State Water Board releases flawed Bay-Delta Plan updates just prior to the Holidays

Just in time for the Holidays, the State Water Resources Control Board staff on Friday released for public review and comment a controversial revised draft of updates to the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Watershed, also known as the Bay-Delta Plan.

The Newsom Administration celebrated the release of the updates as offering pathways to improve conditions for imperiled fish and wildlife, while Tribes, fishing groups and environmental organizations said the plan would in fact further degrade conditions for salmon and other fish by relying on unenforceable voluntary agreements.

The State Water Board’s proposed updates include two distinct pathways for water users and agencies to comply with water quality requirements: one that incorporates voluntary agreements (VAs) proposed by some state and federal agencies and other water users, known as the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program, and a regulatory pathway for those who are not parties to approved VAs. “Both pathways will create legally enforceable requirements,” according to a statement from the Board.

The Board also claimed the proposal “incorporates tribal beneficial uses and formally designates Tribal Tradition and Culture beneficial uses in the watershed in recognition of the intrinsic connection between native fish populations—including salmon—and tribal tradition and culture.” 

“The proposed updates to the Bay-Delta Plan would improve conditions for fish and wildlife through a combination of flow and habitat measures while considering the needs of cities, towns and farms,” said State Water Board Executive Director Eric Oppenheimer. “It reflects a holistic approach to the Bay-Delta that leverages cooperation to advance ecosystem benefits as soon as possible.”  

The 3,322 page update is critical for ensuring water quality, river flows, and ecosystem protections for the state’s largest and most endangered estuary and watershed at a time when the estuary is in its biggest-ever ecological crisis, with Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations collapsing.

For seven years in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl Survey of the Delta has failed to catch a single Delta smelt. The smelt, an indicator species found only in the Delta that has been blasted as a “worthless fish” by President Trump and his corporate agribusiness allies, was once the most abundant fish in the entire estuary.

In response to the release of the documents, advocates for the Bay-Delta Estuary pointed out that release of the draft regulatory text and updated environmental analysis across 13 different documents just one week before the holiday amounts to “an inequitable approach that effectively reduces time for advocates with limited resources and capacity to review the draft plan compared with well-resourced water districts.” 

In a press statement, a coalition of Tribes, fishing groups warn that the updated draft plan:

• “Would likely result in a net increase in water diversions and worse environmental conditions than we see today;
• “Includes weak, nonbinding language on habitat restoration and monitoring;
• “Could set a dangerous precedent enabling major water-infrastructure projects (such as the Sites Reservoir or the Delta Conveyance Tunnel) to circumvent regulatory flow standards;
• ‘Advances eight years of “voluntary agreements” to determine river and estuary flows and water operations that will not protect the ecosystem;
• ‘Relies on pledges from the federal government despite new Trump rules to maximize water exports.” 

“A key component of the plan are the State’s proposed voluntary agreements (VAs), privately negotiated deals in which powerful water districts offer limited or illusory flow commitments and funding in exchange for exemptions from stronger regulatory requirements. Tribal groups, environmental justice organizations, fishing advocates, and conservation groups say the Governor’s VA is not scientifically sound and lacks adequate, enforceable protections, especially in light of new Trump orders for Delta pumping,” the advocates added.

The advocates also say the Board’s advancement of the VA framework has reignited longstanding tensions over California’s management of the Bay-Delta ecosystem. 

With commercial salmon fishing closed in California waters for the third year in a row, due to the collapse of the Sacramento and Klamath River fall-run Chinook salmon populations, advocates contend the estuary “cannot withstand further reductions in river flows or delays in implementing stronger protections.”

“State and federal fish and wildlife agencies have repeatedly warned that existing flow standards are failing to support native species, including Chinook Salmon, Longfin Smelt, and White Sturgeon. Opponents argue the revised Bay-Delta plan would exacerbate declines by increasing net water diversions while offering only vague assurances regarding habitat restoration and monitoring and would also exacerbate toxic algal bloom problems in the watershed,” the groups wrote.   

Tribal and environmental justice advocates further describe the VA framework as
”inequitable,” noting that allowing large water diverters to opt out of regulation through private agreements threatens Tribal communities, Delta residents, and the ecological health of San Francisco Bay, the Delta, and their watershed.

