Dan Walters: Delta commission faces a new test

Fourteen months ago, just after being invested with new powers over development in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a state commission faced its first test in the form of a controversial residential project on the grounds of a former sugar beet processing plant along the Sacramento River.

The sugar mill project had divided the tiny riverside community of Clarksburg into warring factions, especially since the area's Yolo County supervisor, Mike McGowan, was a pugnacious advocate and, by happenstance, was serving as chairman of the Delta Protection Commission. But after a very lengthy and contentious hearing, the commission blocked the sugar mill development, citing its density and potential flood danger to residents.

The Delta, the West Coast's largest estuary at nearly 500,000 acres and the source of drinking and agricultural water for most of the state, is clearly in crisis. Its multifaceted role as water source, wildlife habitat, agricultural producer, waste water drain and recreational playground – governed haphazardly by dozens of federal, state and local governmental agencies that often work at cross-purposes – is unsustainable under current practices.

The Delta's problems, especially of water quality and fish habitat, have become so acute that the courts are intervening to curtail water extractions; global warming could worsen conditions; and politicians from the governor down have sounded the alarm, calling for a new approach.

A blue-ribbon committee appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a crisis-tinged draft report, legislative hearings are being held and everyone is promising to do something – although exactly what is still being debated.

Last week, the Senate Natural Resources Committee pressed Lester Snow, the state water director, to begin work on some Delta projects even as the debate over the overall state strategy continues, and Snow agreed that "we need to get moving." But with limited funds to fix the Delta's deteriorating levees, Snow said, he may propose that some of the century-old, privately maintained levees that protect some agricultural islands not be shored up because of the heavy costs and, implicitly, the relatively low economic value of the lands involved.

As the Delta debate continues with an uncertain outcome, the owners of the Clarksburg sugar mill have revised their residential project, reducing its size somewhat and proposing ways in which, they say, the flood danger can be mitigated. And last week, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, with McGowan once again taking the lead, gave its blessing to the new version on a 4-1 vote.

That means the project will once again go before the Delta Protection Commission, but this time with the Delta's overall condition receiving much more political and public attention. And this time, the commission may have to face the most vexing issue attached to the project – urbanization of the Delta's "primary zone" that, under state law, is supposed to be free of large-scale development.

The commission more or less skipped that thorny aspect of the conflict over the project, but the proposal's opponents, which include major environmental groups, see in the report of the blue-ribbon Delta commission new ammunition. The report condemns "irresponsible … land use decisions that permit and encourage construction of significant numbers of new residents in the Delta in the face of the flood hazards."

The blue-ribbon commission is mulling the notion of creating an agency that would wield tight land use controls over the Delta, similar to powers held by the state Coastal Commission and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Thus, the sugar mill project shapes up as a new test for the Delta Protection Commission's ability to make tough decisions in the face of pressure from developers and their political surrogates.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters.