Delta stakeholders press State Water Board to cancel DWR petitions, update Bay-Delta Plan and fix virtual hearing security

Speakers at Tuesday’s State Water Resources Control Board meeting in Sacramento urged the board to cancel pending water-right petitions for the Delta Conveyance Project and accelerate an overdue update to the Bay‑Delta Plan while demanding better safeguards for virtual public hearings.

Delta advocates and fishery and environmental groups pressed the board during public comment, saying the Department of Water Resources has failed to provide information the Administrative Hearings Office (AHO) ordered and that proceeding without that information prejudices protesting parties. “DWR has had ample opportunity in time to provide the information requested by the AHO … but now have failed twice to meet these deadlines,” said Morgan Snyder, policy analyst with Restore the Delta. Snyder and other speakers asked the board to act on a March 19 motion to cancel the permits under Water Code procedures.

The issue matters because the AHO previously ordered DWR to supply material the hearing officer deemed necessary to resolve contested claims. “Water Code section 1701.4 provides that when an applicant fails to comply with a request for information under 1701.3, the board shall cancel the petition,” said Eric Buscher, managing attorney at San Francisco Baykeeper, urging the board to act quickly to protect protesting parties’ rights. Protesters and environmental groups said moving forward without the ordered information will leave an “incomplete picture” of environmental impacts and harm Delta communities, tribes and fisheries.

Speakers also criticized the board’s continued consideration of voluntary agreements with water exporters while the Bay‑Delta Plan remains outdated. “The Bay Delta plan needs to be updated,” said Spencer Fern, Delta Science program manager with Restore the Delta, citing harmful algal blooms, rising salinity and declining salmon returns. Multiple speakers cited large, long‑running economic and cultural stakes tied to fisheries and recreation in the Delta and said the board’s delay has real consequences for local jobs and health.

Public participation and remote‑hearing security were also central concerns. Chair Joaquin Esquivel opened public forum by acknowledging a disruptive March 24 event at an AHO hearing, saying an investigation found board accounts were not compromised and that permissive settings at the hearings office had allowed the disruption. “What happened last week was not meeting that standard,” Esquivel said, and staff training and yearly security reviews are planned.

Multiple speakers — including Mackenzie Owens and Ashley Castaneda of Restore the Delta, Roger Mammon of the West Delta chapter of the California Striped Bass Association, and Barbara Berrigan Perea — said the March 24 disturbance and subsequent communications failures discouraged public participation and disproportionately affected seniors, Tribal representatives and frontline community members. Protest organizers said many who signed up to speak were prevented from doing so and that some outreach emails were inconsistently delivered.

Advocates asked the board to publish a full, transparent accounting of the March 24 incident, explain what went wrong, and spell out remedial steps and timelines. “Following the Zoom bombing incident, the public was left without any notice for two hours,” Ashley Castaneda said. She and others urged a public report documenting why the incident happened and how the board will remedy its effects.

Board counsel Michael Laufer reminded commenters of ex parte rules for matters pending before the AHO and said public forum remarks should avoid issues that would improperly influence an adjudicative proceeding. He said public comment on the Zoom incident and calls for the board to take up specific motions are appropriate; comment on matters that remain exclusively within the AHO’s delegated authority is not.

Several organizations — including Friends of the River, Golden State Salmon Association and Restore the Delta — explicitly asked the board to consider cancelling the DWR petitions and to prioritize numeric flow and water‑quality objectives in the Bay‑Delta Plan update. Speakers repeatedly urged the board to act on a pending Title VI complaint and on other outstanding items they said have sat too long without resolution.

The board did not take final action on the Delta Conveyance petitions at the meeting. Staff noted they will follow up on security training and procedural questions; several petitioners urged the board to act on motions before the board to protect the integrity of the hearing process and to avoid political interference in substantively adjudicated matters.

The public comment period on these items and related AHO matters will continue to appear on future agendas as the board and the AHO sort jurisdictional and procedural issues raised by the parties.

Ending: Commenters asked the board to produce an explicit plan and timetable for (1) a public accounting of the March 24 disruption, (2) technical and procedural fixes to remote hearings, and (3) decisive action on the motion to cancel DWR’s petitions or other steps that ensure petitioners supply AHO‑ordered materials before evidentiary hearings proceed.