Tom Graff passed away last week after a long battle with cancer. The following is his account of opening up EDF's California office in 1971, as described in "Acorn Days (1990)".

It was sometime in mid-April of 1971, still considerably less than a year after I had ripped up my East Coast roots and taken up residence in a dynamic and pleasant-enough San Francisco law firm, that I received a letter that permanently changed my life. The letter itself was straight-forward and brief. William A. Butler, Washington, D.C., counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, had been given my name by a mutual acquaintance. Mr. Butler inquired if I happened to know anyone who might be interested in helping to open a West Coast office for EDF.

After a day or so of cogitation, I responded by calling Mr. Butler. Tell me more about EDF, I asked. And, by the way, I plan to be visiting D.C. with a client next month. Would it make sense to meet at that time?

An early morning D.C. breakfast get-together several weeks later ensued. Later, the same evening, following a full day of Washington meeting on behalf of the client, I boarded an airplane bound for Islip, which was at that time an airfield far enough out on Long Island to be thought of as rural.

I can't remember who met me at the airport. What I do remember is that I was soon ushered into somebody's living room — I'm not sure just whose — filled with six or seven passionate, articulate, and yes, slightly crazy defenders of the environment.

I surely was not at my best. It had been a long day, and just the day before I had flown cross-country with my client, trying to prepare him for what I knew would be difficult meetings with a phalanx of skeptical bureaucrats. So I can't say I had a terribly good answer when Charlie Wurster grilled me about what my scientific credentials were, or when Art Cooley and Dennis Puleston inquired patiently, was I a birder, a backpacker maybe, did I have any trace of eco-advocacy or even environmental interest in my past?

As a more or les conventional 60's liberal, I could pint to a smattering of good works on my record to go along with a solid Ivy League academic and professional pedigree. Still, my actual litigation experience consisted of one trial in a rural county courthouse (that I ignominiously lost) and a few routine motions. And my political experience, such as it was (a year as a lobbyist for New York City on Capitol Hill) had little bearing on what would be hired to do, namely, to sally forth and wage battle — in accord with EDF's then-motto, "Sue the Bastards" — against the major water and energy utilities of California and the Western United States.

Yet as I was put to bed late that night and early next morning on the drive to Kennedy Airport for my flight home, I dimly recall thinking that, despite my obvious failings as an environmentalist, Rod Cameron was giving me the distinct impression that I would be offered a job helping to open EDF's Berkeley office. Berkeley was the choice primarily because Rod thought the proximity to the university would give us more access to prop bono scientific assistance and to a free first-class law library.

That's what happened. On about August 1, 1971, with me and two professional colleagues (each of us briefly trained in an intense, week long series of encounters with the forefathers on Long Island) and an office manager/secretary, EDF-West opened its doors. My two colleagues had diverse backgrounds. Dr. Gerald H. Meral was a fishery biologist by training, a veteran canoeist and already a dedicated environmentalist as conversant as any about the river-ruining policies of the Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation. Rapids on both the Stanislaus (now hundreds of feet under water) and the Tuolumne Rives in California are named after Jerry, who was one of the first ever to paddle through them.

Michael Palmer was the other lawyer. Aristocratic in bearing, a lawyer's lawyer, and generally a cautious and somewhat introverted man, Michael complemented rather well my more plebian, political, impulsive and extroverted style.

Both Jerry and Mike had been hired independently of me and of each other. Our status was that of three equals; none of us could tell either of the others what to do. By any conventional management standards a prescription for disaster, the system worked quite well, since none of us, except maybe for Jerry, who did have a policy agenda, had much of an idea what made sense to do and what didn't, what a golden opportunity in the early days of NEPA litigation and what was a lost cause.

The first thing the three of us did agree on was who to hire to run the office. We found a recently laid-off Latin teacher named Portia Lee (modern languages were in, Latin was dead), and she proceeded to take us three neophytes under her wing, as she helped turn several dorm rooms on the third floor of a former fraternity house into the august West Coast headquarters of the Environmental Defense Fund.

