tell my staff it's days and nights to figure out which one 
we want to do, but up to this point, the outcome of the 
biological opinion has looked at the EPA standards or 
equivalents, the 2X.
	MR. HOWARD:  Thank you.  That was all I had.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Mr. Howard.
	Ms. Leidigh.
	MS. LEIDIGH:  I have no questions.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, gentlemen, we appreciate 
your time and effort, and will appreciate your future speed.
	Next is Laura King from East Bay Municipal Utility 
District.
	MS. KING:  With your permission, I think it would be 
more logical if I followed Mr. Gartrell.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Oh, that's fine.  Mr. Gartrell, good 
morning.
	MR. GARTRELL:  Good morning.
	Chairman Caffrey and members of the Board, I am here 
representing the joint waters group and we are trying to 
develop a consensus, and we have what we consider an 
emergent consensus on proposals for developing a 
comprehensive plan that is a multispecies approach.
	I would like to recap a little bit what's been going 
on the last several weeks, or a month and a half, and then 
go through our approach on this and briefly discuss what we 
are coming up with.
	In the -- I think it was the September 1 meeting, 
CUWA presented a proposal that we believe is a good proposal 
to the X2 standard and meeting the goals of EPA, and the 
Board asked that we go back and develop a comprehensive set 
of standards to go along with that, which we refer to as 
Category 2.
	We started work on that immediately and during the 
course of that work we began to work together with other 
water users such as the San Luis Delta Mendota Water 
Authority and the Kern County Water Agency in order to 
develop an urban/ag consensus package that would be a 
complete package and address the entire spectrum on a 
multispecies approach.  We now have in that package a 
description of four categories.  
	We are at a point now where we are working very hard 
to complete the documentation, the biological justification 
for each action, and complete the descriptive material on 
what the proposal actually does, and that, I think, relates 
to something that Mr. White has indicated on helping to 
determine if there are any differences between these 
proposals, or if there's a real difference, and from our 
meeting yesterday, we believe it is probably relatively 
minor.
	We have been working very hard with other groups to 
understand the technical differences between the proposals 
and the Club Fed approach.  	In fact, we had a meeting 
yesterday with those people which included a wide range of 
others, environmental groups and other interests, and the 
California agencies, and I will get into that in a little 
bit at the end because I know that is of interest.
	We are also working on cleaning up the proposal in 
terms of refinements to make sure it has aspects that are 
completely compatible with real operations, to make sure 
that, for example, that the averaging times are realistic in 
terms of what can be done with real time operations.
	What brought us to this was that the major water 
users really firmly believe that the current mode of 
operating the Bay-Delta through a piecemeal approach under 
the ESA, CVPIA, and the Bay-Delta standards is neither 
efficient nor protective, and we believe that there needs to 
be a consensus on a comprehensive set of requirements in 
order to move beyond a single-species approach.
	We also believe, unfortunately, although there has 
been a large number of data collected over the years related 
to fish and wildlife, that they are insufficient and that 
reasonable scientists can come to reasonable disagreements 
on what the data mean, and we are still working within 
fairly broad parameters.
	However, in order to move beyond the stalemate and in 
consideration of working with inconclusive data, we are 
submitting a technical package and proposal with a 
significant water cost, but one we think that meets the 
criterion and is a comprehensive package, and it has four 
categories including Category 1, which is the habitat, the 
X2 proposal; 
	Category 2, which are other operational and flow 
parameters related to that package, to bring the package 
from the February/June period to the entire year and 
focusing on the benefits of the entire estuary over the 
year.  
	Then, Category 3, which are the additional measures 
we believe need to be taken into account.  
	If they are not addressed, we don't believe they are 
a complete package and I will get into those in a few 
minutes.
	And Category 4 is the implementation measures.
	As I mentioned, we have an emergent consensus among 
ag and urban water users and we are working hard to widen 
that consensus.
	The key element in this is environmental protection 
for the Bay-Delta which we believe is crucial for long-term 
health of the California economy.
	Now, the comprehensive package is really going toward 
an ecosystem and management approach, and we want to focus 
on the habitat quality rather than an individual goal for 
individual species, but to bring the entire estuary up 
together.
	And I would like to go through that in a little bit 
of detail here and give you an overview of where we are at.
	The Category 1 that we have been discussing is 
essentially the X2 proposal, the sliding scale, which 
includes measurement stations at the confluence of Chipps 
Island and alternative methods for compliance with three 
ways to comply, which are the 14-day average, daily 
compliance or outflow.
	What we have added to that in terms of Category 2 are 
some adjustments.  One is an adjustment in February of dry 
and critical years, and that is one area we are working on 
defining that on exactly what we would use to trigger that.  
But that would demand a compliance at the confluence, which 
is slightly different than the original package.  The 
original package does not necessarily demand a compliance 
all the time in particular years like 1977, which are 
extremely dry.
	This would allow some additional benefits in 
February.  However, at the same time, it relaxes a portion 
of that in dry years in terms of the Chipps requirement that 
would be met through flows that are just available and not a 
requirement, and we are working definitely on developing how 
that trigger would work to go into the dry critical years.  
We haven't completely developed that.
		To the rest of it, we have added a 30-day 
compliance in the month of April.  That's largely to benefit 
Delta smelt but it is a portion of the whole package and 
that is a strong part of the entire ecosystem approach, and 
coupled with that are minimum flows in May and April of 
6,000 and 4,000 cfs.  Those flows are again designed to 
insure habitat during that period, but that's where we also 
come in with another portion which is a 28-day compliance at 
the confluence that would default June based on monitoring 
that may be moved around to coincide with any late spawning 
that might occur by Delta smelt.
	And a significant portion of the package is a 
monitoring plan.
	In a number of areas we have tried to tie the package 
to real-time monitoring and monitoring in the estuary.  We 
believe it's no longer acceptable to be in a position where 
you can come back in three years, the triennial review, and 
still not know exactly what measures need to be taken to 
continue work on the package to continue its improvement.  
Monitoring is an essential portion of this.
	Other portions of the package include export 
restrictions.  We have export restrictions in the March-
through-June period of 30 percent, we have a slight 
relaxation of 35 percent, the burden of proof being there is 
no impact on the native species.
	We have export restrictions through the summer that 
range from 35 to 55, and then 65 percent at the end of the 
summer, and then in the fall and early winter months the 
export restrictions are 65 percent of the inflow. That's for 
the Banks and Tracy pumping plants.
	In addition to that, we have minimum outflows 
throughout the year to insure better habitat than what we 
have had historically.
	We have a package related to two periods on the San 
Joaquin, minimum flows during a period nominally from April 
15 to May 15.  That would, again, be tied to monitoring for 
out-migrating salmon along with the barrier closure that is 
an important part of this at Old River, and export limits to 
more than what the San Joaquin inflow is, which is, in fact, 
quite a severe limit.  But that time period is essentially a 
30-day period and the time period would be allowed to move 
around based on monitoring.
	Again, we have the pulse flow in the fall as well as 
an attraction flow in the San Joaquin, and that pulse flow 
could come as we deem it best.  It would be over a week or 
two weeks, and we are suggesting a block of water of 10,000 
acre-feet.
	And then, finally, we have some other attraction 
flows, minimum requirements on the Sacramento River for 
returning salmon in the fall.
	In addition to that, we are suggesting Delta cross 
channel gate closures.
	The package that we are considering right now is from 
June through May 20.  We are also discussing moving the 
January 1 around the best we can with monitoring to cover 
the November-through-January period as an additional 
protection method.
	On the Category 3 portion of this, which we believe 
is an important part of the package, there are other non-
flow measures that really need to be addressed and addressed 
in a way that we can say as soon as possible exactly what 
the effects of these items are.
	Some examples are unscreened water diversions.  I 
think the attack there will probably be along the line of 
identifying and prioritizing diversions for screening and 
implementing that, looking at waste discharge control and 
pollution prevention, a monitoring program to determine 
exactly what the effects are and to the extent that those 
need to be controlled, looking at the fishing regulations, 
land-derived salts, controlling exotic species, restoration 
of riparian wetlands and estuarine habitats and control of 
Delta channel alterations and local land use.
	This is not a comprehensive list that I ran through, 
but we essentially want to have all of this as part of the 
package.
	It is necessary that these items be looked at as part 
of the proposal.  We believe that any proposal that does not 
include these is inadequate in terms of promoting the 
necessary levels of environmental restoration.
	And finally, we are still discussing, and these 
haven't been completed yet, but implementation measures 
which include balancing among watershed users, mitigation 
credits and a possible environmental restoration fund.
	And again, the key element to this is a comprehensive 
monitoring plan.  We are prepared to work with the State 
Board staff in developing that as rapidly as possible and 
getting that into place.
	I think there is already a question raised about the 
meeting yesterday.  This was a meeting between our group and 
I think it started off by Club Fed going to Cal Fed and then 
by the time I got into this, I think just about everybody 
was there and represented, and I took notes and I had to ask 
people how it went.  It was pretty uniformly positive.
	The goal of the meeting was to get down the areas 
where we have disagreements between proposals or where our 
package looks like it is and others look like theirs, and 
identify the technical differences.
	There were a number of areas where it appears that 
there's really sort of a gnat's eyelash of difference and X2 
is probably one of them, and that we are going to be 
exchanging information to confirm those sorts of differences 
or to find out if there really are significant differences.
	There are some others where there are significant 
differences.  I think one is on the San Joaquin River flows.  
In putting that together, we were not considering a package 
that included the doubling plan.  The one that was put 
before us indicated that that was an inconsistency with the 
government plan and we are going to be exchanging 
information on that, too.  
	We are approaching this from a technical point right 
now to determine exactly what the differences are and we 
intend to continue to do that.
	I would be happy to answer any questions.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Mr. Gartrell.
	Mr. Stubchaer.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   Do the flow export restrictions then 
substitute QWEST?
	MR. GARTRELL:  That is right.  We don't have any 
QWEST restrictions.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Mr. Brown.
	MR. BROWN:  On your non-related factors as you 
stated, I'm sure you have several that you were not able to 
add in your report, but a couple that we are particularly 
interested in, watershed protection and abandoned mines, do 
you have those?
	MR. GARTRELL:  I believe they have been mentioned.  
In part, that comes under waste discharge control and 
channel protection.
	MR. BROWN:  Okay.  
	MR. CAFFREY:  Anything else, Mr. Brown?
	MR. BROWN:  No.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Mr. Pettit?  Anything from staff?
	MR. HOWARD:  Looking at the alternative that EPA and 
other federal agencies have proposed and what CUWA have 
proposed, you have identified three issues, one of which is 
the San Joaquin flows;   the second was the associated 
export limits.
	Were those San Joaquin flows?   The fishery agencies 
that recommended a fixed export limit of 1500 cfs during the 
San Joaquin pulse flow and you have recommended 100 percent 
of that San Joaquin pulse flow; and the third and probably 
most significant in terms of water supply are protections 
for winter-run chinook salmon.
	Could you explain how the proposals put together by 
CUWA provide adequate protections for the winter-run chinook 
salmon?  
	I assume, though I haven't heard you say, that you 
believe that the biological opinion for winter run, or 
rather, there should be a no-jeopardy determination based on 
the CUWA proposal for winter run.
	MR. GARTRELL:  Right, that's what we are working 
toward.  The main features of that in terms of the Delta, we 
are still continuing with the upstream releases, and 
assuming those are in place; but the main protections are 
the cross channel closures in the winter through the spring, 
and in the flows that are provided by X2 and the export 
limits in that period.
	And in the combination of those, I think we can 
demonstrate pretty much an equivalent package or better 
overall than going to other flow restrictions that have been 
discussed, particularly I mean the QWEST.  
