The Sacramento Metro Chamber hosted the third State of the Sacramento County Forum, with more than 260 business and civic leaders attending the Oct. 30 event.

After briefly looking at current county issues, the highlight of the event was a panel discussion on proposed legislation to address ongoing Delta crisis issues.

Sacramento County Overview

Sacramento County Executive Terry Schutten

·    Announced publication of the Sacramento County 2008-09 Report Card | PDF

·    Highlighted positive economic news: Siemens is in the process of acquiring 20 acres to build a manufacturing plant for high speed rail vehicles for North American cities and building a second solar farm operation that by March 2010 will produce 95% of electric power for their operations.

·    McClellan Park continues to thrive in these challenging times, with 300 business and 13,000 employees. There Zeta has announced it is producing zero net energy modular homes that will exceed LEED platinum standards and produce almost as much energy as they use.

·    The county has a 50-50 revenue sharing program in place with the city on proceeds from new auto malls and will be looking to attract more of that business.

·    The Sacramento International Airport “Big Build” project for a new Terminal B is employing 1,200 people and each day putting $500,000 in cash into the economy.

·    Commented on proposed Delta solutions: The new canal will be a massive undertaking that affects all of us. 25 million people or two-thirds of Californians get their water via the Delta.

·    The proposed five intake structures for a new peripheral canal will take out approximately 2 billion gallons of water a day each—for 10 billion gallons a day. By contract, the newly constructed Freeport water plant takes out 185 million gallons of water a day.

·    The new canal will move 15,000 cubic feet of water a second and be 700 feet wide at the top; by comparison, the Sacramento River is 550 feet wide—levee to levee—at the Freeport intake plant.

Regional Water Authority Executive Director John Woodling presented an overview of the history of the Delta and the current crisis. | View Powerpoint Presentation

·    Realities of California water management: Most of the precipitation falls on the north coast and in the east. Most of the people live in the west and south. Half of the state’s run-off goes through the Central Valley —and 80 percent of that flows through the Delta watershed. Thus, 80 percent of the water is produced in the north whereas 80 percent of the demand is in the south. This mismatch was not a problem until the 1970s, when environmental fixes were in need of a supply of water.

·    Climate change now threatens to raise water levels five feet, putting grave pressure on levees that were not built to modern engineering standards and face collapse from serious deterioration or an East Bay earthquake.

·    Climate change—mainly lack of snowfall—will remove the equivalent of a Shasta Dam’s worth of water from the state in coming decades.

·    Several attempts over the decades to work on Delta issues: Prop. 9 in 1982 in which voters turned down a peripheral canal; the 1994 Bay-Delta accords called the CalFed program, the 2008 Delta Vision and in 2009 a current flurry of proposed legislation.

·    The current proposal called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan seeks to improve the Delta ecosystem by delivering water more reliably around the Delta while meeting fish and habitat requirements

·    But the actions to fix what ails the Delta will extend will beyond the Delta—such as requirements to remove excessive ammonia from river water—this could impact Sacramento County sewage treatment.

·    The threats for the Sacramento region by the plan include reallocation of water rights and supplies, loss of local land use control, mandated water conservation, direct and indirect economic and environmental impacts and inequitable financing.

·    The status quo of the Delta is not acceptable, the Sacramento region has a lot at stake and it must be part of the solution.

Panel Discussion

Moderated by Roy Brewer, principal, Brewer Lofgren LLP; chair, Metro Chamber Flood Protection Task Force

Panelists

Senator Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg , California State Senate

Supervisor Don Nottoli, Sacramento County Board of Supervisors

Highlights of Panelists remarks

Sen. Darrell Steinberg

·    In 1982, during the peripheral canal debate, the arguments broke into a north vs. south fight. However, this year, there is consensus statewide that the Delta is broken. We are an earthquake or flood away from a great shock. That’s undisputed. The question is what do we do about it.

·    A peripheral canal—now termed an “alternative conveyance” is a “train moving down the track.” The Schwarzenegger administration believes it has the legal authority to build or begin to build a canal.

·    He has fought for $2.25 billion in mitigation of impacts brought about in solving the Delta crisis, including $1.5 billion and $750 million for mitigation of economic impacts.

·    Proposed plan is not perfect—legislators are trying to achieve the best balance possible. While it’s true there is only one permanent member defined on the Delta council as a Delta representative, there are no other geographical representative requirements. Of the other five, four are appointed by the governor with Senate approval and the senate has one appointment and the assembly has one appointment.

  Supervisor Nottoli

·    Sacramento needs to have representation on proposed Delta Stewardship Council. One voting member in a seven-member council is inadequate. Unless there is sufficient representation for the people of the Delta—if it’s not built into the law and legislation—the proposal to me is a non-starter.

·    Sacramento County's position is that any solution should not be balanced on the back of the people of the Delta.

  Supervisor Mike McGowan

·    We don’t want to be seen as saying “no” to a Delta plan, but there is a huge bulls-eye on the five Delta counties. We are immediately, directly impacted by proposed legislation. There are 500,000 acres of land in the Delta, and more than 100,000 acres are proposed to be put back into swamp in the conservation plan.  

·    The whole premise of the proposal is to restore the Delta and improve water reliability to the south. We aren’t sure those things are compatible.

  Attorney Steward Somach

·    Proposed plan doesn’t protect water rights or Northern California water rights. A simple statement recognizing “area of origin” and protecting prior water rights in the new legislation would be “nice to have.”

·    Most of the water needed by the plan will come from the Sacramento River—meaning adversely taking away supplies which the Sacramento region relies upon. That’s why recognition of prior water rights is needed and needs to be equal to considerations called “public trust.”

·    One solution to getting more water is creating new upstream storage—that is one way to deal with fundamental inconsistencies in the legislation.

Read a Sacramento Bee report on the debate by Matt Weiser | Article

Burnie Lenau, owner, The Lawnman, Inc: It was an outstanding program. A quality debate. You usually see the panelists get along, but here they debated!
 
Norman Gonzalez, Staff for Rep. Tom McClintock: I liked the factual overview ahead of the presentation. It was well done. From the panel you knew definitely the counties were not comfortable with the potential lost of Delta water rights and concern that the Delta counties don’t have enough voice on the proposed bureaucracies.

Solano Supervisor Mike Reagan: A useful event to education the business community on the skin they have in the game locally.