Representatives of Tribes, fishing groups and environmental organizations commented on the release of the badly flawed plan just prior to the Holidays.

"The Board is supposed to be a science-based agency committed to racial equity and tribal reparations,” said Malissa Tayaba, Vice Chair of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. “If that were true however, the Board would reject the Voluntary Agreements, which are not based on the best available science and would harm tribes and environmental justice communities. We need regulation and funding to protect the rivers and the Delta and to ensure that tribal beneficial uses of water are established quickly and given full legal force.” 

In a similar vein, Gary Mulcahy, Government Liaison with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, said, “It is clear that the SWRCB is continuing its inclusion of the Voluntary Agreements proposals despite the fact that there is a Title VI Civil Rights complaint filed against them, in part, for doing just that.”

“The VAs have been in process now for over 9 years, and have failed to include EJ Communities, Disadvantaged Communities, and California Tribes in their planning and implementation processes. a clear violation of the civil rights of those groups who will be significantly affected by their actions. The Water Board is now saying, you need to talk to the Tribes, but that is the old term of a day late and a dollar short – 10 years after the VAs began planning,” 

Vance Staplin, Executive Director, Golden State Salmon Association, discussed the impact that the premature release of these rules would have on the salmon fishing industry at a time when the Bureau of Reclamation is planning to export more water from the Delta for corporate agribusiness interests. 

"The federal government is pumping more water to their rich farmer friends and now the state is proposing a plan that allows the feds to continue sucking the rivers and Delta dry at the expense of salmon, communities, and the fishing industry. The feds are running roughshod over the water rules at the expense of the billion dollar salmon industry and the state is about to give them a pass to let them continue doing that,” said Staplin.

Chris Shutes, Executive Director, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, also pinpointed the impact the release of the inadequate rules will have upon the recreational and commercial fishing industries. 

“It took Water Board documents 15 years to dilute large flow increases to almost none at all. Less water means less fish,” Shutes observed. “Most fishing outside of reservoirs will move out of state, except for boutique fisheries available to the wealthy few.” 

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director, Restore the Delta, confirmed, “We are disappointed that the concerns and needs of Tribes and Delta communities continue to be ignored by the Board in Bay-Delta Planning. With the ongoing collapse of Federal water standards, protecting communities and Tribes from disparate impacts should be the top priority of the Board — and that includes salmon protection.”  

Eric Buescher, Managing Attorney, San Francisco Baykeeper, also commented on the inadequate plan.

“The most recent draft Bay-Delta plan continues the Board's decades long and continuing failure to ensure that the state's foundational flow and water quality requirements for the Bay-Delta are sufficient to protect fisheries, endangered species, communities, and the Bay's ecosystem. The Board's draft today is inconsistent with years of its own statements and analysis, and its hollow attempt to justify its failure to do its job is shameful." 

Finally, Gary Bobker, Program Director, Friends of the River, slammed the draft plan released by Board staff for caving to the state’s irrigators that have diverted vast quantities of water from the river and estuary for decades.

“Two decades after acknowledging that native fish and wildlife populations, the food web, water quality, and commercial fisheries were declining dramatically and at risk of collapsing in the Bay-Delta estuary, the State Water Board is releasing a draft plan that essentially gives up the fight and hands the keys to the water districts whose excessive diversions have been driving the ecosystem collapse in the first place. But it's still possible for the Board members to change course and require the flows needed to save the estuary – if they are willing to step up and accept the responsibility they are charged with under state and federal law,” Bobker concluded.

The State Water Board will receive public comments on the December 2025 revised draft updates to the Bay-Delta Plan and Chapter 13 of the draft Staff Report in writing by February 2, 2026, and orally at a multiday public hearing on January 28, 29, and 30, 2026.  

More information about the proposed Bay-Delta Plan update is available on the board’s website.

The changes in the plan are focused on the portions of the Plan relevant to the Sacramento River watershed, Delta eastside tributaries (including the Calaveras, Cosumnes, and Mokelumne Rivers), and Delta (Sacramento/Delta) for the ”reasonable protection” of fish and wildlife beneficial uses, according to the Board.

In addition, the Board is conducting a limited recirculation of the draft Staff Report/Substitute Environmental Document (Staff Report) in support of Sacramento/Delta updates to the Bay-Delta Plan by releasing a new chapter (Chapter 13) for public review and comment.