	And certainly, what we have seen from the operation 
studies for most of the period, the QWEST factors really 
aren't a significant difference in what we are looking at.
	One of the other issues that I didn't mention that 
came up yesterday was the February and January export 
limits.
	MR. HOWARD:  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Anything else, Mr. Howard?
	MR. HOWARD:  That is all.
	MR. CAFFREY:  All right, thank you.
	Alex had his hand up for a question.
	MR. HILDEBRAND:  My question has to do with the 
salinity requirements at Vernalis where the proposal called 
for one EC salinity in the summer months, the irrigation 
season, and .7 the rest of the year, and my question is 
whether that was merely a mistake or whether they 
intentionally reversed the figures that the Board adopted in 
1991.  I understand that was a mistake.  
	My second question has to do with the flow at 
Vernalis where they only call for a flow in the spring and 
October, and at no other time in the year.  
	The question is, does that imply that they see no 
need for any flow, minimum flow requirement in other months 
of the year, and that, therefore, they assume that since the 
overall river system is overcommitted that you can meet this 
fish flow by depleting the flow in the months that they 
didn't indicate?
	MR. GARTRELL:  My response is that we are looking 
here at minimum standards to protect the overall habitat, 
and because we don't have a minimum flow all the time, it 
doesn't mean that we don't think there are other 
requirements on the San Joaquin.
	MR. HILDEBRAND:  My last point was, if you don't 
establish any flow at other times of the year, how do you 
analyze the availability of water for the fish flows without 
first determining what flows are needed at other times of 
the year?
	MR. GARTRELL:  Well, I think the whole availability 
question on the San Joaquin is one that needs to be 
addressed in terms of implementing this, and I think that 
would have to come in addressing the overall way that this 
standard would be met.
	MR. HILDEBRAND:  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you very much, gentlemen.  Thank 
you, Mr. Gartrell.
	Laura King from East Bay Municipal Utility District.
	MS. KING:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 
Board.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Good morning and welcome.
	MS. KING:  For the record, I am Laura King with the 
East Bay Municipal Utility District. 
	We just wanted to make a brief comment on this 
proposal.  We generally support this proposal on the Bay-
Delta standards, but we do have a continuing concern that we 
wanted to put before you for the record here regarding the 
potential impact of some of the changes that are being 
discussed in this proposal on our ability to meet salmon 
production goals on the Mokelumne River.
	We still have our lower Mokelumne River Management 
Plan pending before your Board, and we are also in 
discussions, settlement discussions with FERC on that plan, 
and there may be some need to adjust our goals assuming that 
this proposal is adopted in the risk standard.
	As I am sure you are aware, a big element of this 
proposal to shift the pumping regime from to the fall to the 
springtime, and our concern with that is the fall is when we 
plant yearlings, so there may be a reduced survival rate due 
to more pumping during the fall-time when that yearling 
planting occurs.
	Under our plan, we have fall attraction flows on the 
Mokelumne River to attract in-migration and increased 
pumping in the fall conflicts with that or reduces the 
effectiveness of that.  We are not saying that these are 
concerns that mean you shouldn't adopt this proposal.  This 
is probably the right thing from an ecosystem perspective, 
and that's how we are all trying to approach this now.
	But ultimately we have an ecosystem plan that is 
going to need to be developed that will provide for 
management of the ecosystem as a whole, and that will 
recognize these kinds of trade-offs.
We have discussed these concerns with the group and I 
do want to call your attention in the briefing overview 
there is a sentence in here that acknowledges this issue.  
It is on the second page of the briefing overview tab under 
Roman numeral IV, the second paragraph.  The sentence reads:  
The comprehensive multispecies ecosystem plan 
must also address the environmental trade-offs 
posed by different management strategies such 
as impacts on the Mokelumne River salmon 
production goals from the proposed Delta 
operational changes.
	And I believe that there's going to be an additional 
document that describes the biological rationale of this 
proposal that will contain a fuller description of this 
issue and the possible trade-off there.
	And I will just conclude by saying that we don't have 
an in-depth analysis of how this is all going to affect us, 
but potentially we may want to come back and reopen the 
record in the lower Mokelumne River Management Plan 
proceeding if we feel that that's something that would be --
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Ms. King.  Let's see if we 
have questions.
	Anything from the Board members?  Nothing at this 
time.
	Anything from staff? 
	MR. HOWARD:  No.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you very much.  We appreciate 
your comments.
	MR. DEL PIERO:  I would just point out to the Board 
members that on the Mokelumne River there is no winter run.  
The impact described by this speaker are on the runs that 
remain.
	MR. CAFFREY:  They certainly have cornered that 
record in this hearing process.  As the Hearing Officer, we 
appreciate your comments.
	We have, I believe, a joint presentation next.  Bill 
Johnston, and you have with you Art Godwin, Steve Cramer, I 
believe.
	Please come forward.  Welcome gentlemen.
	If you would like, you can use the table.  There is a 
mike at the table.
	MR. GODWIN:  Good morning, Mr. Caffrey and members of 
the Board, I am Arthur Godwin and I am here today 
representing Turlock Irrigation District and with me is 
William Johnston, representing the Modesto Irrigation 
District, and Mr. Steve Cramer, and together we are 
presenting this on behalf of the group called the San 
Joaquin River Tributary Agencies.  
	Together we represent five agricultural agencies that 
are all tributary to the San Joaquin River, the Merced 
Irrigation District on the Merced River, the Modesto-Turlock 
Irrigation District on the Tuolumne River, and the Oakdale 
and South San Joaquin Irrigation District on the Stanislaus 
River.
	Last week at the Board staff workshop, we made a 
presentation on behalf of the tributary agencies 
specifically addressing the spring outflow requirements, 
striped bass, salinity standard requirements on the San 
Joaquin River. 
	And with your permission, we would like to provide 
you with a brief overview of that.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Please do.
	MR. JOHNSTON:  Mr. Chairman, I am William R. Johnston 
and we would like to talk to you briefly about both the 
salmon issues and the striped bass issues in the San Joaquin 
River.
	First, in regard to the smolt survival index, Dr. 
Terence Speed, Professor of Statistics at the University of 
California, Berkeley, last week explained what the problems 
were and the reasons why the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
has improperly utilized and interpreted smolt survival data 
that we have collected.  
	He is recommending a more appropriate statistically 
sound method of analyzing the data.  Dr. Speed's conclusion 
is that the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service model should not 
be used to establish temperature or flow criteria or to 
establish policy.
	You have a brief write-up summarizing Dr. Speed's 
comments.  He is willing to work with the Fish and Wildlife 
Service in analyzing the data.
	In the meantime, he is proceeding to see if we can 
develop a statistically sound model for the San Joaquin 
River using the Fish and Wildlife Service data.
	Dr. Speed has also conferred with his colleague, Dr. 
John Ligon, who has been retained by CUWA in regard to the 
Sacramento River data and he has discussed collaborating 
further on that data.
	The San Joaquin tributary agencies believe that it is 
in the Board's best interest to develop a model that is 
sound scientifically.  The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
model may have been appropriate at the time it was 
developed, but it is certainly flawed for the purposes of 
setting policy for the purposes that you and the EPA are 
using it.
	We have provided you and your staff with a full copy 
of a paper titled, Estimating the Influence of Temperature 
on the Survival of Chinook Salmon Smolts Migrating Through 
the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta of California, 
written by Peter Baker, Terence Speed and Franklin Ligon.
	The paper basically shows that with a correct 
interpretation of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service data, 
salmon smolts can survive at temperatures substantially 
higher than those being recommended by the Fish and Wildlife 
Service.
	The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis 
indicates that increases in temperature between 61 and 72 
degrees Fahrenheit will result in a linear increase in smolt 
mortality.
	The overhead shown there illustrates that point and 
what that really says is that if you increase the 
temperature between 61 and 62 degrees, for example, it would 
have the same impact on smolt survival as increasing the 
temperature between 71 and 72 degrees.
	We do not believe that this is appropriate or 
correct.  The EPA analysis indicates that survival is 
relatively insensitive to temperature until about 70 degrees 
Fahrenheit.
	The lower curve on that display illustrates Dr. Terry 
Speed's point, that in order to properly evaluate 
survivability you have to constrain this curve in between 
zero and one.  You cannot have more than 100 percent 
survival nor more than 100 percent mortality.  You would 
then shift the curve along the X axis to the proper location 
and that's the type of statistical analysis he is working 
on.
	Now, in regard to pulse flow alternatives, Steve 
Cramer, who is here with us and will talk in a few minutes 
about his work, has worked on the Stanislaus River.  Steve 
summarized his observations at the workshop and has 
concluded that one-or two-day pulse flows are most effective 
in making smolts that are physiologically ready to move to 
the ocean from the river where they were hatched.
	Steve will explain his findings, as I said, in a few 
minutes.
	In preparation for the State Board workshops, E. A. 
Engineering Science and Technology has modeled the San 
Joaquin basin for chinook salmon escapement under three 
selected pulse flow alternatives using their salmon 
population model.
	This model evaluates factors impacting the life of 
the salmon from spawning through rearing, out-migration to 
the ocean, including ocean fishing impacts to escapement and 
then back to the spawning cycle.
	The model was initially presented to the State Board 
in the Phase 1 water quality hearing, and again, in the 
water quality phase of the Bay-Delta process.
	Now, the modeled alternatives were first the 
Department of Fish and Game alternative.  This would be 
State Board Alternative 4.  
	Second, the joint proposal that was presented to you 
a bit earlier by CUWA and the other agencies that are 
joining in that, and
	Third, the San Joaquin River Tributary Agencies 
salmon alternative, which is shown on the overhead you are 
looking at now.
	The San Joaquin River Tributary Agencies' alternative 
is two seven-day pules, one in mid April and one in mid May.  
The pulses total at least 1,000 cfs at Vernalis in critical 
dry water years, 2,000 cfs in dry years, 3,000 cfs in below 
normal and above normal years, and 4,000 cfs in wet years.
	No explicit provisions dealing with fall flows or 
exports during other times of the year were modeled.
	In regard to exports, we have imposed a 1500 cfs 
export limit from the 15th of April to the 15th of May. E. 
A. modeled each alternative with and without the Old River 
barrier, and in regard to the results which are shown on the 
overhead now, all three alternatives indicated similar 
three- to four-fold increases in salmon survival over the 
base case with modeled historical flows through a ten-year, 
1982 to 1991, period of analysis.
	Now, I will leave that.  I want to point out that you 
cannot add up the columns and divide by ten and come up with 
the numbers at the bottom, which is shown as the 1982-91 
average.  This is a percentage increase over the period 
that's been modeled taking into consideration all of the 
activity of the salmon between 1982 and '91, and it's 
improper to just add the columns and try to average them.
	Now, without the Old River barrier, and even with 
pulse flows, there was a less than one-fold increase as the 
San Joaquin smolt generally went directly to the export 
pumps.
	In regard to a longer period of analysis, the 
overhead you are looking at now shows the period from 1973 
to 1991, and in general, the three models are significantly 
better than the base case that was modeled without the pulse 
flows. 
	These analyses support Steve Cramer's observations 
that short pulses are as effective as long, high sustained 
flows in getting salmon smolts to move, and in the survival 
and return of adult salmon, and the short pulses used 
substantially less water to accomplish the same goal, 
producing more salmon.
	Also, this alternative of the San Joaquin tributary 
alternative will most likely have the least impact on export 
pumping.
	Now, I would like to turn a little bit to striped 
bass issues.  The San Joaquin River Tributary Agencies 
presented data to show that there is no reason to adopt a 
striped bass water quality standard.  This is in answer to 
one of the questions that were posed earlier by the Board.
