Defying water suppliers, Palo Alto backs Bay-Delta Plan

Photo: Wapama Falls, far left, flows into the 117-billion-gallon Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite, the source of 85 percent of Palo Alto’s water supply. Photo by Veronica Weber.

Palo Alto plunged into the fierce debate over California’s water policies on Monday night, when the City Council voiced unanimous support for the amended Bay-Delta Plan despite objections from the city’s water suppliers and its own Utilities Department.

The council sided squarely with Palo Alto’s environmentalists, led by former Mayor Peter Drekmeier, who are pitted in this debate against the office of Gov. Jerry Brown, state Sen. Jerry Hill, the city’s own Utilities Department and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC).

The latter group — along with the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency (BAWSCA), the alliance of 26 cities on the Peninsula and in Alameda County that draw their water from the San Francisco agency — prefers to allow water agencies to negotiate settlements with the state over water-conservation measures. Both SFPUC and BAWSCA came out against the amended Bay-Delta plan, which the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) released in early July and which was the subject of two public hearings this week.

Brown has not weighed in on SFPUC’s specific alternative, though his office supports the idea of letting water districts reach settlements with the State Water Board.

The new plan focuses on the lower San Joaquin River and its three tributaries, the Stanislaus, Merced and Tuolumne rivers. The Tuolumne River, which flows from the high Sierra Nevada to Central Valley, also provides water for the Hetch Hetchy system that supplies 85 percent of the SFPUC’s potable water. (The State Water Board is working on a separate plan for the Sacramento River and its tributaries.)

Specifically, the amended Bay-Delta Plan would require […]

Full article: Defying water suppliers, Palo Alto backs Bay-Delta Plan

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