Monday’s top of the scroll is this Sheila Kuehl essay: Water water everywhere II – what the heck is a Delta?

From the website of former legislator Sheila Kuehl, this second in a series of essays on the water legislation package (for part one, click here):

“If you roll out your big map of the rivers, watersheds and estuaries of California (what? you don’t have one?), you will see that most of the water originating north of Sacramento and the Bay Area flows into and through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The official boundaries of the Delta run from Sacramento in the north, to Tracy in the south, and from Hwy 5 on the east, halfway into Contra Costa County in the west. More than half of California’s snow and rainfall drains into the Delta, mostly through the Sacramento River, and the runoff navigates over a thousand miles of sloughs feeding habitat and agriculture.

At the southern end of the Delta primary zone, huge pumps export drinking and farm water to 2/3 of the state’s population and 3 million acres of farmland. Northern agriculture and some northern water districts (especially rice farmers) draw water out before it hits the Delta. For the rest of us, this one triangle shaped area holds the all-important key to water, one of the most basic needs of human life and work.

Over time, with so many straws stuck into the Delta, it has become more and more fragile, its species more and more threatened. The huge pumps are deadly to fish and have altered the natural flows of the rivers. The islands in the Delta are submerged or deeply threatened. Ocean levels are rising and could push back from the Bay. Many have opined that policy makers must find a way to separate the issue of water supply to the state from the environmental issues in the Delta. Solutions have been elusive. … “

Continue reading at Sheila Kuehl’s website by clicking here.

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