	We have provided a short explanation of the reasoning 
in the material we presented to you.  We believe there is no 
scientific basis for setting a salinity standard in the San 
Joaquin River to allow the upstream spawning migration of 
striped bass.
	We believe; one, that there is no real evidence that 
a salinity barrier to migration exists; second, even if such 
a barrier did exist, it would not affect the production of 
striped bass because as a broadcast spawner, they are not 
spawning habitat limited; and third, if striped bass could 
be induced to spawn farther upstream in the San Joaquin, 
this would be to their detriment as it would increase the 
potential of entrainment of the eggs and larvae in the State 
and Federal export facilities.
	Finally, from a policy standpoint, it seems 
inappropriate to be setting standards to enhance an exotic 
species that is a known threat to an endangered native 
specie, the Sacramento winter-run chinook salmon.
	Striped bass spawn in the same place every year, 
between Antioch and Venice Island, regardless of the flow 
and the salinity.  There is little evidence of major 
spawning of striped bass upstream from Venice Island.
	Now, the graph that you are looking at here is a plot 
of the percentage of striped bass eggs between zero and 
eight hours old reflected in segments of the Sacramento-San 
Joaquin Delta and Suisun Bay at different flows ranging from 
400 cfs to 24,000 cfs, and the data are from the California 
Department of Fish and Game.  They are in your water rights 
hearing Phase 1, Exhibit 25, CDFG, Region 4, Fresno.
	The tabulation of those data are also included in the 
packet of material that we provided and all of the surveys 
show that the spawning that has taken place has taken place 
again between Antioch and Venice Island.
	The basis for the belief that there is a salinity 
barrier or salinity spawning barrier rests upon inconclusive 
evidence obtained from the 1960s from field observations of 
the Delta striped bass distribution during the spawning 
season.
	Bradky and Turner sampled adult bass throughout the 
reverse salinity gradient and found the highest numbers of 
fish in TDS concentrations between 250 and 300 parts per 
million.  They found lower numbers of fish below both 200 
and above 350 parts per million.  
	On the basis of these observations, they concluded 
that 350 parts per million formed a barrier to striped bass 
movement.  This occurred in the vicinity of Venice Island 
and we believe that such anecdotal evidence in no way proves 
that a salinity barrier exists.
	E. A. has extensively reviewed the literature of over 
400 papers, and copies of the bibliography of those papers 
have been provided to you, and they have found nothing to 
support the contention that striped bass spawning territory 
is limited.
	The next graph shows all of the data that they have 
found in regard to the striped bass spawning above Venice 
Island, and you can see there are very meager and few data 
showing spawning in those areas.
	Historian Allen Patterson has reviewed the historical 
literature and concluded the same thing, and you have a copy 
of the conclusion of Dr. Patterson's paper and the full 
paper is in the record of the proceedings.
	Now, in summary, we recommend that you do not rely on 
the Fish and Wildlife Service model as there is no 
scientific sound basis for the relationship developed with 
that model.  
	Dr. Speed is continuing his statistical analysis on 
the San Joaquin smolt data and we will share whatever will 
be developed with the Board and staff and the Fish and 
Wildlife Service.
	Dr. Speed will confer with Dr. Rice on the Sacramento 
River data as appropriate.
	Finally, we will be pleased to use the E. A. model to 
analyze other alternatives for your staff and we will 
sponsor another workshop on the E. A. salmon population 
model, if that will be helpful.
	The goal of the San Joaquin River Tributary Agencies 
is to protect the salmon smolts, move them past the 
agricultural and export pumps, through the Bay and out to 
the ocean, and use only the necessary amount of water.  The 
San Joaquin River water users will do their part to help 
increase and maintain the fishery, but they should not be 
obligated to contribute water to either (1) dilute salinity 
water that's been discharged into the San Joaquin River; (2) 
provide excess flows to meet the obligations of the Central 
Valley Project because of diversions at Friant Dam; or (3) 
provide flows to either allow additional exports or to allow 
the Central Valley Project or the State Water Project to 
retain water in their reservoirs which would otherwise have 
to be released to meet the projects' obligations in the 
Delta.
	Finally, in regard to the striped bass, we agree with 
others that there is no reason to have a striped bass water 
quality standard.
	That concludes our remarks with the exception of 
Steve Cramer's presentation on his data.
	Steve.
	MR. CAFFREY:  You have about four minutes left of 
your twenty.  We have been lenient in the past, so would you 
please do your best to stay within the period of time.
	MR. CRAMER:  I'm here today to talk about some 
sampling that we did on the Stanislaus River in 1993.  Our 
consulting firm were fishery biologists.  I was retained by 
the Tri-Dam project, South San Joaquin Irrigation District 
and Oakdale Irrigation District, to sample out-migrants on 
the Stanislaus River in 1993, to evaluate the effects of 
pulse flows that were designed in that year to move fish out 
of the river, and so, I wanted to show you the results of 
our sampling, and additionally, you will see in the handout 
I provided, I am going to cover how this compared with what 
you find on other rivers throughout the West Coast and the 
type of response that juvenile fish would exhibit when given 
a pulse flow.
	This was a pulse flow pattern planned for the 
Stanislaus River in 1993, and this is one that was actually 
accomplished.  The two major pulse flows that we evaluated 
occurred from the end of April through May, and a second one 
in late May that extended into June.
	You can see that those flows started with a base flow 
of about 250 cfs and then were moved up to 1500 cfs, so this 
pulse is a five-fold increase in the base flow.
	I am going to show you some data on the fish movement 
that we actually documented.  You should notice that we did 
not start until about April 1st and the pulse flow had 
already begun.  This higher pulse back in earlier April and 
one in late March had already occurred, so they may have 
stimulated fish movement that we were not in the water to 
sample.
	Here are the actual data that we gathered on the 
movement of fish.  What you should note here is on this Y 
axis in the out-migrant index, the line shows the pulse flow 
and that is against the alternate Y axis over there, and at 
the bottom we have the date.
	The most important thing to notice about this is when 
the pulse flow increased, the bars here show the number of 
fish we captured.  These are not actual numbers captured, 
they are, in fact, expanded to account for the efficiency of 
our migrant trap.
	There is no previous data on the Stanislaus River 
where they trapped out-migrants that we could find that 
would be useful in evaluating how spike flows might 
influence fish, so we were actually capturing migrants 
moving downstream.
	MR. CAFFREY:  So, you applied a formula based on the 
efficiency to try and make the number more accurate?
	MR. CRAMER:  Exactly.  As ten percent of the flow 
went through the mouth of our trap, we found from releasing 
marked fish upstream that our trap captured five percent of 
the fish.  In other words, we were about half as efficient 
as the amount of flow that actually physically went through 
our trap, so these are adjusted.  
	The reason that that is important is because here we 
had a sampling of 1500 cfs if you took this other point.  
Here we sampled when the flow was down to 400 cfs, and so, 
you had to adjust to those differences.  By making that 
adjustment, the catches were much larger at 400 cfs simply 
because flows were lower.  Actually, this catch here, this 
one spike represents a fairly small catch but efficiency was 
lower and you have to adjust for that.
	At any rate, this shows one spike response in 
juvenile out-migration when that flow went up, and then, 
after that time the catches did not show a particular 
response to the peak in flows.  You just see that immediate 
response and then pretty much the movement of fish goes back 
to an as-usual situation.
	This is actual data on the Stanislaus.  That is one 
year and that isn't particularly comforting, so you need to 
see if that is true up and down the coast.
	Quickly, I am going to show you an example on the 
Rogue River.  I happen to have been working with the Oregon 
Department of Fish and Wildlife in the mid seventies 
directing research on the Rogue, and we had one very unique 
circumstance.  For ten years, we monitored juvenile out-
migrants on the Rogue.  Here in 1975, that is the dark line 
you see discharge through the summer, a nice smooth curve, 
we had a unique event in '76 which showed us something about 
our fish response to spike flows.  The natural storm event 
caused three weeks of high flow in mid August.  
	Now, I want to show you the next curve of what 
happens to the fish movement if you compare them in those 
years.
	Here you have a catch-per-hour in a trap that crosses 
the -- that Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River, and as the 
fish moved past that trap, we found this spike event on that 
year coincident with the first week of those spike flows.
	But for the next two weeks while the flow remained 
far above the traditional mean flows during summer, you see 
the migration moving back down to more normal levels and 
continued as so throughout the year.
	In the ten years of our study, we saw no other spike 
flow event like this.  We saw no other spike movement events 
like this, so it's obviously triggered by that pulse flow.  
The key is that it lasted only for a few days even though 
the flows remain high.
	The same is true -- we had a grand experiment on the 
Columbia River this year, same thing, and this is an 
artificial manipulation of the flow.  This is actually up 
the Snake River.  These are catches at lower Granite Dam of 
juvenile chinook.  The dotted line here represents the flow 
pulse.  There was substantial release of stored water to 
create this flow pulse, and what you can see is that there 
was a couple of days of stimulated movement of juvenile 
chinook following that pulse flow.
	Despite the high flows, the movement ceased, or at 
least went back down to a more normal level.  
	Interestingly, if you look out here after they 
dropped the flows down to base level, there was still plenty 
of chinook up there to move out and there was actually a 
spike event of juvenile chinook movement that occurred 
later.
	If I plotted these flows on a different scale, you 
would see there was a slight increase in flow there, but in 
proportion to these high flows generated here, it doesn't 
show because it is a small event.
	You can't move all the chinook until they are ready.  
There are studies that indicate there is a physiological 
readiness that has to be reached on the part of the chinook 
before they will respond to flow and all fish are not 
physiologically ready to move at the same time.
	Similarly, this is one of, I think, a 12-year data 
set on the Yakima River, similar kind of response year after 
year.  I just pulled one of their drafts.  They also show 
similar kinds of things.  The solid line represents the flow 
and the dotted line represents the movement of fish, and we 
can see that even though there were high flows here in 
March, there was not a movement of fish.
	Finally, there was a spike on the 1st of May, strong 
movement of fish for one day and then they moved on.  This 
was repeated year after year, so it is not an unusual event.
	I could cite other examples but our time is quite 
brief and I don't want to take up your time doing that.
	I would like to review with you briefly the 
recommendations from this review of how fish respond to 
pulse flows.  In the handout that I have given you, I have 
five recommendations that come from this and I would like to 
emphasize these because I think there is strong potential to 
misuse what I am saying here.
	Number one, the migration of juvenile chinook is 
stimulated by a rapid increase in flow, not by a sustained 
high flow.  This behavior is consistent with populations of 
chinook throughout the West Coast.
	Number two, only the portion of the juvenile chinook 
that are physiologically ready to smolt will be stimulated 
by the pulse to migrate to the ocean.  Some will move a 
slight bit.  We have found the ones ready to go will 
continue their movement all the way to the ocean.
	Now, flow pulses spaced at intervals throughout the 
migration season will be necessary to stimulate migration of 
the entire population.  A stimulus at one time of year will 
only move some of the fish and only the first few days will 
do that stimulation.
	Number three, the magnitude of increased inflow 
required to stimulate this migration is uncertain.  We know 
it has to be at least 20 percent, but we don't know what it 
needs to be.
	Number four, the duration of the pulse flow needed is 
one to three days.  Longer periods of high flow may be 
needed to sustain that desired condition through the Delta 
for the fish that were stimulated to have the desirable 
conditions through the Delta; but to stimulate them to move 
you need one to three days.
	Then, number five, this is where I could be 
misquoted.  Please consider number five.  Magnitude of 
benefits to be gained from pulsing of flows is uncertain and 
should be evaluated by field tests.  	I said that fish 
will move, I did not say there was evidence they survived 
better or less, just simply that if you want them to move, 
the pulse flows cause them to move in the first few days.
