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Tribes and environmental groups urge board to reject voluntary agreements, press for higher regulatory flows
Summary
Tribal leaders, environmental groups and fishery organizations told the State Water Resources Control Board during the Jan. 23 workshop that the voluntary agreements (VAs) cannot replace legally enforceable regulatory protections and urged the board to adopt stronger flow safeguards — including explicit tribal beneficial uses.
Tribal leaders, environmental organizations and fishing groups used the Jan. 23 workshop to press the State Water Resources Control Board to reject privately negotiated Voluntary Agreements as the primary means of updating the Bay‑Delta Plan, arguing the VA process lacks transparency and legal safeguards and will not deliver sufficient protected flows.
Why it matters: Tribes and environmental groups said VA signatories negotiated outside broad public participation, creating a risk that VA flows will be added on top of a diminished regulatory base and will be eroded by new diversions. They urged adoption of clearer, enforceable regulatory standards and explicit recognition of tribal beneficial uses.
Key testimony and claims - Stephanie Prufer, student attorney for the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition (DTEC), told the board the VA process "flies in the face of the Board's commitments to doing better to tribes and disadvantaged communities" and criticized the VA negotiation process as exclusionary. - Max Gomberg (Speaks for the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians) and other tribal speakers asked the board to adopt tribal beneficial uses and establish meaningful, formal consultation that goes beyond VA monitoring committees. - Restore the Delta and Bay‑area environmental groups urged immediate regulatory action to prevent further ecosystem collapse and cited an EPA letter (on the record) that flagged harms to tribes from lost fish and toxic algal blooms. - Fisheries representatives said VA commitments are generally small additions to a base of largely unprotected flows and warned that new diversions could capture most or all VA benefits if the board does not adopt protective regulatory backstops.
Legal and equity concerns Speakers repeatedly raised legal and procedural questions about delegation of water‑quality authority. A DTEC speaker argued the board could unlawfully delegate the legislature's entrusted responsibilities to regulated parties if it relied on negotiated VA language in lieu of binding regulations. Several presenters emphasized that the VA parties had not adequately engaged tribes and disadvantaged communities and urged formal recognition of tribal beneficial uses and stronger monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
Representative excerpt "The VAs are a result of processes that are deeply exclusionary," said Stephanie Prufer of the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition. "Creating a vague suggestion of tribal engagement does not resolve the problem that the VAs were crafted without the knowledge and without the consent of tribes."
Closing: what advocates asked the board to do Tribal and environmental speakers urged the board to adopt enforceable water‑quality objectives that protect the Delta's ecological health and tribal beneficial uses, to prioritize regulatory approaches that lock in flow protections, and to keep VA measures strictly supplemental to, not replacements for, regulatory minimums.
