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Dan Walters on the peripheral canal: it’s time for the larger public interests of improving Delta ecology and reliable water supply to assert itself

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 18, 2008 at 6:42 am

From the Sacramento Bee, this column from Dan Walters, who notes the impeccable credentials of the researchers, and says that this report is possibly the most important paper the PPIC has ever relased:

With the courts severely restricting water exports from the Delta because of declining fish populations, there has been renewed interest in a peripheral canal, although that term is largely banned from official discourse. But fierce opposition persists, mostly from Delta farmers concerned that a canal would isolate them from public money to fix their deteriorating levees (although they rarely admit to that motive) and from environmental groups that want to use restricted water supply as a tool to curb development in Southern California (although they are equally reluctant to admit that).

Environmental groups once supported a peripheral canal as the best Delta fix, but pulled off. While shedding public tears over the Delta’s plight, they have been, in effect, willing to sacrifice its environmental health for their other agenda.

Many years and countless billions of dollars and human-hours of meetings and studies have been squandered in a vain search for a consensus that does not include a peripheral canal. The PPIC team concludes that it’s time to end that charade and do what’s been needed for decades.

“To be viable,” the PPIC team said, “a long-term solution must include governance, regulatory and financial arrangements to ensure that various goals are well served, including water supply, environmental management, and the state’s local interests in the Delta. It is unlikely that local and regional stakeholders can negotiate such arrangements on their own in a timely way, given the complexity of the problem and its innumerable stakeholders. Pursuit of a grand consensus solution for the Delta’s many issues is likely only to continue the deteriorating status quo.”

The PPIC report is unlikely to sway a peripheral canal’s opponents, but their agendas pale next to the larger public interest in improving the Delta’s ecology and assuring the state of a reliable water supply. It’s time for that larger interest to assert itself.

Read the full text of Dan Walter’s column in the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

July 18, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

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