	MS. FORSTER:  May I ask you a question while you are 
there?  
	At our last hearing at the end of the day we heard a 
very fascinating presentation by somebody that at one time 
worked for you at the Fish and Wildlife, and I guess he was 
with one of the groups of --
	MR. HOWARD:  Dave Vogel.
	MS. FORSTER:  He also seemed to feel that there was a 
way to tell when the fish were going to move.   If I kind of 
remember his presentation, he felt that they moved at night, 
that we could tell when they were going to move.
	Do you sense from your work and some of the other 
work that's going on out there that we are getting or we 
will have available for us a much better understanding of 
sort of the basic needs of these fish?  I mean, is it true, 
do you think fish move at night more than they move during 
the day?
	All of these things are in bits and pieces, but it 
would be wonderful if somebody put it altogether and said, 
we have put this all together and here is what they like.
	If you could make your operations match, we would 
have a giant success.
	MR. CRAMER:  That's an ideal that we would all aspire 
to, and I would say there is potential to get to that point, 
but we haven't done the experiments that will tell us 
whether or not that is truly possible. 
	Fish do tend to move predominantly at night, but the 
problem is that physiologically they will mature, they will 
be ready to what we call smolt and move to the ocean at a 
varying period over the spring and into the summer, and we 
cannot speed that physiological process up other than to 
provide appropriate growth conditions for the fish because 
that physiological process is tied to their size and as they 
reach a sufficient size and growth, they will be ready to 
migrate.
	Unfortunately, fish spawn over a variable time so you 
can't get them all to that point at the same time.  So, they 
will always be dispersed in time as to when they are ready 
to move.  But certainly, it is possible to learn through 
experimentation how we can more efficiently use the water we 
have to get the fish to move and provide the volume of flow 
that those fish could actually swim in as they move to the 
Delta so they benefit from a higher flow while they are 
moving through the Delta.  That's why our proposal consisted 
of two smaller pulse flows to take care of the smolts that 
were ready to go at the beginning of the season, and another 
pulse to take care of the smolts that reached maturity at 
the end of the season.
	MS. FORSTER:  How can I understand what your 
presentation means compared to the other alternatives that 
have been provided -- the work that these folks have done, 
the work EPA has done?  Explain where you fit into this, 
what you think of what they have done, what you are doing 
that may be different.  Can you just explain this for me?
	MR. JOHNSTON:  We are looking mainly at the 
contributions that would be made from the tributaries on the 
east side of the San Joaquin Valley.  Our goal is to promote 
the movement of the fish through the estuary to the ocean so 
that we get some fish returning, as is the goal of all of 
the agencies for all of the rivers.
	We limited our contribution to that necessary to 
promote the fisheries and tried not to provide water to meet 
obligations that would otherwise be the projects'.  We have 
focused here on the temperature issues and pulse flow issues 
to move the smolts, so that beyond that, I think our plan 
would fit into any of the other alternatives that have been 
put forth.
	MS. FORSTER:  Thanks for giving us this early so we 
could read it.  It made it easier to understand your 
presentation.
	MR. JOHNSTON:  You are welcome.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Any other questions from the Board 
members?  Mr. Pettit?  Anything from staff?
	Gentlemen, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Godwin, Mr. Cramer, 
thank you very much for very interesting data.  We 
appreciate your working with us.  Good to see you all.
	MR. JOHNSTON:  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Well, it is about ten after twelve, we 
will take a lunch break now until one o'clock.
	When we come back, we will begin with the joint 
presentation from ACWA, and then we will follow with Mr. 
Bobker, Mr. Fullerton, Mr. Porgans, Mr. House, and Dr. Peter 
Moyle has submitted a card as well.
	So those will be the presenters this afternoon.
	(Noon recess)


















WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1994, 1:00 P.M.
--o0o
	MR. CAFFREY:  All right, we will resume our workshop 
and while Mr. Hall is getting ready for the ACWA 
presentation, I will announce we had one change in the 
order.  After ACWA we will hear from Patrick Porgans, and 
then go back to the regular schedule.
	We also have two other cards that have been added, 
from Peter Moyle and Steve Ottemoeller.
	Good afternoon, gentlemen, welcome.
	Mr. Hall.
	MR. HALL:  Good afternoon, Chairman and members.
	For the record, my name is Steve Hall and I am the 
Executive Director of the Association of California Water 
Agencies, and I have colleagues with me, Roger Fontes of 
Northern California Power Association; Richard McCann with 
the Economic Consulting firm MQ, who you may recall 
presented our economic analysis of the EPA standards; and 
Lon House, who is ACWA's energy consultant.
	MR. CAFFREY:  I didn't realize Mr. House was a member 
of your team here.
	MR. HALL:  I meant to mention that.  We somehow 
crossed our wires, but the bad news is we have one more 
panelist than you talked about.  The good news is you can 
eliminate one card now.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Maybe it is all good news.
	MR. HALL:  There's a trade-off.
	Several months ago when we presented our economic 
analysis to you, we told you at the time that we were in the 
process of analyzing the potential impacts to hydroelectric 
power generation within the State of California from these 
standards.
	And essentially what we have been waiting for is for 
the Department of Water Resources to finish their model runs 
on the various proposals so that we can do our modeling 
based on the hydroelectric computer models that exist and 
which actually Mr. House here helped to develop, and we now 
have the Department of Water Resources' runs and we have 
completed our runs, so we have presented to you today a 
written version of our report, and Mr. McCann and Mr. House 
will summarize that later.
	I want to begin by saying we think this is an 
important component of the overall economic impacts that 
need to be assessed as part of the standard-setting process.
	A number of parties have assessed the economic 
impacts as a result of the water shortages that will occur 
because of these proposed standards.  
	To our knowledge, this is the only study that has 
been done statewide of the energy impacts and we hope and 
trust that the Board and staff will incorporate them into 
the record and into your deliberations as you analyze the 
benefits and the costs of the standards.
	I would like to now turn it over to Roger Fontes, who 
will present to you the Northern California Power 
Association's perspective on this.
	MR. FONTES:  Thank you very much.  I appreciate the 
opportunity to speak today on behalf of NCPA and the Central 
Valley Project Customer Tech Committee.  
	The chairman of our Policy Board and others were 
unable to be here today.  He is on last-minute business, and 
for that reason, I am substituting for him, although I hope 
my presentation is not too bumpy.
	NCPA and Western Area and our customers group has 
been working carefully and closely with ACWA in the past few 
weeks to assess the impacts of the hydroelectric system.  We 
have concentrated on the federal system, the Central Valley 
Project, which serves more than a million two hundred 
thousand customers.  Our results are very similar to what 
ACWA has been finding and the reports that have been filed 
with you today.
	We have identified about 250 million dollars in 
impacts over an 18-year period.  That's through about the 
year 2010, or about 20 million dollars a year.
	We disagree with the Fish and Wildlife Service 
conclusions regarding the cost impacts of the CVPIA and we 
have been talking to them and communicating with them 
directly.
	The 20 million-dollar a year figure is something 
that's a little difficult to relate to impacts, but I think 
it is fair to say that these are substantial impacts -- 20 
million dollars, about a 10 percent increase in today's 
dollars, and that by the year 2004 could escalate to about a 
20- percent increase just based on the standards we have 
seen suggested to date.
	However, that is not our biggest concern.  Our 
biggest concern is the combination of effects of the 
standard settings that you are involved in and the 
cumulative effects of the CVPIA and other activities on the 
upper Sacramento River and tributaries to the Delta that 
will cause impacts and cost real dollars.
	There are lots of real dollar potential impacts.  
Right now we are paying a substantial amount of money into 
the federal treasury into the restoration fund to fund 
improvements of fish and wildlife in the project, and we are 
doing that because we realize it is our obligation.
	We are concerned a little bit about the Trinity 
River.  I don't think it has been brought out here too well 
today, although Board Member Brown mentioned it earlier.  
	Right now on the Trinity River about 340,000 acre-
feet is being used for fish studies on that tributary, and 
at some of the meetings we have been in those studies have 
been suggested to go up to about a million acre-feet of 
water.
	The cost impacts of that would be dramatic, many many 
millions of dollars.
	There are other programs I could mention.  I don't 
want to be an alarmist because we are not here today to try 
to have you stop or delay your decision based on the 
impacts, but simply to incorporate the considerable effects 
we think your decision will have potentially on the 
California electric consumers, on the prices of goods and 
commodities that are manufactured here.
	So, in that regard, I will close by saying we are 
happy to work with ACWA.  We appreciate the opportunity to 
be here today and we will continue to assess the 
alternatives that are set before you and provide you with 
information as to our view of their impacts.  
	We hope you can find an efficient, balanced, 
comprehensive solution while retaining some flexibility for 
the State's hydroelectric operators.
	And I guess, just in closing, I would say we are a 
little concerned particularly about New Melones Reservoir on 
the Stanislaus River, that that reservoir be allowed to 
retain some water in it, because if it is allowed to go dry, 
the capacity value would go to zero and the dollar impacts 
of that would be very significant, indeed, not to mention 
the operational aspects of losing that power source in our 
mix.
	So, thank you very much.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Mr. Fontes.
	MR. HALL:  Mr. Chairman and Board members, I am going 
to turn it quickly over to Mr. McCann and Mr. House.  
	Let me just set the stage by telling you that when we 
looked at the hydroelectric power impacts, what we 
essentially did was we were looking for both the costs and 
the benefits from this change in flow regime because there 
are some of both.
	We looked at lost capacity to generate electric 
power.  We looked at the increased load, pumping load for 
additional pumping of groundwater that we expect would 
occur.  We looked at the decreased load on the State and 
Federal projects pumps because they will be pumping less 
water, and that's a decrease in electrical consumption.
	We looked at every factor that we could quantify.  We 
did not look at some factors that we know will increase the 
overall impacts, so the impacts that you see stated in our 
report, we believe, are exceedingly conservative.  They do 
not include some impacts that we are confident will occur 
simply because we could not quantify them, and Mr. McCann 
and Mr. House can describe those in greater detail.
	What we found, in summary fashion, is that the 
impacts are quite significant, that many of the estimates 
that were done previously by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service and by others which attributed an actual benefit in 
electrical power production were incorrect, to put it 
politely, and we have documented in the report as to why 
they were incorrect.
	We also found that some water users, some energy 
users bear a much greater burden in terms of their 
electrical power rates and the availability of electrical 
power than do others, and perhaps the most striking 
conclusion from this report is that there are a number of 
regulatory actions pending by State and Federal agencies 
that could make the effects of the electric power impacts of 
this regulatory process much much worse if this process is 
not made suitably flexible to adapt as those other 
regulatory actions kick in.
	So, with that brief summary, I will turn it over to 
Mr. McCann and Mr. House, and when they have concluded, I 
will wrap up.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Mr. Hall.
	MR. McCANN:  I am Richard McCann with MQ.  I will be 
discussing a summary of our report, and Dr. House will be 
available for questions on electricity planning issues at 
the conclusion of that.
	I want to begin with talking about the issues that we 
addressed in this study.  We looked at the impacts on the 
hydroelectric system in Northern California.  Specifically, 
we focused mostly on the Central Valley Project because 
that's where the largest amount of impacts are.
	We looked at how the changes in the hydro systems 
operations would affect non-hydro resources which is 
basically thermal-generating plants that are operated by 
PG&E and other utilities.
	We looked at how project pumping would change and how 
this would affect the loads faced by the electrical 
utilities in California.
	We looked at how groundwater pumping would change 
given the decreases, the expected decreases in water 
delivery.
	We also looked at the impact of how air pollution 
emissions would change given the expected increases in 
generation from thermal-generating plants.  It's a very 
prevalent problem in California.
