Banks Pumping Plant, northwest of Tracy.

Courtesy of California Department of Water Resources.

The U.S. Department of Interior accepted comments through December 1, 2009 on a federal interagency plan to deal with the Bay-Delta water crisis.

On September 30, six Federal agencies announced their intent to play a leadership role in ensuring a sustainable water supply and restoring the environmental integrity of the California Bay-Delta ecosystem. Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and the Army, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality, committed to developing a plan by December 15, 2009, that will lay out specific short-term Federal goals and actions in this effort. Federal agencies are committed to developing this plan in a way that ensures open and ongoing communication with the diverse stakeholders in the region.

C-WIN believes that the various federal agencies would have to completely change course on several federal initiatives in order to meet their goals of "ensuring a sustainable water supply and restoring the environmental integrity of the California Bay-Delta ecosystem."

Read C-WIN's comments on the interagency work plan.