As I said, we really didn't know a lost cause even when it stared us squarely in the face. The first major issue the office plunged into was the construction of the New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River. Most of the early battles to Save the Stanislaus were waged out of EDF's office, in administrative and judicial litigation quarterbacked by Mike Palmer, with me as frequent understudy. The fact that New Melones was a several hundred million dollar project, duly authorized by Congress, and well into construction by the time we first sued to stop it did not faze us. What mattered to us was that the project made no sense — the waters it backed up still have not been sold seventeen years later – -and that it would drown what was perhaps California's most beautiful and popular white water river.

Several books have since been written about the war over New Melones; none suggest that we ever had a chance. Nevertheless, three years later, a statewide initiative election designed to block its construction was organized by Jerry Meral and a few colleagues. And five years after that, Mark Dubois, an early ally in the struggle and co-founder of Friends of the River (now one of the nation's leading river conservation groups) risked his life in an effort to prevent the New Melones Reservoir from being filled. By hiding himself deep in the canyon and chaining himself to a rock below what would otherwise have been the water line, Mark caused the Corps of Engineers to stop filling the reservoir that year. Unfortunately, a few years later, the spring flood filled the reservoir and mooted the issue.

Among the other projects that we began back in that first year was a piece of litigation which finally had its first substantive evidence taken sixteen years later, in the spring of 1987. Had I been able to predict that future, I guarantee that I would never have filed the suit. We also filed an action that set one of the first important precedents under the California Environmental Quality Act (California's junior NEPA) and two suits which challenged the adding of lead to gasoline, a cause that EDF has long championed, with ever-increasing success, in its Washington, D.C office as well.

Before too long, my original colleagues moved on. Mike Palmer left to resume the private practice of law late in 1973. Jerry Meral left to serve the administration of Governor Jerry Brown in Sacramento as Deputy Director of Water Resources in 1975, and Ph.D. economist extraordinaire, Zach Willey, succeeded Jerry. David Roe, lawyer and author-to-be, arrived a year later, following Dick Gutting, who was Mike Palmer's successor. David's arrival resembled mine, long on promise, short on obvious environmental credentials.

Zach, David and I have served EDF for 48 years combined. The office staff is now younger than we are, although office manager Mary Jane Gallagher has guided our office with distinction for nearly twelve years. Four times over, we are no longer the junior office within the EDF family. But the spirit which the founding trustees and early staff imparted lives on in EDF's West Coast incarnation. With a staff of 15, several of whom — Dan Kirshner, Terry Young and John Krautkraemer — have now also been around EDF for nearly a decade of more, the California office has already set EDF records for experience and longevity.

Who could have predicted anything like that in 1971? Not me.

All of us at the Environmental Defense Fund mourn the passing of Tom Graff, our leader in California for more than 35 years. A public celebration of his life will take place in about a month.

The following account of Tom’s professional life was written by longtime friend and colleague Tom Philp. Readers are invited to share memories of Tom in the comment space below.

Thomas J. Graff
Thomas J. Graff, a Harvard-educated attorney whom California Lawyer once dubbed “The Godfather” for transforming the politics and policies of California water and power through a unique style of litigation and persuasion via his Rolodex of trusted inside connections, has died after a prolonged battle with cancer. Graff was 65.

Graff in 1971 founded the California office of the Environmental Defense Fund. There, he pioneered a new style of environmental activism by hiring PhD economists and computer specialists who developed a mastery of energy and water issues that would rival their many adversaries. Whether by using the courts, regulatory proceedings, legislation or public opinion via national media contacts that he assembled over the years, Graff advanced EDF’s trademark philosophy that embraced a positive role for markets in solving environmental problems.

“If a resource is scarce, we ought to put a price on it that reflects its value,” Graff said in an interview last year. “Otherwise there’s an incentive to over-consume the resource.”

“Tom was the thought leader of a new wave of environmentalism that uses market incentives to solve some of the most intractable environmental problems.” Fred Krupp, president of EDF.

Graff is survived by his loving wife, Sharona Barzilay, daughter Rebecca Graff; son Benjamin Graff; daughter Samantha Graff, son-in-law Miguel Helft, and grandchildren Avi and Rafael Helft, and sister Claudia Bial and her family.

Graff was born in Honduras in January of 1944, the son of German Jewish refugees. He grew up in Syracuse, New York, where he excelled at both academics and athletics even before attending Phillips Exeter Academy. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was a clerk for federal judge Carl McGowan in Washington D.C. and a legislative assistant to New York Mayor John Lindsay before moving in 1970 to California to work for Howard, Prim, Smith, Rice & Downs, a San Francisco law firm.