	And finally, we looked at the total economic costs or 
benefits from the policy alternatives in comparison to the 
base case given this range of impacts.
	In doing the analysis we relied on electricity 
planning guidelines that have been adopted by the California 
Energy Commission and the Public Utilities Commission.  In 
this way, we have tried to limit any types of controversy 
that might occur in our study by relying on values that have 
been adopted elsewhere by other regulatory agencies.
	We also relied on water planning models to the extent 
possible that were used by the Department of Water 
Resources, the Bureau of Reclamation, and EPA in studying 
these changes in hydrological flows; and finally, we tried 
to rely on conservative assumptions about how the water 
policies would impact electricity use.
	Where we cannot quantify the impacts, we didn't 
attempt to come up with some sort of fudge factor or other 
type of device which might be used to adjust the costs.
	We then discussed the methods that we used.  In 
looking at the Central Valley Project hydropower impacts, we 
used the output from the PROSIM and DWRSIM models which have 
been discussed extensively here before you.
	In looking at the pumping needs for the projects, we 
again used the output from the DWRSIM and PROSIM models.
	In looking at the changes in groundwater pumping, 
basically what we did was analyze the historic PG&E load 
data over the 1970-to-1992 time period and looked at how 
changes in water diversions and water conditions affected 
groundwater pumping and assumed that that would occur in the 
future as well, and then, our results were also confirmed by 
the input that EPA is using in its own agricultural model.
	Our results were very similar to EPA results.
	We then used this information and put it into an 
electricity production cost model called ELFIN, a model used 
by the Energy Commission and Public Utilities Commission on 
evaluating electricity-generating costs.  
	For a particular utility we used the PG&E system and 
we relied on ER 94, Electricity Report 94 for assumptions 
being worked on over at the Energy Commission right now to 
the extent possible.
	Then, from ELFIN we also got air quality impacts as a 
result of these model runs and we were able to use air 
quality impact values that have also been adopted recently 
by the Energy Commission.
	And finally, we did side calculations on how much the 
capacity requirements would be that would be created by 
these changes in policy alternatives.  Our capacity 
additions with the PG&E coming from the agricultural water 
pumping in the PG&E service territory, those values coming 
from values adopted by the Public Utilities Commission.
	The capacity values or the capacity additions needed 
on the Central Valley Project system, those values come from 
values calculated by Western, who is the marketing agent for 
the Central Valley Project power.
	We then looked at three policy alternatives evaluated 
against the base condition, the base case being D-1485 
conditions as specified in the memo, the August 18 memo sent 
by Tom Howard to the Department of Water Resources.
	We then looked at Alternatives 1, 2 and 3, as 
specified in that memo; Alternative 1 being the EPA 
proposal, Alternative 2 being the Board staff proposal at 
the time, and Alternative 3 being the California Urban Water 
Agency proposal at that time.
	We basically focused on those alternatives because 
those were the runs that were available from DWR at the time 
in running PROSIM.  They had some difficulty in running some 
of the alternatives.
	We also looked at a weighted cost average across 
water conditions so that we didn't pick just, for example, a 
single average year and calculate the costs for that.  We 
looked at how costs would change with dry-year conditions, 
wet-year conditions, and average-year conditions, and then 
calculated what the expected average would be over the time 
horizon to the year 2010.
	We can then look at what are the costs that are 
associated with these various alternatives.  
	Under Alternative 1, the costs are about 41 million 
dollars a year, or 365 million dollars net present value 
over the 16-year time pricing we looked at.
	For the water community it might be easier in terms 
of cost per acre-foot of water diverted, and that works out 
to about $84 per acre-foot.
	In Alternative 2, the cost, the annualized cost is 
about 46 million dollars a year or about $412 million 
dollars net present value over the time horizon, and that's 
about $72 per acre-foot.
	And finally, under Alternative 3, again the cost is 
about 46 million dollars a year, 412 million dollars net 
present value, and the annualized cost per acre-foot goes up 
to $82, which is specifically because there is less water 
loss in that case.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   Dollars per acre-foot diverted from 
where, from the Delta or from the system?
	MR. McCANN:  From the system, so that's reduced 
deliveries on the projects.  
	We used project deliveries as defined --
	MR. STUBCHAER:   But not non-project deliveries?
	MR. McCANN:  Right.  We did not look at losses in 
non-project deliveries.
	So, at the conclusion of our report, we had several 
findings and recommendations to be presented to the Board. 
	The first finding, to emphasize Mr. Fontes' 
statement, is that our analysis demonstrated that there are 
costs associated with past and proposed standards and not 
benefits to the electric utility system.  
	This differs from two other previous studies done by 
federal agencies which showed benefits, one being the 
winter-run salmon study, the second being a recent release 
by the Fish and Wildlife Service on the environmental 
assessment.
	We have a discussion in our report on problems with 
the winter-run salmon study.  The Fish and Wildlife Service 
study has many of the same problems.
	Second, the net present value costs of these impacts 
are up to one-half billion dollars.  These are real 
significant costs that should be considered by the Board in 
its choosing among various policy alternatives.
	Third, the cost impacts are not spread uniformly 
among the State's consumers.  Basically, this means that you 
can't just take this number and divide by the number of 
ratepayers in the PG&E service territory or across all the 
citizens of the state.  These costs are concentrated among 
various groups within Northern California.
	Most of the Central Valley Project hydropower impacts 
are concentrated among the municipal utility users.  Most of 
the water pumping costs are concentrated among the 
agricultural community.  The air quality impacts are 
concentrated among the residents who live around PG&E's 
thermal-generating units.
	So, you must consider the distribution of these costs 
when making a policy decision.
	Fourth, the assumptions that we use are conservative.  
In general, the cost to the electricity system could be 
significantly greater than the ones reported here.  For 
example, we believe that our assessment of groundwater 
pumping increases are on the low side in large part because 
the increases in groundwater pumping attributable to the 
NMFS opinions are substantially larger than what would occur 
under the water losses that we have seen in terms of water 
deliveries, that there is a much more groundwater pumping 
increase than we expected.
	Also, we have not looked at the impacts on the 
hydropower system on the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers in large 
part because of the uncertainty about being able to meet the 
Vernalis standards with New Melones releases, and there are 
some problems or some anomalies that we found in looking at 
the PROSIM output in terms of releases down the San Joaquin 
River. 	There seems to be substantial releases from other 
rivers.
	We did not look at how PG&E's fossil fuel plants that 
take water from the Suisun Bay, how their operations may be 
changed by these standards, and we also did not look at the 
impacts on the State Water Project power system as well, 
because of the complexity of its linkages to Southern 
California Edison.
	The contractual relations to be able to trace through 
that was a bit more than what we wanted to pursue given the 
complexities of that problem.
	Point 5, getting back to this issue of the releases 
on the San Joaquin River, we found that it appears from the 
PROSIM runs that there are large releases required from 
other projects, non-Federal, non-State projects in order to 
meet the standard at Vernalis and we believe that this issue 
should be explored further by the Board.
	Point 6 is that there are other environmental 
mitigation planning processes currently under way and Mr. 
Fontes talks about the Trinity River.  Of course, there is 
the San Joaquin River management program, the Central Valley 
Project Improvement Act, of course, and other Endangered 
Species Act reviews going on, as well as other activities.
	If these processes lead to additive rather than 
concurrent requirements, the cost impacts could be 
significantly greater than reported here.
	And finally, we believe that the uncertainty about 
the scientific basis, the economic effects, and the likely 
resolution of these and many other issues point to the need 
for an adaptive management approach to the Bay-Delta water 
quality issues.
	We believe that the Board should establish a 
procedure to update the standards, that the new information 
and events warrant action so the Board should be in a 
position to be flexible about the standards it sets and 
think of a process of how to adapt those standards as these 
effects occur.
	I would like to thank you for your time and we are 
open to questions.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you very much, Mr. McCann.
	MR. HALL:  I have a wrap-up comment, but I will pause 
here and let you ask any questions because I do not in any 
way wish to convey the impression that if you have 
questions, I am able to answer them.
	Mr. McCann and Dr. House are.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Mr. Stubchaer.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   What interest rates did you use in 
determining net present value?
	MR. McCANN:  We used a nominal rate of 11 percent, 
real rate of 7 percent based on a memo by the Office of 
Management and Budget, and we have a footnote that discusses 
that circular.  It is referenced twice in the report.  You 
will find it in the footnote, I think.  
	I would have to look for it, but it is in there.
	MR. STUBCHAER:   So, if you had used the lower 
interest rate -- actually, it's a difference in interest 
rates --
	MR. McCANN:  Right.  If we used the lower interest 
rate, the impacts would go up.  In fact, there's enough 
information in this report to recalculate the net present 
value impacts using a different interest rate.
	MR. CAFFREY:  You can be sure he will try that.
	Anything else from the Board?  Mr. Pettit or staff?
	MR. HOWARD:  Could you briefly describe what the 
error, what the difference in opinion is regarding the 
analysis done by the National Marine Fisheries Service and 
the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service? 
	As I understand your statement, they estimated there 
was a net economic benefit to these types of standards, and 
you are going exactly in the opposite direction.
	MR. McCANN:  Right.  We discuss that.  There's two 
places that we discuss the problem.  In Appendix G of our 
report is where we discuss the problem with the winter 
salmon run, critical habitat designation study that was done 
in 1991.
	Basically, we had five points that were particular 
problems.  Just taking some of the highlights, the first 
problem they have is that the value at the energy output 
from the projects is at the same rate around the entire year 
and, in fact, that's not a correct way of doing that.
	The value of energy produced by the project varies by 
season and it varies by time of day.
	So, if you have a power output which is flat or made 
more flat around the entire year, you are not able to shape 
that energy into the highest value period of time.  They did 
not account for that loss of flexibility in the operation of 
the system.
	Also, the critical habitat study did not look at the 
large impacts that occurred in drought years, that there are 
very large losses of output from the Central Valley Project 
in drought years in their runs.  They did not adjust their 
study for that loss of power in those particular years.
	They also treated capacity incorrectly.  They failed 
to look at the fact that capacity is valued at the time when 
peak demand is highest, which is the month of July.
	Unfortunately, they did not present enough 
information in this study to be able to calculate what the 
right capacity valuation was, but what they ended up doing 
was just taking an average through the entire year, and so 
what happened is higher capacity value in the winter, the 
false sense there was an increase in available capacity.
	And then, finally, they missed groundwater pumping 
entirely.  They did not account for increases in groundwater 
pumping from reduced deliveries at all in their study.  
	There's an additional problem in the Fish and 
Wildlife Service.  They, basically -- I try not to use this 
word too pejoratively, but they basically steal from the 
future.  They assume a discount rate of 100 percent.  They 
say that we will take 800,000 acre-feet from the future and 
use it today and it will have no cost, and that's, I guess, 
as close a definition of stealing as you can get.  And 
that's the major problem in this study.
	MR. HOUSE:  If you look in the blue document you 
have, if you look at Figures 1 and 2, those will show part 
of the problems that they have, this study has.  
	Figure 1 shows you the low profile on the peak summer 
and peak winter supply for the Northern California system.  
Capacity is only valued in the very peak period of time 
during the summer, so if you have extra capacity at 
virtually all other times of the year, it is not worth 
anything to the system.
	And then, the bottom figure shows the actual recorded 
incremental cost from the PG&E system and you can see if you 
use an average throughout the year and you are able to shift 
water from summer to winter for different types of days, you 
are going to be getting an answer that would be incorrect.
	MR. HOWARD:  The Board might adopt standards that are 
not exactly the same as Alternatives 1, 2 or 3, obviously.
	What is the advisability of interpolating or 
extrapolating these results to some alternative water supply 
impact under some new alternative the Board might adopt; in 
other words, trying to use this study directly without 
having to go back for new model runs?
