William Fleenor

Drought Curtailment of Water Rights Problems and Technical Solutions

The current drought has focused and renewed discussion about how California curtails water rights when water availability is insufficient. Prior to the 2013-14 water year, the most recent curtailment effort dates back almost 40 years to 1976-77. Since then, many changes and advances have occurred in water use, policies, and technology. New complica...

Agricultural Losses from Salinity in Californias Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Published in San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science

Sea level rise, large-scale flooding, and new conveyance arrangements for water exports may increase future water salinity for local agricultural production in California\textquoterights Sacramento\textendashSan Joaquin Delta. Increasing salinity in crop root zones often decreases crop yields and crop revenues. Salinity effects are nonlinear, and v...

Panel Review of the Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan

American Rivers and The Nature Conservancy convened an independent panel of experts to review the March 2013 draft of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, the state of Californias proposal to build two huge water export tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The panel led by geologist Jeffrey Mount, founding director of the UC Davis Center f...

Fate and Transport of Three Pharmaceuticals in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Published in San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are found in surface waters worldwide. Wastewater treatment plant effluent is a major source of these contaminants. The Sacramento\textendashSan Joaquin Delta (Delta) is a unique aquatic ecosystem, a source of drinking water for over 25 million Californians, and a primary source of water for Centra...

Where the Wild Things Arent Making the Delta a Better Place for Native Species

Published in Public Policy Institute of California

Instructional Manual for the Water Analysis Module (WAM), v.1

The following instructional text is an overview of the tidally- and cross-section-averaged finite element Water Analysis Module (WAM). The model was developed by the Resource Management Associates, Inc. (RMA) as part of the first phase of the Delta Risk Management Strategy (DRMS) program. The document is presented as a set of instructions from whic...

Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Envisioning Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Californias Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is widely perceived to be in crisis today: its levee system is fragile, many of its native species are declining rapidly, and it lacks strong governing institutions to deal with its problems. In its current state, the Delta is unsustainable for almost all stakeholders. This report provides a comprehensive, s...

Simplified 1-D Hydrodynamic and Salinity Transport Modeling of the SacramentoSan Joaquin Delta: Sea Level Rise and Water...

Published in San Francisco Estuary & Watershed Science

Long-term hydrodynamic and salinity transport modeling of the Sacramento\textendashSan Joaquin Delta is needed to evaluate the future Delta in terms of the California co-equal goals of ecosystem health and reliable water supply. While 2-D and 3-D hydrodynamic and water quality models are by definition better suited to modeling a complex network of ...

Stress Relief: Prescriptions for a Healthier Delta Ecosystem

Aquatic Ecosystem Stressors in the SacramentoSan Joaquin Delta

Changing ecosystems: a brief ecological history of the Delta

Predicting Electrical Conductivity in the South Delta using Multivariate Regression

SWRCB Contract 06-447-300 A thorough statistical analysis was performed on a set of data provided by the Water Board to determine the strength of the results presented in the Draft Technical Report for Alternative San Joaquin River Flow and Southern Delta Salinity Objectives (SWRCB 2011). The Water Board had performed a single variable regression o...

Current and Long-Term Effects of Delta Water Quality on Drinking Water Treatment Costs from Disinfection Byproduct Forma...

Published in San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science

Sea level rise and the failure of subsided western islands are likely future conditions for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This study explores the current and long-term effects of changes in the Delta\textquoterights water quality on drinking treatment costs for alternative disinfection and additional disinfection byproduct (DBP) precursor remov...

On developing prescriptions for freshwater flows to sustain desirable fishes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Report to the State Water Resources Control Board regarding flow criteria for the Delta necessary to protect public trust resources, February, 2010. Several methods for developing flow prescriptions to support desirable fish species in the Delta are compared. To be useful, flow prescriptions must respond to the changing characteristics of the Delta...