On July 24, 2025, the California State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) staff released a revised draft of proposed updates (2025 Draft Update) to the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Watershed (Bay-Delta Plan). Notably, the 2025 Draft Update, which is focused on the Sacramento River watershed, Delta eastside tributaries, and Delta, recommends moving forward with the approach proposed through a series of Voluntary Agreements (VAs) between a large coalition of water users, state agencies, and the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
Development of the VAs and Regulatory Pathway
The VAs, also known as the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program, were included as a possible approach in a prior draft update circulated in 2024 (2024 Draft). The VA approach includes a suite of habitat restoration projects aimed at recovering fish populations in concert with significant flow commitments. In contrast, the regulatory pathway proposed by State Board staff would implement objectives for tributary inflows, cold-water habitat, Delta outflows, inflow-based Delta outflows, and interior Delta flows, imposing unimpaired flow (UIF) requirements throughout the watershed.
In the 2024 Draft, State Board staff presented the VAs and regulatory pathway as possible approaches that may be implemented together or separately. The 2025 Draft Update now provides a path for concurrent implementation of both approaches, making several modifications to the provisions outlined in the 2024 Draft.
The VA Approach
The bulk of the changes encompassed by the 2025 Draft Update are related to the VA approach, refining the description of VA flow commitments, as well as provisions including those for continuing, modifying, or terminating the VAs, for addressing new water supply projects, and VA habitat accounting.
Regarding VA flow commitments, one issue raised during prior public review involved the identification and modification of the list of water rights that will be dedicated to meet instream VA flow commitments. The 2025 Draft Update now provides a process for the VA parties to provide and modify this list. A second major concern involved the protection of VA flows from new or expanded water rights. In response, the 2025 Draft Update includes a new narrative provision instructing the State Board to consider measures that may be necessary to protect VA flows when evaluating new water right applications or change petitions that would result in expanded use of water. Addressing another controversial element, the 2025 Draft Update removed the requirement that reservoir refill provisions avoid reducing flows from January to June in all but wet water years, instead addressing reservoir refill on a tributary-specific basis. It also added a provision requiring reductions in streamflows from groundwater substitution resulting from VA implementation to be deducted from VA flow contributions. Finally, the 2025 Draft Update includes Appendix B.1, outlining draft accounting for each VA tributary and the Delta, export reduction commitments, and water purchases.
With respect to VA non-flow habitat restoration actions, the 2025 Draft Update includes several modifications from the 2024 Draft, including the addition of a 30-day deadline for the State Board’s Executive Director and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to approve the VA parties’ requests for modifications to habitat design criteria. This appears responsive to concerns voiced in 2024 that the requirement for approval of such modifications would stymie efficient implementation of design modifications in response to real world conditions.
The 2025 Draft Update also speaks to the potential termination of the VAs, which was a highly controversial issue during review of the 2024 Draft. If State Board staff recommend terminating the VAs at the end of their eight-year term, staff must produce a document, subject to public review and comment, synthesizing scientific information regarding flows for protecting fish and wildlife beneficial uses. The document would also be used to consider potential modifications to regulatory approach provisions. Importantly, if the State Board determines that no modifications are needed to the regulatory pathway, its determination will be subject to judicial review.
The Regulatory Pathway
Water rights that are not subject to the VA approach will instead be subject to the regulatory pathway. While the regulatory pathway largely mirrors the provisions included in the 2024 Draft, State Board staff made several significant changes. To address widely shared concerns that the proposed unimpaired flow requirements would have significant adverse impacts to water supply and could result in drawing down reservoir storage, the 2025 Draft Update includes modifications (referred to as water supply adjustments, or “WSAs”) that lower the percent of UIF requirements to 45% or 35% of UIF in most conditions. The 2025 Draft Update also includes tributary-specific WSAs.
Critically, the 2025 Draft Update does not include provisions to implement curtailments to protect minimum base Delta outflows during certain drought conditions, which were contemplated by the 2024 Draft. During public review of the prior update, numerous parties expressed serious reservations as to the State Board’s authority and ability to implement the broad curtailment program contemplated by staff. Instead, the 2025 Draft Update states that the State Board will consider the need for additional actions to address drought conditions and associated Temporary Urgency Change Petitions.
Inclusion of Tribal Beneficial Uses
Finally, the 2025 Draft Update includes Tribal Beneficial Uses (TBUs) of water, designating the Tribal Tradition and Culture beneficial use for the Bay-Delta watershed. It also includes provisions for a Tribal Advisory Group and other tribal participation and feedback. It did not, however, include TBUs for Tribal Subsistence Fishing and Subsistence Fishing, which may be imposed by Regional Water Quality Control Boards on a water body segment basis.
Next Steps
The 2025 Draft Update, which includes numerous developments in addition to those described here, is available for review on the State Board’s website. The State Board has scheduled a public hearing on the draft on September 8 and 9, 2025, at 9:00 a.m., and is accepting written comments until September 10, 2025.
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Somach Simmons & Dunn represents water users that are parties to the VAs. This alert reflects the observations of the authors and is not intended to limit or otherwise describe the views of our clients.
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