Lois Wolk discusses the crisis in the Delta and what the public can do to help in interview with California Progress Report
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 29, 2008 at 5:46 amHere is an excerpt from an interview with Lois Wolk, published on the California Progress Report:
Delta Protection has become your hallmark issue, those of us who went to Congressman Thompson’s fundraiser last weekend, learned a lot about efforts underway to protect the delta—how did you get involved in this issue, what are you looking for the state to do on this effort, and finally what can we as citizens do?
District 8 represents the northern part of the Delta. I have been very much involved in water issues and environmental issues from the time that I entered the Davis City Council. As chair of Water, Parks, and Wildlife, I know that the Delta is the heart and soul of the California water system. It is the core and it is in terrible crisis. That has not only a major environmental impact, but a potentially disastrous economic impact of the entire state.
We’ve asked the Delta to do many things and many of them are incompatible with each other. We want it to supply an unending or increasing supply of water to Southern California and to the Bay Area. We want it to be an extraordinary estuary to breed and facilitate fisheries. We want it to be the repository of agricultural and urban runoff. We want it to, I don’t, but it has become an area of increasing urbanization. We’ve asked it to do far too many things and it is dying, it is absolutely dying. Of course it is surrounded by levies that are basically 19th century piles of dirt, and they are failing. And it is seismically at risk. You can’t imagine an area that is of more significance and at risk.
What can we do? We can do a number of things. The people of the state of California voted for a bond in 2006 to repair the levies and to begin the process of improving the water quality in the Delta, and the fisheries, the habitat, and the agriculture. What we can do is to try to raise the profile of the delta. Most people know where the coast is and know why it’s important to protect it. Most people know about the Sierra Nevada, and they will protect it. They know about Yosemite and they will protect it. They know about their local parks and they want to protect those. But the Delta has very few people in it and very little political clout. So we need to be able to raise the profile of the Delta so that it takes its place as the key water and environmental issue for California.
Then we need to put in place structures that will protect it. It needs are steward. There is no steward—no body, no agency—whose sole purpose is to protect the delta. And if I’m elected to the Senate, that’s what I’ll spend many years trying to accomplish. It won’t be easy, but there has to be a body like the Coastal Commission that focuses exclusively on the Delta and has responsibility for all water decisions and all environmental decisions that affect it. That won’t be easy to do, but I am convinced that has to occur.
The average person needs to educate themselves and speak to their representatives. Here we are very blessed with a delegation that understands all of that—both in the surrounding Assembly Districts and the Senate Districts. And at the Congressional level—Mike Thompson and Doris Matsui have been strong supporters of the Delta—they know where it is, they know how important it is to our region. But we don’t have the same recognition other places. That’s very hard for citizens here to accomplish. We have to educate those in the Bay Area, further in the southern part of the Central Valley, in San Diego, in Los Angeles, to the importance of the Delta to them but to California as a whole. And we’re trying to do that. We’ve been working very carefully with members of my committee who represent those areas, in educating them about the Delta.
Hurricane Katrina had an effect in that area. After Katrina, people were suddenly aware that the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was in fact at greater risk than New Orleans. And look what happened to New Orleans, so that recognition has helped us with flood protection, it’s helped us with environmental legislation in the Delta; it’s helped us get resources to the Delta. Every cloud has a silver lining, Katrina really the knowledge of how fragile this area is. We have to continue that because we need resources from those who might want to put those resources elsewhere.
Read the full text of the interview with Lois Wolk from California Progress Report by clicking here.
Comments
Leave a Reply