Graff later would confide that his father wondered if he was “making a big mistake” by leaving a private law practice and launching the California office for the Environmental Defense Fund. But it would not take long for Graff to begin leaving his mark on state resource policy.

Graff laid the groundwork in the 1970s for California to become a world leader in battling climate change by reducing carbon emissions. Concerned about plans of the state’s largest investor-owned utilities to construct a fleet of coal-burning power plants, Graff took on the utilities by challenging rate proposals before the California Public Utilities Commission. This stiff resistance prompted the utilities to abandon coal as a major source of baseline power for California. Years later, in 2006, Graff and EDF were at the center of the effort to pass landmark state legislation (Assembly Bill 32) that would require California by 2020 to cap its total greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels.

But it was California water, from upstream battles on the American River to numerous conflicts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where Graff arguably left his greatest mark on state and federal politics.

With Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Congressman George Miller of Martinez, Graff was a guiding force behind the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1991, a milestone in the environmental movement to protect the Delta.

In terms of policy, the CVPIA established a new accounting system to ensure additional water for the environmental needs of the Delta from the Central Valley Project, which captures water upstream of the Delta via Shasta and Folsom dams and diverts the supplies from the Delta to Central Valley farms and communities via an aqueduct system. The CVPIA also established important ground rules for a “water market” so that the dam and aqueduct system could be used to connect buyers and sellers of water. Graff’s hope was to encourage farmers to both conserve and sell supplies to cities as a more efficient, environmentally-friendly approach to securing new supplies rather than additional, costly reservoir construction.

But in terms of politics, the CVPIA represented a new alliance in political power between the environmental movement and the urban water community, particularly the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Both supported the CVPIA and the concept of water markets.

The CVPIA was staunchly opposed by Central Valley agriculture and would have likely been vetoed by then-president George Herbert Walker Bush had it been a stand-alone bill. But Graff and its authors maneuvered the CVPIA into a broader piece of legislation that was known to be popular with the president, assuring its package. It was one of many moves that develop Graff’s mystique as a master of both politics and policy.

Closer to home in Alameda County, Graff fought his own water provider, the East Bay Municipal Utility District. With its primary supply from the Sierra Nevada’s Mokelumne River, EBMUD had sought a second source above Sacramento from the American River, known for its crystal blue water and abundant fall salmon run. Concerned for the health of the river, Environmental Defense Fund filed suit against EBMUD. Seventeen years later, a landmark decision would designate a baseline environmental flow need for the American River that stands to this day as a benchmark in river policy.

The utility eventually abandoned its effort to divert water upstream on the American River and is now in the final stages of constructing a diversion facility downstream on the Sacramento River with Sacramento County, which along with Environmental Defense Fund had fought EBMUD for years.

Graff spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Sacramento River diversion facility in May of 2007, battling at the time a scratchy throat condition that would later be diagnosed as cancer. In that year he was awarded the Jean Auer Award for a lifetime of service to protecting the Delta, among his many honors. An endowed professorship is in his honor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he had been a guest lecturer.

The years of activism taught Graff that it wasn’t necessarily about winning wars, but avoiding them. “We can not repeat the water wars of the past,” he said in an interview last year. “We have to find a way to work together, or we’ll all lose.”

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Other words of tribute to Tom:
“Without Tom Graff, whose good sense and judgment guided its path, there never would have been a major reform of California’s water law in 1992, the Central Valley Improvement Act. He was also a personal friend and a very special human being.”
Senator Bill Bradley

“On the Central Valley Improvement Act, no person was more important than Tom Graff. It wasn’t just his knowledge of water. It was his knowledge about the stewardship of the environment and what this state had to consider if it really thought about its future.”
Congressman George Miller

“Tom Graff was the architect of the best aspects of California water policy. I hope that his vision on that water policy becomes reality as part of his legacy.”
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom

 Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

As our recent blog highlights , there are many reasons to be pleased about the recent passage of the water policy reform package[1].  As a member of the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan Steering Committee, I think it’s also worth enumerating how the legislation provides significant environmental safeguards for this process.  After all, the BDCP is where new conveyance around the Delta, (otherwise known as the peripheral canal) is being analyzed as part of a habitat conservation plan with the aim of ensuring both water supply reliability and ecosystem recovery.

