Delta oversight panel already being undermined, lawmakers fear
By: Alex Breitler

Appointments to a new council overseeing the Delta are coming "very, very soon," the Schwarzenegger administration said Tuesday.

But in the meantime, the state has already transferred employees into the new bureaucracy, and is seeking contractors to write an important plan for the estuary - actions which lawmakers say undermine the Delta Stewardship Council before its members have even been seated.

"The concern that I feel strongly about is ... whether this council is going to be truly independent. Right now it's reversed. The agencies are driving the train," state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, said during a legislative oversight hearing Tuesday.

In a prepared statement afterward, Wolk said her "worst fears were confirmed" and that the seven-member council is "being put into a position of doing little more than rubber stamping decisions made by other agencies."

California Secretary for Resources Lester Snow told legislators that the council, once seated, will decide whether to accept what the state has done so far or start fresh. The state has acted now because of strict timelines contained in the legislation passed in November, he said.

"There is absolutely no question where authority lies, and it lies with the council," Snow said.

But a parallel process also is moving quickly. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which could endorse a peripheral canal or tunnel to send water past rather than through the Delta, may be drafted by this fall.

The Delta council would be required to fold the Bay Delta plan into its own document, provided the former passes muster with wildlife officials.

The Bay Delta plan is moving so quickly that its draft could be completed at the same time, or even before, experts can determine how much water the Delta ecosystem actually needs. That information, mandated by last year's legislation, is supposed to contribute to the conservation plan.

"This is a 50-year plan, so it needs to be done right, not rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline," Wolk said.

One of the seven Delta council members is already known: Sacramento County Supervisor Don Nottoli, by virtue of his service on the Delta Protection Commission.

Four more will be appointed by the governor and two by the Legislature. Reports indicate the state Assembly appointee will be Gloria Gray, a retired hospital administrator who serves as a board member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.