Schwarzenegger's Water Board Says It Can't Protect Water Quality in California Delta, Central Valley!

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Major Backsliding in Water Quality as California Water Board Acknowledges It Has Less Than a Third of Staff Necessary to Meet Legal Mandates

By Bill Jennings
Executive Director
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA)

The Executive Officer of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board) has acknowledged that the Board is so understaffed that it can't meet its core regulatory mission of protecting the state's water quality.

This stunning admission came during Executive Officer Pamela Creedon's State of the Central Valley Region presentation at the 2 August 2007 meeting of the Board. The Central Valley Region covers nearly 40% of the State's land area, provides drinking water to two-thirds of the state's population and includes reservoirs storing nearly 30 million acre feet of water. According to state reports, virtually all of the waterways within the Region are impaired by an astonishing array of pesticides, metals, salts, pathogens, fertilizers and industrial chemicals.

Ms. Creedon admitted that, based upon a needs assessment, the Board has only: a) 12% of the staff necessary to regulate storm water discharges, b) 16% of those required to regulate dairies, c) 37% necessary to control municipal wastewater discharges, d) 40% of those needed to regulate landfills, e) 26% of those necessary to control discharges of waste to land and f) only 22% of the staff crucial to enforcing conditions of the controversial agricultural waivers. Other Board units are similarly understaffed. For example, the enforcement unit is assigned only 3.5 people, the surface water monitoring and assessment unit has only 2, underground tanks has only 17 of 41 needed, and the Basin Planning unit has only 11 of the 38 necessary to update the Basin Plans that are fundamental to all Board actions. An overview of the staffing shortages is attached at the end of this press release.

The water boards have been systematically deprived of staff necessary to protect water quality and it is simply disingenuous for the administration to suggest that our rivers and streams are being protected given these massive shortfalls. Since Governor Schwarzenegger's election, we've witnessed an appalling u-turn in water quality protection: weakened or nonexistent permits, delayed cleanups and lagging enforcement. Consequently, pollutant loads are rising, waterways are increasingly degraded and fisheries are collapsing. The result is a threat to public health and an embezzlement of our legacy of fish and wildlife.