 What does the legislation mean for the BDCP?

It doesn't authorize a canal.

Many are concerned that the legislation authorizes a peripheral canal.  This is simply not true.  In fact, the legislation includes an important new layer of oversight of the BDCP—the Delta Stewardship Council.  Before it can be implemented, the BDCP will need to demonstrate to the Council that it meets both the water supply reliability and ecosystem recovery goals it  set out to achieve, and will have to consider Council recommendations on both the design and implementation of the Plan (Sec 85320 (g)). In addition, the BDCP will have to show that it is consistent with the overall Delta plan and other existing environmental mandates. The legislation also requires the Department of Fish and Game to report regularly to the Council on results from monitoring and adaptive management to make sure BDCP implementation is moving in a positive direction (Sec 85320 (f)). 

It outlines a process to resolve the instream flow debate.

Another key provision related to the BDCP is the requirement for the State Water Resources Control Board to conduct a public trust needs assessment to determine instream flows for the Bay-Delta (Sec 85085 (c) 1) within nine months of the effective date of the bill.  The BDCP has grappled with this tough question for a few years and still has yet to provide an adequate answer.  These newly developed flow criteria will be informed by biological objectives developed by state and federal fish agencies and will specify the volume, quality and timing of water necessary for a healthy Delta ecosystem under different conditions.  Existing bond moneys will be allocated to strengthen the Board’s ability to make these flow determinations in a timely manner so that they can be incorporated into the development of the BDCP.

It establishes the highest environmental standards for the BDCP.

The legislation requires that the BDCP meet the high recovery standards of the Natural Communities Conservation Planning Act. If the plan doesn’t meet the NCCP standard, no public funding will be allocated to its implementation (Sec 85320 (e)). 

It improves the decision-making ability of the fishery agencies related to water operations

Historically, there has not been an understandable and transparent process that allows the fishery agencies to make necessary decisions to provide flows for fish without, at times, being overruled by the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR). The legislation improves this by requiring that the BDCP include transparent real-time decision-making of water operations that allows the fishery agencies to take protective actions in the Delta so that biological performance objectives are achieved (Sec 85321). More simply put, if it is determined that salmon need more water at a specific time within the prescribed range of flows, the fish agencies, after consultation with DWR and BOR, get to make the ultimate call on the action. I think his is a clear improvement on the way some decisions have been made in the past.

For all these reasons, it’s clear to me that the legislation sets out specific guidelines that hardly make the BDCP or the approval of a canal a slam dunk.  Indeed, the BDCP must complete many critical steps in order for the plan to be approved.  I, for one, think this is a huge step forward and provides necessary direction and oversight that is critically needed. 

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[1] All statutes cited in this document reference sections as created or amended by the November, 2009 legislation.

Laura Harnish is the California Regional Director.
Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF.

Environmental Defense Fund is delighted that the package of water policy reform bills has passed both houses of California’s legislature and will be sent to Governor Schwarzenegger for his signature. We believe this package provides a foundation that will guide environmental protection and sustainable water supply management for many years to come. And we expect that as a result, California’s farms and cities, as well as fisheries in the Bay Delta and Central Valley watershed, will be better off.

Most obviously the legislation establishes a framework for managing the Delta and the rivers that supply it with freshwater. It formally recognizes the importance of the Delta as an ecosystem while acknowledging its role in moving water from north to south. It empowers our Water Board to determine the inflows that are necessary to meet public trust requirements under California law. And the legislation establishes important oversight roles for both the legislature and a newly created Delta Stewardship Council to ensure that any changes to water infrastructure accommodate protection of the Delta and its fisheries.

It is important to realize that the legislation does not authorize a peripheral canal. It does assure, however, that a canal will only be built if important habitats are restored, water exports from the Delta are biologically sustainable, and the beneficiaries of those exports pay the full cost of construction, including environmental mitigation.

The legislation also takes important steps toward achieving our stated goal of reducing per capita water conservation in our cities 20% by 2020, thereby reducing the pressure to withdraw increasing amounts of water from the natural environment.

We are also pleased that the legislation includes provisions to identify and prevent illegal diversions of water, though we regret that the initial language was “watered down”. Similarly, we are pleased that the legislature has finally made progress in moving toward statewide management of groundwater (the source of up to 40% of our overall supply in the driest years), though there is still much work to be done in this area.