	MR. McCANN:  Unfortunately, this system, as we 
analysts call it, is non-linear.  If you have an annual 
change, it may be approximately the same, but if the 
distribution of water is very different within the year, you 
can get very big changes in the cost of the system.  
	So, there's some difficulty in interpolating from the 
results.  It depends on how much different the other 
proposals are from the alternative that we evaluated.
	MR. HOWARD:  Thank you.
	MR. FONTES:  I agree with that and the point would be 
that as you further refine your alternative, our goal and 
our commitment would be to continue to work with you and to 
do additional computer analysis, if we have to, to refine 
the numbers as you get closer to the alternatives that you 
are looking at.
	MR. HALL:  I just want to echo that.  I asked the 
same question early in the process of our consultants to 
save both time and money, and got essentially the same 
answer.
	But I can assure you that we would be willing to 
partner with the Board in some fashion, an appropriate 
fashion, in order to get you the information that you need 
as to what the hydroelectric impacts would be from any 
alternative that the Board might propose.
	MR. CAFFREY:  We're going to ask you to leave your 
home telephone number in our economics unit for two o'clock 
in the morning phone calls.  
	We appreciate that.  That is a good question.  We 
will have to deal with that if we come up with a 
hydrological alternative.
	MR. HOUSE:  The one thing that we haven't mentioned, 
if you look in Appendix F, there are in addition to the 
year-by-year production cost values or electricity values, 
there is year-by-year emissions from the criteria pollutants 
for Northern California, and we didn't mention that earlier, 
but this shows you the net increase in pollution for these 
five various pollutants due to the change in water flows in 
the system.
	MR. CAFFREY:  That's F3?
	MR. HOUSE:  F1 is for the EPA case, F4 is for the 
staff case, and F5 is for the CUWA case.  For each of the 
cases you have an emissions and a utility simulation table. 
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you.  Any other questions of 
these gentlemen?
	MR. HALL:  Let me just wrap up.  The reason I asked 
for the opportunity to wrap us is so I can comment on the 
point that Mr. Pettit made earlier, that you asked 
participants to respond to, if possible.  
	I would like to do that by simply saying that what we 
have presented to you today what we think is a very good 
picture of the hydro impacts.  
	You may note that the CUWA proposal, which we support 
-- or at least the combined proposal that was presented 
today, actually costs a bit more in hydro impacts than the 
EPA proposal.  I just want to say that for the record we 
were not afraid to bring that into a public forum. 
	But beyond that, what we are saying today is there is 
another component of impact that nobody has assessed up 
until now.  We think it ought to be added into the record.  
It is simply something additional to be considered.
	What I have been impressed with throughout these 
proceedings is the apparent understanding and appreciation 
by the Board that every proposed action you take is going to 
have some very significant impacts, that we are reducing our 
water supply at the same time the demand across the state is 
increasing, that as was pointed out earlier today by one of 
the Board members, the costs of replacing these lost water 
supplies and energy supplies are enormous and extremely 
uncertain.
	We simply don't know where we are going to get the 
water or the power to replace what we are losing.
	We talked, and others have talked about the fact that 
we have not just this proceeding, but a number of other 
proceedings, some of which are concluding, others are just 
getting started.
	We mentioned the Trinity restoration, San Joaquin 
restoration, and there are a number of FERC licensing 
proceedings going on on individual streams.  Laura King 
talked about theirs, but there are others.  
	Even the Mono Lake decision by the Board earlier, and 
certainly the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, the 
cumulative impacts of those things are going to be quite 
large.
	We know that we don't know what it is.  We just know 
it is going to be very large both for water and for power, 
so when we talk to the Board about an adaptive management 
approach in the plan that the Board adopts, what we are 
really asking for is that as the Board moves forward, to the 
extent you possibly can, you build into your plan the 
ability to adapt to changing conditions, both if the fish 
recover and if these other regulatory regulations appear to 
overlap what the Board does, we think that's as vital an 
ingredient in whatever you do as anything you can do.
	And in closing, I would just like to echo what Greg 
Gartrell said earlier.
	The water community has put forward a proposal that 
we feel strongly about, that it is biologically very 
credible, that it does minimize the water impacts where 
possible while still protecting and enhancing the resource, 
and we are essentially doing this in order to avoid what we 
have today, which is piecemeal regulation.
	We hope that the Board will, to the extent that you 
can, fold all this together into a proposal that is 
supportable but is also comprehensive enough to provide the 
shelf life that we all talk about and that we must have.
	With that, I will close.  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  I think I can say for the entire Board 
your point is well taken about the regulatory efficiency as 
we provide these protections among all the regulatory 
agencies.  Working together is very important in trying to 
fashion a plan that has some efficiency to it, and that we 
all understand and can live by is very important.
	All right, gentlemen, thank you very much for your 
presentation.  We appreciate it and will take it to heart.
	Patrick Porgans.
	MR. PORGANS:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of 
the Board.
	My name is Patrick Porgans.  I am an independent 
government regulatory specialist.  Today I am here as a 
member of the public and I want to point out that I am a 
government regulatory specialist and I like that concept, 
you know, sort of coordinating all of this regulatory 
process in a way that is compatible with the best interests 
of everybody.  I appreciate that.  Good luck.
	My point here today and before I get into it, I am 
following up on my presentation I made on September 1, first 
on the fall-back alternative option in the event options 1, 
2 or 3 don't happen.  You know, it's always possible.
	And as far as those students go, I hope that their 
graduation is not contingent upon these regulations being 
appropriate.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Probably not.
	MR. PORGANS:  Okay, I want to comment briefly on some 
of the things that were mentioned earlier.  
	First of all, we hear we are moving toward consensus.  
I have heard that before.  That's another one where I say, 
good luck.  Nothing has been finalized.  Water reductions 
have had an impact on the agricultural sector, water 
reductions have had an impact on hydroelectric.
	Let's think on the positive side.  Look at all the 
money they have made in years past from using the publicly-
owned resources to generate electricity and to irrigate arid 
land in the desert.  I mean, just in the State Water Project 
service area alone in the first 21 or 22 years, they 
generated 6.6 billion dollars in gross agricultural 
revenues.  They only paid about 6 million dollars in actual 
cost for water, which averaged out to less than $30 an acre-
foot.
	So, all these years they have been the major 
recipient of this water and things have been built more or 
less on the optimum condition.
	I have always said we need flexibility.  I have been 
talking comprehensive water planning since I can't remember 
how long ago.  I lost track.
	I am a little concerned about these words flexibility 
and less restrictions.  Now, if I was an engineer, which I 
am not, I don't think I could operate the State Water 
Project and the Central Valley Project with more flexibility 
than they did in 1987 through 1990.  I mean, there is just 
no way.
	Now, based on their own data, they took as much as 80 
percent of the water going into the Delta in some months.  
It was extracted for in-channel or Delta exports.
	So, I am concerned if we have less restrictions, more 
flexibility, that it's going to invite the possibility or 
probability of more failures in the system or violations of 
standards, compounded problems with the aquatic resources, 
et cetera.
	I want everybody to know that I am a money man.  I am 
tracking money.  So, when I hear people talk about how the 
Wall Street and big boys are concerned, I have sent Wall 
Street copies of my reports over the years.  I have told 
them for decades that this problem was coming.  This is 
nothing new.
	Now, I want to point out that in 1982 we knew that 
Kern County would have problems paying their water bills 
because the real cost of those water bills were deferred 
right up until sometime in the 1980s and we pointed out that 
there wouldn't be enough water in the system.  
	For somebody to come to this Board and say, we didn't 
realize and we didn't know there would be these cutbacks, I 
refer them back to the California Water Plan.  I refer them 
back to Bulletin 200, DWR, and refer them to the Bulletin 
132 series.
	The depletions in the Delta pool were acknowledged in 
1950.  The problems associated with the amount of water 
these projects had received and the problems they have 
experienced today were all documented.
	Now, what I am suggesting is that you can't have it 
both ways.  It is not going to work.  We have to have some 
reductions and we are going to have some redistribution of 
water.  
	And in my report, and I am one of those guys that 
work until 2:30 in the morning every morning, and in my 
report that I gave you guys a copy of, I gave you the basic 
foundation of why the problems that the projects are 
experiencing now, what was the basis for those problems, and 
I also give you solutions to remedy some of those problems, 
and one of the issues I talk about is the flexible yield 
concept.
	Now, getting back to my presentation that I made on 
September 1, at that time, I was raising questions about 
whether in fact, you know, in my mind -- and I am not a 
lawyer, thank God -- in my mind I see that the Board has the 
authority to go forward and adopt standards and apply them 
to the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project.  
	I don't see any problem there.  They are under a 
mandate to protect and provide, even under the terms and 
conditions of their permits, to provide the level of 
protection that this Board requires.
	So, the issue and the alternative I am raising today 
has to do with how do we get the upstream diverters to 
provide water to meet whatever the standards will be in the 
future.  I think that's a valid concern.
	However, I should preface that by saying I don't feel 
we have to wait for the upstream diverters to come on line 
to meet these standards or provide water.  We can go forward 
and attach standards to both the Central Valley Project and 
the State Water Project.  If you want me to sit in on this, 
I can have it done before December 15.
	The way I suggest that we do this is under the Delta 
pooling concept, the projects were not supposed to take any 
water that the counties in the areas of origin would need, 
that under the provisions of the Burns-Porter Act, it allows 
for 
-- under the offset provisions in the Burns-Porter Act, a 
certain amount of money has been set aside to provide for 
facilities to augment any water depletions from the project 
that was attributed to counties and areas of origin demands.
	Now, I suggest that what we could do is -- because, 
you know, the guys down in the valley, they have got a 
sweetheart deal, I don't care what anybody tells me.  I am 
not an economist, thank God for that, too.  
	You notice I am not being discriminatory today.  
	The guys down in the valley have this long-term 
extended repayment period, so what we can do, there's 160 
million dollars still set aside on those offset bonds.  They 
are still sitting there in the original bond appropriation, 
1.75 billion dollars back in 1960, and perhaps we can devise 
a way that they could buy water legally from the State Water 
Project under the provisions of the enabling legislation, 
which would mean that there would be a reduction in water 
available to the project, but that water, in part, would be 
made up to meet the outflow requirements set by the Board to 
meet the standards.
	Does that make sense?  
	I have it all written down.  
	So, what I am saying is at this particular point in 
time -- I'm not the type of person that has a lot of faith 
in framework agreements because I feel the agreement has no 
enforcement provisions and, quite frankly, it is just 
another one of those things where it may or may not happen.
	The bottom line is I can sit here another 20 years 
and listen to all of this diatribe -- excuse me, I don't 
mean anybody personally -- and in the end we come up with a 
standard that is flexible and more reasonable.  I ask, who 
is going to enforce it?  
	So, we may even go through this whole entire process, 
we may get to the end of the line, and then I am in a 
dilemma because I have to come back and I don't know if it 
sounds like I have nothing else to do -- my wife's got a 
honey do list that won't quit.  That's the only reason I am 
here. 
	So, my point is that I believe that we can provide a 
little more flexibility in meeting the actual requirements 
of whatever standard is set by going back and re-examining 
that Delta pooling concept and possibly allocating portions 
of those funds that have been set aside for the purpose of 
providing water for the counties in areas of origin to meet 
the standards that this Board sets in the future.  
	That's one option that's available.  I believe it is 
a valid one.  
	In addition to that, I have provided about five other 
viable options in the report on the State Water Project 
which this Board has.  I have also sent 100 copies of that 
report south and all of the water contractors have copies of 
it.
