In 1994 eighteen state and federal agencies with management or regulatory responsibility over the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta formed a consortium, known as CALFED, to devise a long-range plan that would address concerns over the decline of water quality and the ecology of those areas. The underlying purpose of the CALFED program was “to develop and implement a long-term comprehensive plan that [would] restore ecological health and improve water management for beneficial uses of the Bay-Delta system.” CALFED focused on four primary objectives: ecosystem quality, water supply, water quality, and reduction of the risk of catastrophic breaching of Delta levees.
CALFED staff ultimately concluded that six “common” programs, namely quality, water transfer, watershed, levee system integrity, ecosystem quality, and water use efficiency, had to be combined with two variable components, storage and conveyance, to satisfy the program’s objectives. The water transfer program included an Environmental Water Account to bank excess water when available, for the purpose of aiding protection and recovery of fish beyond that available through existing regulatory actions.
