Southern California water company to get $21 million to transform Delta island

Grazing cattle on an island in the central Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could soon make way for Contra Costa County’s first rice fields and a mosaic of restored wetlands now that its owner has received a $20.9 million state grant.

The company plans to restore nearly 5,000 acres of Webb Tract, including 3,000 in wetlands, 1,500 in rice fields and the rest in other habitats, such as grasslands and scrub.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy Board recently approved funding for the restoration work at Webb Tract, which the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California proposed on land it purchased along with three other islands – Bouldin, Bacon and Holland – for $175 million in 2016. At the time, the district said it could use them to store construction equipment, but critics warned that it would make it easier for the governor’s proposed — and later scrapped — California Water Fix project to send more water to Southern California, with twin tunnels to be built smack in the islands’ pathway.

The new plan to turn one island into wetland and rice fields, however, seemed to get a measure of support all around.

“This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how we can manage the deeply subsided islands of the Delta in a way that stops subsidence and related carbon emissions, maintains agriculture, provides habitat benefits, and – most importantly – improves the long-term economic viability and resilience of the islands,” Delta Conservancy Executive Officer Campbell Ingram said in a statement.

The grant for the project comes from the state Amended Budget Act of 2022, which provided the Delta Conservancy with $36 million for projects that support restoration, conservation and climate resilience for wetlands. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California also will provide $4.4 million in in-kind staff services for planning the project.

Reached only by ferry, Webb Tract is north of Bethel Island and southwest of Bouldin Island. Historically, it had been used to farm corn but is now being leased for cattle grazing. Over the years it has sunk deeply, or subsided, something that happened in many Delta areas as native wetlands were drained in the 19th century for agriculture, resulting in the lowering of the land elevation.

But Lauren Damon, ecological restoration and climate adaptation projects supervisor for the Delta Conservancy, said the Metropolitan project seeks to slow that subsidence by restoring nearly all of Webb Tract.

Transforming the island into wetlands could slow the sinking and may help trap carbon dioxide, reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, according to Metropolitan officials and scientists who study the issues.

“The primary goal of this project is to halt organic soil subsidence and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Damon told the Delta Conservancy board at its May 24 meeting.

The Delta has more than 150,000 acres of deeply subsided or sinking islands that are a contributor to climate change as they produce greenhouse gases and pose flooding risks to communities and agricultural lands in the Delta as sea levels rise, she said.

“Each year the islands continue to oxidize and subside, resulting in increased risk for climate change in play,” Damon said. “This project will achieve its goals by realigning the landscape and converting pasture into restored wetlands and rice crops.”

Damon said planning is already underway for the two-phase project, including designing and permitting followed by construction, which will be over a three-year period, according to company documentation. She also noted that the agency received letters supporting the project from residents, agricultural and environmental organizations, tribal leaders, local reclamation districts and water districts.

“Successful completion of this project will serve as a showcase for other landowners, demonstrating rice and wetlands as mutually beneficial alternatives to the current agricultural practices,” Damon said.

Some board members, however, wanted to make sure the Southern California water company did not use the island to mitigate the proposed Delta Tunnel Project that would divert water from the Sacramento River into a nearby 45-mile tunnel to more easily transport it to Southern California.

But Ingram assured board members that was not possible.

“Essentially, with our public money, we can’t pay for anyone else’s mitigation,” he said. “We have a strong firewall.”

Ingram also noted that the grant monies have a short timeline and must all be obligated by 2025, making the large grant “reasonable.”

“It helps move that money quickly and justifies more in the future,” he said. “ And, it helps so that we can actually step up the pace and scale of restoration that we need to achieve statewide objectives for biodiversity and nature-based solutions and natural working lands.”

Ingram explained that dry agriculture is causing oxidation and continued subsidence of lands like Webb Tract and any “wet” agriculture you can do (like rice fields) stops subsidence and carbon emissions.

“So we’re looking at it as a way to keep agriculture viable and actually increase the economic value (with rice), but also really focus on stopping the subsidence and the carbon emissions,” he said.

Board member Diane Burgis of Oakley said that while Contra Costa County supported Phase 1, there were many other projects that had hoped to apply for the Phase 2 monies, which now will go to the Webb Tract project.

“I have concerns about committing so much money to a project when we don’t even have the project yet,” she said, noting other smaller projects were “ready to go.”

Ingram explained the money must be spent by 2027.

“These are large, complex projects. … They take many, many years to move forward,” he said. So we’re trying to compress the obligation process locking the funding for the project, as well as the timeline to design and implement it as quickly as possible.”

The board later unanimously approved the funding.

“This project will significantly improve the sustainability of Webb Tract in multiple ways and help develop methods and strategies that can potentially be applied throughout the Delta,” Metropolitan General Manager Adel Hagekhalil later said in a statement. “We anticipate it will help reverse ongoing subsidence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create new critical habitat, while also supporting the studies that can lead to carbon sequestration opportunities and the development of sustainable agriculture.”