	In closing, I had asked several questions in my 
September 1 letter, and I realize that the Board is kind of 
busy and I know Tom is busy over there, and it is hard for 
him to get everything upstairs to you, and hard for me in 
getting to Tom.  I suggest that you read my two-page 
request, and I provided some basis for the proposal I am 
making to see whether, in fact, there is validity to it and 
to determine whether, in fact, we can use some of those 
suggestions to help to resolve this problem to the mutual 
benefit of the lawyers, engineers and people like me.
	MR. CAFFREY:  And the economists.
	MR. PORGANS:  And the economists.  Thank you for 
bringing them in.  
	I appreciate your time and are there any questions?
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Mr. Porgans, always nice to 
see you.  We appreciate your skepticism, but we like to 
think you have a little hope at this time.
	MR. PORGANS:  That is your second most optimistic 
statement today.  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you.
	Gary Bobker and David Fullerton representing the Bay 
Institute, the National Heritage Institute and the 
Environmental Defense Fund.
	Good afternoon, gentlemen, welcome.
	MR. BOBKER:  Good afternoon.  I always feel like a 
bland speaker whenever I follow Patrick Porgans.  
	I want to make a few brief remarks and then David is 
going to follow up.
	I am Gary Bobker from the Bay Institute and my 
remarks today are on behalf of the National Heritage 
Institute, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Bay 
Institute.  	The Environmental Defense Fund 
representatives were unable to be here	today.
	 And what I want to touch on very briefly, first of 
all, is the consensus effort that you have been hearing 
about.  I would like to talk about where consensus is and 
where it isn't.
	I think that the singlemost encouraging development 
in this year concerning development of new improved water 
quality standards has been the high degree of consensus over 
the so-called X2 standards, the Suisun Bay estuary habitat 
criteria.
	We are very encouraged by the amount of agreement 
that exists on that standard.  We think that the amount of 
disagreement that exists is relatively minor.  We have 
entered into the record our comments about some of the 
improvements that we think the standard needs.  Essentially 
we are talking about either levels of protection or levels 
of water supply impacts.  We are really not in the realm of 
major differences.
	Part of the reason that we got so far on the 
estuarine habitat criteria is that it truly did come out of 
an exchange of views and consensus among very different 
parties.
	During the spring and summer environmental groups 
spent a lot of time negotiating both on the policy and 
technical level with urban water groups.  There was a lot of 
exchange between both urban and agricultural groups.  There 
were meetings between environmental and agricultural groups 
as well.
	We sponsored a series of technical workshops where 
agency personnel were participants and that, I think, was 
major as far as improvements in the estuarine habitat and in 
the understanding and acceptance of the estuarine habitat 
criteria, as well as improvements in many other criteria.
	I don't think that's quite been the case with some of 
the other areas that are the subject of consensus 
activities.
	We are concerned that there's not been the same 
exchange of views among all the parties as there was 
previously in that we seem to be developing in different 
directions.
	We have an urban and agricultural water use proposal.  
We have agencies on their own and we have environmentalists 
looking at some other alternatives, and we don't seem to be 
exploring the same ground as much as we were.  We are 
concerned with the way the process is going.
	We are also concerned that as a result of the lack of 
exchange of some of those views, there are some severe 
deficiencies in some of the proposals that are before you.  
The most notable, and I am not going into every detail of 
disagreement, I want to single out maybe three or four major 
issues -- most notably the issue of export limits, 
particularly for fall run chinook salmon on the San Joaquin 
River and for spring run salmon on the Sacramento, and then, 
the issue of protection for Suisun Marsh.
	On the issue of export limits, the water user 
proposal that you heard described earlier relies heavily on 
the use of export-import rate of inflow ratios, a percentage 
which goes from 35 to 65 percent depending on the time of 
the year.
	We have a concern that using that kind of inflow 
ratio is a little too simplistic.  It doesn't really reflect 
the complex relationship that exists between export and 
their impacts on biological resources; and because they are 
not linked really to any kind of level of biological 
protection or biological value, it is very hard to use them 
to say we are getting adequate protection for the estuary.
	We know that they have been used at least for part of 
the year to suggest that at least you can have a cap on 
exports.  They serve as a de facto cap to kind of keep 
things in place under the percentage taken.
	The Fish and Game Department has raised the issue, I 
believe previously, about whether that is accurate or not.  
	The Board needs to take a look at that, but more 
importantly, it needs to tackle the issue of what kind of 
export constraints are really protective.
	We do know that entrainment effects are highly 
correlated to absolute real export levels, and that's why in 
the past we have generally concentrated on the combination 
on both habitat, flow salinity improvements and absolute 
export constraints, and have, in fact, continually 
recommended those.
	There are perhaps some better directions we can go 
and David is going to talk a little bit about that.
	The major thing here is we rely on simplistic 
relationships which aren't biologically founded, and we 
really don't have much confidence that we are going to see 
the improvements we need to see, especially in the 
entrainment effects.
	We also have very little ability to tinker with those 
kinds of export controls because they don't have a real 
solid biological base -- how you decide whether to raise or 
lower the percentage, which is the suggestion of the urban 
and agricultural water users that they use by monitoring to 
adjust those percentages.
	I am not sure that's the best way to go.
	The second issue involving protections for salmon; we 
are concerned that the kind of flow levels that we 
recommended and export controls are not going to be 
effective enough for salmon.
	We are going to need to see major increases of 
historical levels because historical flow levels have been 
so low and we need to put more than a little more water in 
the system if you want to see recovery and stabilization of 
those populations.
	There also seems to be a wide range of agreement 
among fishery biologists that you need to have absolute 
export constraints in place at least in the April/May period 
that is so critical.  
	In terms of the Sacramento side, obviously, there's 
some major concerns about the spring-run salmon and 
environmental groups have given you some evidence and 
recommendations on what's needed to protect the spring run.
	There seems to be general agreement again among many 
of the fishery biologists and agencies that extending the 
type of protections that have been designed for the fall-run 
and spring-run fish, specifically closure of the Delta cross 
channel gate earlier in the season, starting in November, 
and increase in flows in the Sacramento River.
	Finally, the one issue I want to be sure I highlight 
is the Suisun Marsh issue.  We have talked for many years 
about the lack of protection for the brackish tidal marshes.  
There is now a movement to do something about that.  
	EPA has a criterion which we hope will eventually be 
the basis for development of numeric criteria.  
	It is disappointing to see suggestions being made to 
go in the opposite direction with the adoption of the Suisun 
Marsh Preservation Agreement which allows for deficiency 
standards.  It really is the wrong way to go.
	I also note that this Board directed DWR and other 
agencies to prepare a biological assessment.  That has not 
been completed yet and it is unclear right now even with new 
standards about whether the SMPA would be controlling in 
certain times of the year, even with increased flows and 
decreased salinity in the springtime.  The SMPA has not been 
completed yet and it is unclear right now even with new 
standards whether SMPA would be controlling at certain times 
of the year even with increased flows and decreased 
salinity.  The SMPA deficiency standards may have some 
negative impacts in the fall.  We don't know.
	I think that we need to start looking in new 
directions instead of looking at the SMPA and D-1485.  We 
need to assess what it is going to take to develop hard and 
fast criteria, quantitative criteria, to protect the tidal 
marshes.
	The bottom line in all of this, I think, brings up a 
lot of things that obviously would be good to increase 
protection of the system.  They also, obviously, would cost 
a lot of water and there is a couple of points I want to 
make based on the fact that; yes, it would cost a lot of 
water to do all these things.
	One is that increasing environmental protection 
dramatically may not necessarily have to have all those 
water supply impacts.
	We saw in the evolution of the EPA standards that 
some major changes in the implementation and compliance 
mechanisms really made a difference, and one of the things 
that we are looking at is getting away from using absolute 
export constraints and looking at maybe some export 
constraints which, while based on the need to control those 
entrainment effects, and based on the understanding we have 
about the levels of export and what they do to biological 
resources are much more sensitive to natural conditions that 
are occurring, natural hydrologic conditions, and that's 
specifically what Dave is going to talk about.
	The other point is that 1 million or 1.1 million or 
1.2 million is not necessarily the magic panacea number.  In 
the September 1 workshop, Ms. Forster referred to the magic 
block of water to solve all the problems.  What we are 
hearing is that these blocks of water are not going to solve 
every single problem and what you really want is certainty 
and shelf life, and you want to avert the potential of 
future endangered species listings.
	Maybe you can't solve all the problems, but there are 
stronger measures, I think, that are in some of the 
consensus proposals. 
	And that concludes all I want to say and David is 
going to add some remarks along some new directions for 
export criteria.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Gary.  
	Shall we wait until we hear from David Fullerton 
before we ask questions?
	MS. FORSTER:  When you say stronger measures in your 
closing statement, you mean more water?  Is that what you 
mean or do you mean some of the other things that have been 
raised by the urban and --
	MR. BOBKER:  In the joint water proposal Category 3 
type of things -- I mean both.  Obviously, I think that we 
are; one, with the water users that there are a number of 
different measures that need to be undertaken that are 
related to the problem, that are related to flow, related to 
control of toxins, related to habitat restoration, and these 
are important to restoring the system.
	The two caveats that I want to raise are that; number 
one, that doesn't mean that the exact amount of water that 
is being referred to as their proposal as opposed to ours is 
the major one.
	Based on some of the knowledge we have of the need of 
different species, you may need to use more water.
	The second point I want to make is that you need to 
do these together.  One isn't a substitute for the other.  I 
believe there may be some habitat improvements or other 
measures you can take which might reduce the need to adjust 
flow requirements, but that's highly conjectural.  We don't 
know either.
	I think we need to know a lot more about the 
interworking of the system before you can make those types 
of solutions.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Gary.
	Good afternoon, David.
	MR. FULLERTON:  I am David Fullerton with the 
National Heritage Institute.
	I have a few additional comments to make beyond what 
Gary said, actually following up on what Gary said.
	Primarily, I am talking about the issue of export 
control which in many ways is the crux of this whole thing.  
On the one hand, exports are a major part of this balancing, 
which is how much water are the people south of the Delta 
able to take?  At the same time, exports are a major cause 
of the declines in the Delta.
	So, having the right pattern and controlling of 
exports is very important, both for protecting the 
environment and to assure minimal impacts of that 
protection.
	From our point of view, I think the surest protection 
would be some form of absolute control of the exports.  
That's what I have seen in the past.  We can only pump X 
amount for April or May or June.  That let's us know exactly 
what we are getting from your point of view.
	I think the other side is what we are seeing on the 
CUWA proposal, which is essentially a guaranteed amount of 
export.  They are not going to get less than 30 percent or 
60 percent as long as they have a place to put that water.
	I think that both of these are probably suboptimal in 
the sense of really trying to fine tune and manage the 
system.  Optimization of your export patterns really means 
doing something like what we did with the X2 standard, which 
is to say you want to tune your export limits to the actual 
conditions that are out there.
	Now, the export limits do that a little bit because 
those are affected by what year type you are in, and 
certainly, the urban/ag proposal also makes some attempt at 
fine tuning exports to conditions.  They have a certain 
percentage that you take, which means as inflow drops over 
exports, but I think that both of those can be improved 
upon.  Maybe we can find something in the middle so that 
when the environment needs to have pumping really cut back, 
it is cut back, and when there are good conditions so that 
you can pump a lot, then they could pump a lot.
	I don't think either of these proposals catch that 
optimal point.  For example, if X2 moves according to 
basically the pattern of flows that you see coming out of 
the Delta over many weeks, easily you could picture a 
scenario where X2 is very far upstream, which means that all 
the fish that are linked to X2 are upstream and near the 
pumps, and then you have a freshette come down through the 
Delta.
