Jerry McNerney

Existing law, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009, declares that the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) is a critically important natural resource for California and the nation and it serves as both the hub of the California water system and the most valuable estuary and wetland ecosystem on the west coast of North and South America. Existing law establishes in the Natural Resources Agency the Department of Water Resources. Existing law requires the department and the Department of Fish and Wildlife to determine the principal options for the Delta and requires the department to evaluate and comparatively rate each option for its ability to do specified things, including, among others, to maintain Delta water quality for Delta users, and to preserve, protect, and improve Delta levees. Existing law establishes in the agency the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy. Existing law requires the conservancy to act as a primary state agency to implement ecosystem restoration in the Delta and to support efforts that advance environmental protection and the economic well-being of Delta residents. Existing law provides for the preservation of specified management areas of the Suisun Marsh, pursuant to a protection plan prepared and adopted by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, as provided. Existing law establishes the Delta Stewardship Council, and requires the council to develop, adopt, and implement a comprehensive long-term management plan for the Delta, known as the Delta Plan, as provided.

This bill would establish the Delta Levees and Canal Subsidence Fund in the State Treasury and, upon appropriation, would make the moneys in the fund available to the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency for expenditure consistent with the allocations described below. The bill would authorize the secretary to seek out, and the fund to accept, state moneys from, among other sources, any bond funds, the General Fund, or the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The bill would authorize the fund to accept moneys from nonstate sources, including federal and private moneys, and would continuously appropriate those moneys without regard to fiscal year, for allocation as described below, thereby making an appropriation. The bill would require the secretary to allocate moneys in the fund, as specified, subject to funding availability, as follows: (1) to the Department of Water Resources for the purposes of supporting capital improvements to restore the original design water conveyance capacity for state water conveyance systems, as defined, impacted operationally by land subsidence, and (2) to the conservancy for projects in the Delta or Suisun Marsh to improve existing levees, as specified. The bill would authorize the conservancy to impose additional requirements on projects to meet the conditions of the funding source, as provided. The bill would prohibit these moneys from being expended to pay the costs of the design, construction, operation, mitigation, or maintenance of any additional Delta conveyance facilities, as provided. The bill would require the secretary, no later than January 1, 2032, and by January 1 every 5 years thereafter, to report to the Legislature on expenditures, as provided. 

This bill would require the conservancy, before expending funds for any project in the Delta or Suisun Marsh, as described above, to prepare an annual spending plan, require the governing board of the conservancy to approve the spending plan, and require the spending plan to detail the projects the conservancy intends to fund in that fiscal year. The bill would also require the conservancy to publish the spending plan on its internet website, allow at least 45 days for public comment on the spending plan, and hold at least one community meeting on the spending plan before it is approved by the governing board. The bill would also require the conservancy, in conjunction with the council and the department, to develop a 5-year spending plan to improve existing levees in the Delta and would require the conservancy to publish the plan on its internet website.

This bill would also require the department to provide a report to the budget committees of the Assembly and Senate no later than May 1, 2027, and biennially thereafter, that contains a 5-year spending plan detailing the engineering and capital improvements necessary to address state water conveyance systems impacted operationally by land subsidence, as provided. The bill would authorize the department to charge the state water supply contractors for the actual and reasonable cost of developing the plan.