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Local water agencies and cities back Healthy Rivers & Landscapes, warn unimpaired‑flow rules could reduce supplies
Summary
Municipal and county water officials, particularly from Solano County and municipal utilities that rely on Lake Berryessa and Delta water, told the State Water Board they endorse the Healthy Rivers & Landscapes pathway and warned the board that a shift to draft unimpaired‑flow regulatory thresholds could cause major water‑supply shortfalls.
Local and regional water agencies, municipal utilities and many business groups told the State Water Board they favor the Healthy Rivers & Landscapes (HRL) pathway and urged caution on an unimpaired‑flow regulatory pathway as drafted in the staff Program of Implementation.
Why it matters: multiple municipal systems and county water agencies — especially in Solano County — said the unimpaired flows options described by staff would materially reduce their reliable surface water supply, potentially forcing large followings of irrigated acreage, raising municipal costs and interfering with local plans for housing and public services.
Who spoke and what they said - Steven Peng (Association of California Water Agencies) said ACWA "strongly recommends that the state water board identify the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program as a pathway for updating the Bay Delta plan" and urged inclusion of HRL governance, science and funding components in a revised draft. - Alex Grama and other Solano County officials described major local impacts if the draft’s cold‑water and outflow concepts proceed as written; Solano county speakers said loss of Lake Berryessa allocations would endanger municipal supplies and affordable housing plans in the county. - City water officials (Fairfield, Vallejo and others) and the Solano Irrigation District urged the board to preserve flexibility and to recognize wastewater reuse, groundwater recharge and local drought‑resilience projects as part of a balanced pathway.
Recycled water and wastewater treatment Several wastewater utilities said the draft did not clearly account for recycled‑water projects and urged staff to analyze how reclaimed water has been modeled and whether recycled water policies (e.g., Water Code §1211 approvals) are consistent with any adopted regulatory scenarios. Sacramento‑area utilities stressed that large reclaimed projects such as Harvest Water were already under state award conditions and need to be included in modeling and accounting.
Local requests to staff Speakers from Solano and other municipal utilities asked staff for: (1) project‑level analyses or stress tests showing likely supply impacts from unimpaired flows; (2) a clearer statement about how recycled water projects were modeled or assumed in alternatives; (3) an accounting of cold‑water storage requirements and potential operational responses to protect temperature for anadromous fish.
Representative excerpt "ACWA strongly recommends that the state water board identify the healthy rivers and landscapes program as a pathway for updating the Bay Delta plan," Steven Peng told the board during the public comment period.
Ending: follow up asked Local agencies said they will participate in staff‑led technical working meetings, provide modeling data and requested explicit staff responses to questions about recycled water, cold‑water pool assumptions and stress‑test results before the board adopts regulatory language.
