Bay Delta Plan Update
Draft San Joaquin River Flow and Southern Delta
Salinity Requirements Released for Public Comment

The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) is releasing proposed revisions to the flow requirements for the San Joaquin River and its tributaries (Merced, Stanislaus and Tuolumne) to protect fish and wildlife, and salinity requirements to protect Southern Delta agriculture.

The State Water Board periodically updates the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta Plan) to protect municipal, industrial, agricultural, and fish and wildlife beneficial uses.  

The Bay-Delta Plan identifies the beneficial uses of water, water quality objectives to protect the uses, and a program of implementation to achieve the objectives.  

The proposed revisions reflect the first phase of effort to update the Bay-Delta Plan (last updated in 2006).  

Phase II of the State Water Board’s Bay-Delta Plan update will address the rest of the Bay-Delta Plan and ensure that the substantial body of information developed through the Bay-Delta Conservation Planning effort is fully considered in the State Water Board’s update process.

A public comment period began Monday on the proposed revisions and ends March 5, 2013. A workshop to discuss the proposed revisions is set to begin on March 20, 2013.

For more information, and to see the documents out for public review, please visit:
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/bay_delta_plan/water_quality_control_planning/2012_sed/ .

A fact sheet on this can be found at: http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/bay_delta_plan/water_quality_control_planning/2012_sed/docs/sjr_factsheet2012.pdf .

What is being released for public review and comment:

• Proposed revisions to the flow objectives for the San Joaquin River and its salmon-bearing tributaries and salinity objectives for the Southern Delta.
• A draft Substitute Environmental Document that describes the potential environmental effects of the flow and salinity alternatives that were considered.