Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan Category
Click here to view all posts

Bay Delta Conservation Plan: Congressmen express concerns

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 25, 2008 at 6:34 am

From the San Jose Mercury News:

Five members of Congress from Northern California fired a warning shot Tuesday across the bow of a swift-moving plan that calls for a controversial aqueduct to deliver water around the Delta as its centerpiece.

The letter accuses the federal regulatory agencies that must approve the plan of failing to protect Delta fisheries in the past and pointedly asks for assurances that the latest plan to save the Delta will fare better.

“It is troubling to us … that this Bay-Delta planning process seems to be driven by those with an interest in (Delta water) exports, rather than by those who depend on a healthy watershed and sustainable fisheries,” said the letter, which was signed by Reps. George Miller, D-Martinez; Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek; Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton; Mike Thompson, D-Napa; and Doris O. Matsui, D-Sacramento.

The plan the Congress-people are concerned about is the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. So just what’s in this plan?

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is being championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration and the state’s biggest water users as a way to fix the Delta’s problems, comply with endangered species laws and get a new aqueduct built around the Delta.

The plan would exempt massive Delta pumps from traditional endangered species permits that regulate water pumping in ways that are supposed to protect Delta smelt, steelhead and imperiled salmon runs. In place of those permits, a sweeping conservation plan would be developed to conserve fish.

At the center of that plan is a proposal by water users to build a canal or pipeline that would take water around the Delta. Doing so would remove the threat that the big Delta pumps pose to fish in the south Delta. But such an aqueduct, which would most likely be used in combination with the existing pumps and plumbing, could increase pollution in the Delta by reducing the amount of dilution from the Sacramento River, critics contend.

The conservation plan also would grant 50-year assurances to water agencies that they would not face further water supply disruptions.

Read the full text of this article from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.

June 25, 2008 · Filed Under Bay Delta Conservation Plan

Comments

Leave a Reply