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San Joaquin River
Restoration

San Joaquin Historic Settlement Information

	Chris Acree, Executive Director  chris.acree@revivethesanjoaquin.org Dear Revive the San Joaquin Member, We would like to announce and welcome Chris Acree as Revive the San Joaquin's Executive Director. Chris began work the first week of April
and has been extremely busy from the first day on the job. He has made many contacts, attended numerous meetings, toured the river with other stakeholder groups and met with numerous agencies and organizations involved in the Settlement Agreement.

Chris is a University of California Davis graduate with a B.S. degree in Environmental and Resource Sciences with Hydrology as a Major Emphasis. For seven years, Chris was a Senior Air Pollution Control Specialist with San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. Other professional experiences include: Environmental Program Coordinator for Mariposa, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Inyo and Mono Counties; County of Fresno Public Works and Planning Resources Department; UC Davis Outdoor Adventures Senior Rock-Climbing Guide; and Western Environmental Consultants Urban Forestry contract work for P.G. & E. and SMUD.

Chris was appointed to the County of Fresno Planning Commission in July 2006 and County of Fresno San Joaquin Valley Water Coalition Council in August 2005. He has volunteered for the Sierra Club, Tehipite Chapter, California State Democratic Convention, California Wild Heritage Campaign, Committee to Save the Kings River, UC Davis Hydrology Department and San Joaquin River Parkway.

Revive the San Joaquin's ability to represent our community in the restoration process will be greatly strengthened by the experience, knowledge and energy Chris brings to our organization.

Sincerely,

George Folsom
Chairman
Revive the San Joaquin

A Newspaper Article from Chris:

CHRIS ACREE: We must be good stewards of San Joaquin
By Chris Acree 07/14/07 04:24:04

The San Joaquin River is the most important geographic and economic feature of the San Joaquin Valley. Its flows have been coined as "the hardest working water in the world," since they provide hydroelectric power, drinking water for cities, recreation and irrigation for the world's most productive agricultural lands.

In all this utility, however, we have neglected our responsibilities of resource stewardship, and we have lost the river itself. We seem to have forgotten the value that a healthy, functioning river can provide as a public resource. Just as forestry has evolved to manage logging, wildlife habitat and recreation simultaneously, we must also learn to manage our rivers for their many beneficial uses.

The San Joaquin River has been diverted and re-arranged primarily to meet agricultural irrigation needs. The plentiful water from the San Joaquin watershed winds its way down the Sierra and finishes its course just below Fresno at Gravelly Ford, where the river runs dry in all but the wettest years. In the early 1900s, you could find Fresno mayors arguing for "permanent navigation," as diversion dams increasingly impeded access of riverboats traveling from the San Francisco Bay to the trading ports near Fresno.

Prosperity project

In 1933, the California Legislature narrowly approved the Central Valley Project "despite the unfortunate shortsighted and bitter antagonism of interests and persons who have not hesitated to distort the facts regarding this great 'prosperity project,' " as Gov. James Rolph described the battle. With California unable to raise the money to finance the project during the Great Depression, the federal government took over in 1935, and two years later, construction began.

At mid-century, the completion of Friant Dam marked the end of much of the downstream river habitat, including a vibrant annual run of an estimated 100,000 Chinook salmon. As water stopped flowing to the San Joaquin, it didn't take long for downstream users to realize that Friant Dam had failed to produce the water and electricity promised by the federal government.

Today the focus is on improving water delivery, restoring the San Joaquin River habitat and solving the problems of a dying Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem.

Muddy management

The management of the San Joaquin River as a public resource is muddy, to say the least. Currently the river is managed by no less than 10 different federal and state agencies, each with a different mission and often holding competing interests. Furthermore, the lack of an integrated local or regional management plan for the river has kept local citizens and politicians divided, and kept the fate of the river largely out of our hands.

In 2006, a tenuous legal settlement ended an 18-year lawsuit between environmental groups, water users and government agencies operating Friant Dam. This marked the beginning of a restoration effort that may revive the once-mighty San Joaquin. The broad support of the agreement shows an unprecedented effort by Valley stakeholders, agencies and legislators to come together in the reworking of a struggling water management system.

Creative ideas

Talk of how to best achieve restoration is just beginning, and already some creative ideas have emerged as to how we might come together as a region to solve our current water problems. This could create new opportunities for improved habitat and fisheries, increased recreation, improved water deliveries, increased capacity from existing storage, additional groundwater storage on the Valley floor and maybe even a restored Tulare Lake.

On June 13, I attended a meeting with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a handful of environmental and river interest groups to discuss water needs for California. The governor promoted his Strategic Action Plan, which would provide new surface storage options for California. The river groups promoted increased water conservation and alternate solutions to better manage a water system that provides for the diverse needs of California and its people. A new dialogue is a good first step.

Unproven solution

I support the governor's new Delta Vision task force and involvement in the San Joaquin River Restoration Program. However, a proposal to spend state funds on a dam above Millerton Lake at Temperance Flat is premature, as the federal site feasibility study and environmental documents will not be completed until mid-2009. We cannot afford to spend billions of dollars now on an unproven solution that would take well over a decade to complete. We have the tools today to meet the same water management goals much earlier and at a fraction of the cost.

A unified vision of water management from the San Joaquin Valley has been the missing link during the past century of California water planning. I am encouraged to see that conservation, restoration and cooperation may play an increased role in solving California's water problems. Let's once again become stewards of the San Joaquin River and help rebuild the natural and cultural heritage that has been lost.

Chris Acree of Fresno is executive director of Revive the San Joaquin.