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Controversial peripheral canal best option to solve water woes, group says

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 17, 2008 at 10:52 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A giant canal that would route water around the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will best solve two of California’s most vexing problems: an increasingly unreliable water supply and fast-dwindling populations of threatened fish, according to a non-partisan policy group.

A so-called “peripheral canal” would cost $5 to $10 billion and would bypass and essentially replace the delta, the nucleus of the state’s water system that serves two-thirds of California’s population. Authors of the Public Policy Institute of California report said a canal trumps three other options - a combined delta and canal system, continued pumping through the delta, or the end of pumping altogether - because it balances the needs of humans and wildlife, while taking into consideration rising sea levels, subsiding land and earthquakes.

“The delta is changing no matter what,” said Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the influential institute and one of the authors of the report. “The question: Are we going to be proactive as a state and nudge them in directions beneficial to the environment and the economy, or are we going wait to let it happen and suffer the consequences?”

The full 184-page report, titled “Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” is scheduled to go public today and will almost certainly ignite a new round of controversy. Though all sides agree the delta is on life support, there are as many cures as there are stakeholders.

More from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here. See below for links to the report from the PPIC, (or click here). Lester Snow’s statement on the PPIC report can be found by clicking here.

July 17, 2008 · Filed Under Other Delta Issues, Peripheral Canal