	At that point, using the CUWA or the urban/ag 
standard, you would be able to pump a lot of water all of a 
sudden because the inflows of the Delta have gone way up, 
but X2 is way upstream, so you could have a large take using 
the X2 standard.  So, that's not optimal.
	But at the same time, with fixed pumping limits, you 
could foresee a situation where you would have massive flows 
going through the Delta which you are still unable to pump, 
a couple of thousand cfs.  That's probably not reasonable, 
at least in terms of optimizing the system.
	So, what we are working on and we would like to 
provide to the Board as soon as we can, we hope in time to 
make a difference, would be a more complex function as in 
the case of X2.  That's a very complex function if you were 
to look at it.
	We are looking at such factors as inflow, diversions 
into the Delta islands, the X2 position, and also, the 
distribution of flows between the San Joaquin and Sacramento 
Rivers, and what we would like to do is to meld all of those 
variables into some form of sliding scale or function which 
then would determine month by month what kind of exports 
would be allowed.
	We think that doing it this way would perhaps give us 
the protection that we want and at the same time support a 
high enough level of export that this thing can fly.  That's 
what everyone wants.
	I don't think that the existing proposals do that and 
so to that extent we are fighting where we don't need to 
fight.
	Anyway, we have presented some data to you on a 
proposed alternative standard for you to look at, but this 
is an additional component I think we will want to 
substitute in there for the export limits that we have sent 
to you so far.
	Those are all the comments I had.
	MR. CAFFREY:  All right, thank you, Mr. Fullerton.
	Are there questions from Board members, Mr. Pettit or 
staff?
	MR. PETTIT:  I would ask Mr. Fullerton if you have a 
projection of time, a date when you would like to have some 
proposal ready?
	MR. FULLERTON:  I think we could probably come up 
with something in the form of an equation fairly quickly.  
We don't have the modeling ability to actually fine tune 
what the actual numbers should be so that we can get good 
protection for the environment and assess the export 
impacts.  We just don't have that computer capability to be 
able to do that, but I think we would like to present to the 
Board, and also to the other stake holders involved in this 
proceeding, some of our ideas and see if maybe we can run 
with it.
	As Gary said, we presented this stuff in the past, 
but the actual level of dialogue between the environmental 
community and the urban/ag group has been less than we would 
desire up to now.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you very much, Mr. Bobker and Mr. 
Fullerton.  We appreciate your comments.
	Next we have Dr. Peter Moyle.  
	Dr. Moyle, welcome.
	DR. MOYLE:  Thank you.  I am pleased to be here. 
	I have some very brief remarks on a relatively narrow 
subject compared to what you have been hearing recently, at 
the request of the County and City of San Francisco.
	As you know, there are two standards for the estuary, 
one for Suisun Bay, the X2 standard, which are basically 
ecosystem standards; and one for the San Joaquin River, 
which is specifically striped bass.
	I'm sure, you know, I am a very strong supporter of 
the X2 standards or some variation of them.  I do question 
the need for an electrical conductivity standard for striped 
bass in the San Joaquin River.
	My reasons for this are fundamentally philosophical 
because I am really looking for ecosystem standards.  That 
is what we need out there, improving the entire system, not 
to benefit one species.
	And when you look at the striped bass criteria, they 
really are just for striped bass and striped bass will be 
the primary beneficiary.  This creates some problems.  
	One thing from a philosophical perspective, they are 
an exotic species and they are abundant, and they are 
recovering in their native range, and for that reason, they 
don't merit the same attention as the declining species, 
essentially the San Joaquin fall-run chinook.
	I think if you are going to be allocating water for 
fish in the San Joaquin River, it should be aimed at the 
native species, specifically at the salmon rather than at 
striped bass.
	Also, the striped bass criteria do seem to be based 
on the concept of two spawning populations of striped bass; 
one that spawns in the Sacramento and one that spawns in the 
San Joaquin, and there is really not much evidence for that.
	Again, there doesn't seem to be any special reason 
for providing spawning criteria in the San Joaquin itself.  
Right now the majority of the spawning does take place in 
the Sacramento River.
	Also, it does concern me that April and May, which is 
when these standards take place, this is the same time that 
the juvenile salmon are moving downstream, and presumably, 
if we have special standards for striped bass, we may be 
bringing the striped bass up at the same time as juvenile 
salmon are coming down, and perhaps increasing predation 
pressure.  It is really hard to say for sure what would 
happen there, but it certainly is a concern.
	And finally, I think more importantly, if we are 
improving conditions for striped bass under any 
circumstances in the system, we are probably going to be 
doing detrimental things to other species out there because 
striped bass is the top predator in the system.  It does 
prey on salmon.  Salmon are not a major food item for the 
bass, but it could be very significant for the salmon.
	There is really a concern there that we want to avoid 
enhancing the striped bass at the expense of other fishes 
and we need to bring everything up together, having equal 
system-type standards like the X2 standards.
	And what this means, of course, is I am not really 
opposed to enhancing striped bass numbers, they are really 
part of the ecosystem.  I just don't think we need to do 
anything special for them.  They are going to recover 
regardless of whatever we do to benefit the system, is going 
to ultimately benefit striped bass.  They will recover along 
with everything else.
	So, the question for striped bass is when, not if, 
which means that we really don't need special standards just 
for striped bass.
	That's the extent of my remarks.  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Dr. Moyle.
	Any questions by Board members.  Anything from Mr. 
Pettit?  Staff?
	MR. HOWARD:  Dr. Moyle, to some extent it appears as 
though one of your principal concerns is that all the water 
would be allocated toward this standard.  
	One of the proposals that has been advanced is that 
an implementation program would probably more appropriately 
focus on agricultural drainage controls, so you would still 
adopt the standards, but the implementation program would 
not incorporate additional releases specifically for that.
	Is that a more appropriate approach, in your mind?
	DR. MOYLE:  Definitely it is a more appropriate 
approach as far as I am concerned, but I am not sure EPA has 
the power to retire land in the San Joaquin Valley, and 
obviously, providing water tends to be the easier thing to 
do to satisfy these kinds of pressures.
	But, I agree, I think land retirement, trying to find 
some way to reduce the saline pollution, is exactly the 
thing that we need to do, but it is difficult, as you know.
	MR. HOWARD:  Thank you.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you, Dr. Moyle.
	Steve Ottemoeller, Chief of Water Resources.  Good 
afternoon.
	MR. OTTEMOELLER:  Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and 
members of the Board.
	I am Steve Ottemoeller.  As of Monday, I am Chief of 
Water Resources at Westlands.  I used to be Chief of 
Operations.
	I guess I would like to just take a couple of minutes 
to emphasize the importance that we place on the joint 
proposal, and I want to say joint proposal and I highlight 
it on my copy.  
	I recall a few months ago when the agricultural 
interests and the urban interests realized we had to get 
together on some kind of approach that we could take to the 
Board.  We sat in a meeting and I can recall one of the few 
things that we would agree on is that we would probably not 
come up with a joint proposal.  It would probably be a joint 
approach or it would have some very common themes involved 
in our proposal, but as we have had the time available to us 
through this process and we appreciate the patience the 
Board has had in developing this process, we have been able 
to, I think, come up with what is a joint proposal or at 
least the concept of a joint proposal, and I will explain my 
weasel-word in a minute.
	I don't think I can overemphasize the importance and 
the significance of the process that we have gone through to 
develop a consensus on these standards.
	The length of time that it has taken us in terms of 
several months, is by no means an indication of having a 
hard time getting our calendars together.  Quite the 
contrary, it has been one of the highest priorities of all 
the member agencies involved.
	For the last at least six weeks, there have been 
sometimes daily meetings by members of the agencies and 
their consultants.  In our case, we have kind of worked on 
the tag-team basis.  We can't always make the same meetings, 
but we try for consistency, and I know other agencies have 
given the same importance to this process.
	We have had biological and engineering consultants 
and I think I can assure you, from my perspective anyway, 
that they have not compromised their integrity at all in 
advising us on achieving what we have all agreed are the 
goals of this process.
	At times, even as staff members of agencies that are 
governed by Board of Directors, with general guidelines on 
how we ought to approach this process, we even have been out 
on a limb, so to speak.  It is difficult for us to say, 
Westlands Water District, supports everything that is in 
this proposal right now, but I can assure you we strongly 
support this process and feel that what we have come up with 
here as a group is probably about as good as we are going to 
get in terms of something that is very broadly acceptable 
and meets our goals.
	We definitely do support the Category 3 issues that 
are addressed in here.  We support the need for the Board to 
address those issues in whatever way possible in your 
proposed standards.
	We do believe that when implemented, the Board's 
proposal, particularly if it is based on this proposal, will 
be well balanced and protective of the Delta.
	Throughout this process it became apparent that while 
we could agree generally on things, it became sometimes the 
very smallest details that were very important to different 
interests involved in coming up with these proposals.
	So, we also, in that light believe that it is 
important that the Board consider as much as you can that 
this is a package that's designed to work together.  We, by 
no means, would say that the Board doesn't have the 
authority or ability to make some refinements or changes, 
but as I stated earlier, we have put a lot of effort into 
this and I think that is indicative of the extent to which 
there has been compromise and sweating blood over this whole 
process, given the fact that we are, in fact, proposing 
something that by estimates costs over a million dollars.
	As an agency that is the first to see those costs 
when they occur in the Central Valley Project system, I can 
assure you we have been very careful about the kind of 
things that we would agree to, or agree should be proposed 
as far as the standards.
	Again, we appreciate the Board's patience in allowing 
us the time to get together as a group to develop a 
recommended standard.
	We believe, though, that in the end, particularly 
during the approval process, it will all have been worth 
it.  
	For those of you who recall the process that evolved 
after Draft D-1630 was announced, we can certainly develop a 
lot of effort and a lot of shotgun blasts from a lot of 
different directions on something that's been proposed.
	We had as a group, or as individual agencies, a lot 
of discussions on the concepts, but certainly nowhere near 
the effort that we have put into developing a joint 
proposal.
	In that light, and pardon me if I repeat myself, I 
think we would greatly appreciate the Board's willingness to 
consider that this proposal is an integrated package which 
is designed to meet the protection and balancing of the 
Board, and also, as something that we believe will have the 
greatest opportunity for acceptance by the largest group, 
including the federal agencies which are responsible for 
fish and wildlife and other water quality issues.
	Those are my comments.
	MR. CAFFREY:  Thank you very much, Steve.  We 
appreciate your comments and let me see if there are 
questions from Board members.
	Anything from staff?  
	Thank you very much.  We appreciate your comments.
	That completes the cards that we have for this final 
workshop.
	I want to thank all the parties for their diligence, 
and all their hard work and for their patience.  
	We ask you that are still going to be doing some 
refining of your numbers, please do them as quickly as you 
can, stay in touch with Mr. Pettit and the staff as they 
prepare the draft document.
	Your input has been and will continue to be essential 
to the success of this process and we are very appreciative 
of it.
	Thank you all very much for your attendance.
	(The workshop was adjourned.)




















REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
---o0o---
	This is to certify that I, ALICE BOOK, a Certified 
Shorthand Reporter, was present during the Workshop of the 
STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, 
held in Sacramento, California, on October 19, 1994; 
	That as such I recorded in stenographic writing the 
proceedings held in the matter of Review of Water Quality 
Standards for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin 
Delta Estuary; 
	That I thereafter caused my said stenographic writing 
to be transcribed into longhand typewriting and that the 
preceding Volume VIII, pages 1 through 132, constitute said 
transcription; 	
	That the same are true and correct transcriptions of my 
said stenographic writing for the date and subject matter 
hereinabove described.
Dated:  October 24, 1994
				               				
					___________________________________
					              ALICE BOOK






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