5 . A Crisis of Confidence : Shifting Stakeholder Perspectives on the Delta

By December 2004, the decade-old truce between water users and environmental groups, forged at the beginning of the CALFED process, was all but over. This truce—epitomized by the CALFED motto that “everyone would get better together”—had always been a fragile one, with continuing differences over priorities for the Delta within the CALFED investment portfolio. Disagreements had escalated over the course of 2003, as conflicts arose over a water user proposal to increase Delta export levels. Then, through the summer and fall of 2004, concerns surfaced in quick succession over the viability of two central CALFED components: the stability of the levee system and the protection of native fish. Several months after a highly publicized levee failure on Lower Jones Tract drew attention to Delta flood risks, a new analysis of the systemic long-term risks to Delta levees was reported at the October CALFED Science Conference (Leavenworth, 2004a, 2004b, 2004c). Meanwhile, routine fall fish surveys registered sharp declines in several pelagic species, including the threatened delta smelt.1 The CALFED 10-year finance plan, released in early December 2004, increased the intensity of this storm. The $8 billion plan drew immediate fire from legislators and stakeholders, who criticized it for being either unrealistic or unfair (Taugher, 2004). The plan proposed to substantially increase financial contributions from the federal government and water users, both of which had been much lower than anticipated when the CALFED ROD was signed in 2000 (CALFED, 2004a). In a sense, the 10-