Our largest concern is that the legislature passed an 11 billion dollar bond measure along with the policy reform bills. It is important to note that the bond measure does not become effective but will be on the ballot as an initiative in 2010. At that time California’s voters will have the opportunity to decide if we can afford it given our fiscal problems and other competing needs. Moreover, California’s electorate will be asked whether it is good public policy to make these investments as a State or if at least some of the investment decisions should be made with local funds. If approved by the voters, the funds would be used to pay for a variety of environmental, water quality and water supply programs, potentially including controversial dams in the Central Valley. In its place we would have preferred a beneficiary pays fee structure to fund the Council and needed ecosystem restoration efforts in the Delta and left the big dams and water projects to be funded directly by the users.

It would be nice to celebrate – get a six-pack, stroll down the river bank and watch restoration magically take place. But of course the ultimate outcome of this far-reaching legislation will not be known for many years and will depend considerably on how well its provisions are implemented. All stakeholders, including those who opposed the legislation, will need to work together to ensure as it is adopted that our public resources will indeed be protected as intended. The environment that Californians care so deeply about and the legacy we want to leave for our children depend on it.

Cynthia Koehler is Senior Consulting Attorney for EDF.

The California Legislature is on the cusp of voting for an historic water deal. The Senate could vote within the next few days. And as the famous saying goes, there are two things that you don’t want to watch: sausage making and the legislative process. The latest attempted additive to the sausage: an amendment that would jeopardize the long-standing and foundational water law premise that requires that all water use in California be “reasonable” and not wasteful.

For the better part of a century, California–like most of the Western U.S.– has followed the law of “reasonable use,” that requires all water use in the state must be “reasonable” and not wasteful. Conservation of water is at the very heart of any reasonableness determination: “[W]hat is a reasonable use of water depends on the circumstance of each case, [and] such an inquiry cannot be resolved in vacuo isolated from statewide considerations of transcendent importance. Paramount among these we see the ever increasing need for the conservation of water in this state, an inescapable reality of life quite apart from its express recognition in [Art. 10, Sec. 2].” Joslin v MMWD, 67 Cal. 2d 132, 140 (1967).

The water bill under consideration in the California Legislature establishes water conservation targets for urban areas and provides a number of pathways to get there. The Republican alternative bill would provide that the failure to meet those targets could not be used as evidence of waste or unreasonable use of water–forever. In other words, “here’s a conservation target, but don’t worry too much about meeting it, we won’t use it against you…”

Do we truly want to set California on a course for smarter water use, efficiency and conservation or just give it lip service?

Why are some lawmakers trying to prevent the new conservation standards from applying to the long-standing reasonable use and anti-waste rules? The claim is that the conservation targets could lead to a “floodgate of litigation.” But this is not compelling. Water agencies are already required to use water reasonably and to conserve. The State Water Resources Control Board has confirmed that cases challenging water use are extremely rare. Nothing in the proposed bill establishes a new cause of action for lawsuits.

Professors Joe Sax and John Leshy, among the country’s most prominent water law professors have weighed in (PDF) on the waste and reasonable use language. In their view: "Properly, nothing in the bill before you suggests that the mere failure to meet the targets is per se evidence of waste. Similarly nothing should mandate that such failure is per se reasonable"

We hope the Legislature takes heed. There is nothing to gain, and much to lose, from tampering with California’s entirely appropriate reasonable use laws. This amendment is one tainted ingredient in the sausage that we can do without. For more on the unreasonable use and water conservation issue, please read Bettina Boxall’s recent article in the Los Angeles Times.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF.

Groundwater is one of the more contentious aspects of the water reform legislation currently under consideration in Sacramento. Some legislators have indicated that they would not sign the bill if it contains even modest language requiring that groundwater levels be monitored.

This makes no sense to us. Reasonable people may differ on how much groundwater should be pumped in any particular region under certain conditions. But to have no limits at all assures a “race to the bottom”, akin to two hungry kids, each with a straw, sharing a single milkshake. Moreover, where is the incentive for a landowner to replenish groundwater supplies in wet years, if neighbors can extract it with impunity?

