State extends deadline for river flow comments

Critics and supporters have two extra months to comment on the state plan to increase flows on the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers – a move aimed at finding compromise.

The State Water Resources Control Board changed the deadline for written comments from Jan. 17 to March 17. The last chance for oral testimony remains Tuesday in Sacramento.

Board chairwoman Felicia Marcus, in a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, said the extension would help with efforts to reach agreements among interested parties on managing the three rivers.

“Many commenters asked for extensions of the public comment period in order to create space for negotiations,” she wrote.

The state has proposed roughly doubling the river volumes from February through June each year to help salmon and other fish and reduce salinity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The board staff estimated a 14 percent drop in river supplies in average years and 38 percent in “critically dry” years.

Farmers and other opponents have urged non-flow measures such as restoring spawning gravel and reducing predation by non-native bass. The board also heard from fishing and environmental groups seeking even higher flows to repair damage from a century-plus of water diversion.

The Merced Irrigation District already has completed its written comments “based on the existing extremely short timeframe we were given,” spokesman Mike Jensen said by email.

“If anything, we hope (the extension) is a sign that the State Water Resources Control Board might be hearing what we and our community have been trying to tell them: This plan will destroy our community without improving the salmon life cycle – and there is a better way.”

The state released the plan in September with a Nov. 15 written comment deadline. That was extended to Jan. 17 and now will run to St. Patrick’s Day.

The hearings started Nov. 29 in Sacramento and moved this month to Stockton, Modesto and Merced. Hundreds of people turned out at each session, most of them farmers opposed to the plan.

Local officials also complained that past offers of compromise were ignored in Sacramento. The governor wrote a September letter urging a renewed effort, and Marcus shared the sentiment in the latest correspondence.

“We have received extensive, thoughtful oral comments,” she wrote, adding that the river agreements “can reduce uncertainty, be more durable and be implemented more quickly than traditional regulatory processes.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2016 at 1:13 PM with the headline "State extends deadline for river flow comments."