work for does. The State Water Re- 

 sources Control Board is the water- 

 right agency in California. People 

 that divert water in California 

 have to apply to our agency for an 

 appropriate permit and we then set 

 terms and conditions for those per- 

 mits. In the delta they take the 

 form of water quality standards and 

 export limitations. 



We are also in charge of water 

 quality laws in California. We im- 

 plement not only California water 

 quality laws, but also the Federal 

 Clean Water Act. The board has five- 

 members. Each member is appointed 

 by the governor to a four-year term. 

 In water right proceedings, which are 

 quasi- judicial in nature, you have 

 cross examination of witnesses and 

 the board acts more or less as the 

 judge. In Decision 1485, we had 32 

 very arduous days of testimony pre- 

 sented where we had no fewer than 35 

 participating groups each cross ex- 

 amining each other. It took over two 

 years to accomplish. It is not the 

 type of project you want to do very 

 often, to say the least. In the 

 delta, there are a number of agri- 

 cultural uses on a number of is- 

 lands that are created by the water 

 entering through the delta. There 

 are municipal and industrial uses 

 within the delta. Pittsburg and 

 Antioch also divert water for use 

 within the delta and outside of the 

 delta. There are interests that di- 

 vert water from the center portion 

 of the delta, interests that must 

 manage the productive Suisun Marsh 

 area, interests that manage delta 

 fisheries, and that's all. But 

 that is enough, because we are all 

 looking for the same types of things. 

 So when we hold hearings, we basic- 

 ally invite parties to come together, 

 present the information, and then 

 we try to sort out the facts. The 

 information is presented to us by 



U.S. Water and Power Resources Ser- 

 vice, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, the California Department 

 of Fish and Game and the California 

 Department of Water Resources in the 

 four-agency ecological program. The 

 program has been collecting data in 

 the estuaries since 1959 and probab- 

 ly has the best continuing record of 

 fishery related impacts that exist. 



The history of water develop- 

 ment in California is too great to 

 go into here. I think it will suf- 

 fice to say that the problems have 

 been around since the early 1900' s. 

 Water projects were built in 1945 

 and later supplied water in Califor- 

 nia for inter-basin transfer. It 

 has been a boiling controversy ever 

 since. The things that I might men- 

 tion rather quickly are the fact 

 that we have some laws on the books 

 that help guide how we should devel- 

 op standards. The Delta Protection 

 Act was adopted in the 1950 's and was 

 labeled at the time as being the 

 great law that would tell everybody 

 exactly how much the delta should 

 get or what it is entitled to but 

 not how to provide the water. It 

 becomes an administrative problem 

 to try to provide the water. 



In 1976, we started our delta 

 hearings and we were basically work- 

 ing from a very set stage. We had 

 already issued water right permits 

 for the Central Valley Project and 

 State Water Project. In these per- 

 mits , we have a rather nice clause 

 that the Federal Government is not 

 too crazy about. Basically this 

 is the reserve jurisdication. What 

 we do is we recognize at the outset 

 that we do not know everything there 

 is to know. We adopt standards bas- 

 ed on the imperfect knowledge at all 

 times. We, however, reserve the 

 jurisdiction to change those stan- 

 dards later on. This does nothing 



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