As Legislative Analyst Catherine Freeman pointed out at yesterday’s hearing, California is the only state that does not monitor groundwater. The other 49 states understand that good water policy demands some public involvement in groundwater. Given the need to stretch limited supplies among California’s farms, families and fish, and that as much as 40% of statewide supply comes from groundwater in drought years, it is embarrassing that we have no statewide policy for managing groundwater. (Click here for a copy of the LAO's 2008 report on groundwater.)

In much of the State, the groundwater situation is not so dire. Urban districts throughout the State currently “bank” water underground with the Semitropic Water Storage District in Kern County. And landowners and local agencies throughout much of the urban southland have cleaned up groundwater supplies and are working together to manage aquifers sustainably.

But in some areas, groundwater is often described as the “wild west” – i.e. lawless.

The proposed legislation takes only baby steps. It does not regulate groundwater. It seeks only to monitor its use to enable better management and decision-making. To ensure realiable water supply in California, the groundwater element of the legislative package must be retained.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF.

Our water system isn't working for anyone – not for cities, not for farms, and certainly not for fish. For the first time in over a decade, the California legislature has a chance to address our outdated water system and our broken Bay-Delta ecosystem. At the end of the last legislative session, a water policy package was put forward that proposed critical steps needed to provide a resilient water supply for all Californians and badly needed environmental protections as well.

Like others in the environmental community, EDF stretched to come to agreement in Senate Bill 68 as introduced, as it already includes a substantial set of compromises that would not be our first policy choice.

We, nevertheless, supported the package as introduced on September 11th because we believe strongly that its provisions have the potential to break the cycle of conflict and environmental damage that have plagued California’s water management system for decades.

We are pleased to see that the Governor has called for a special legislative session dedicated to passing strong water policy. Our support for a final package is dependent on retention of the following critical elements:

1. Getting enough water into the Bay-Delta – Sets a clear course of action to determine and provide critical water flows for the health and long-term sustainability of the Delta ecosystem.

2. Reducing reliance on the Bay-Delta – A landmark change in policy that shifts from an emphasis on Delta water supply to improving conservation, recycling, and other local sources of water.

3. Tools for halting illegal diversions – Expands the State Water Resources Control Board's authority to halt illegal diversions ensuring fair, smart water use throughout the state

4. Moving the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to environmental success – Details a framework for the BDCP that will help result in stronger protections for the Bay-Delta ecosystem in a timely manner.

5. Ensuring smart groundwater use – Substantially expands groundwater management and monitoring efforts to ensure long-term sustainability.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF.

The 2009 water year ended this week amidst a plethora of activity, conflict and entertainment.

On Tuesday, as NASA rocket scientists were talking water in Pasadena, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart responded to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on the Daily Show.

On Wednesday, PacifiCorp agreed to terms for removing four controversial dams on the Klamath River.

On Thursday, after years of litigation and negotiation spearheaded by our colleagues at NRDC, releases from Friant Dam to the San Joaquin River were made–rewetting a riverbed that is often dry as a result of over-extraction of surface and groundwater supplies.

For followers of the Bay-Delta, the stage shifted to the Department of Interior’s hearing in Washington DC. There was plenty of conflict over the Endangered Species Act, despite letters of support for the law by the California’s Department of Water Resources and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. And both the Obama Administration and Senator Feinstein, as well as we at the Environmental Defense Fund, issues statements in support of review of the ESA’s Biological Opinions by the National Academy of Sciences.

Meanwhile the Obama Administration also recommended that the California Legislature enter into a special session to move forward with reform of water policy in California.

We at EDF hope to make progress on legislation in this new water year as well, and are committed to working with all stakeholders to better manage California’s limited water supplies for our cities, farms and natural environment

And we are hoping “wild and wooly” in 2010 will apply to wet weather and not to policy reform.

Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

After another week of attempts  to weaken the Endangered Species Act, EDF couldn't be happier to see Lester Snow, Director of the State's Department of Water Resources, put his support of the ESA in writing. See his letter to Senator Feinstein, Secretaries Salazar and Locke  here (PDF).  We're hoping to hear the same commitment from Secretary Salazar at the public hearing tomorrow.

Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

The Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) may become the law of the land (and water) as early as 2011. If it does, how well will it protect endangered species? And how much water will be determined to be safely exported to the farms and cities that depend on Delta supplies before any major possible changes to habitat or infrastructure are implemented? Read more »