This is just one post in the Peripheral Canal Category

Support for new aqueduct comes from unexpected source

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 23, 2008 at 7:43 am

From the San Jose Mercury News:

The year was 1980, and a young Contra Costa supervisor was making a last-minute plea to lawmakers who were about to approve a massive ditch that would divert Sacramento River water for Southern California. The Peripheral Canal, it appeared, would ruin the Delta environment and jeopardize the East Bay’s water supply, but its supporters in the Capitol had the votes they needed to get it built.

Supervisor Sunne Wright McPeak was forced into a fallback position. Contra Costa, she told an Assembly committee, would drop its opposition if lawmakers agreed to prevent the canal from being used until two new reservoirs under consideration were built — one near Brentwood and another in Merced County.

Her rationale: In a drought, Southern California certainly would take the water it needed and, without those reservoirs, the water would come straight out of the canal, leaving the Delta to fill with seawater and polluted runoff.

Twenty-eight years later, McPeak is making a similar argument, with a twist. It is now time to reconsider building a new aqueduct around the Delta, she says. However, it must be done with new reservoirs and in conjunction with a major new commitment to water conservation and environmental protection.

That position has raised a few eyebrows among McPeak’s successors on the board of supervisors, where opposition to the canal has held steady for a quarter-century. “I have respect for Sunne, but I don’t understand her transition,” said Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho, whose father, the late state Sen. John Nejedly, also fiercely opposed the canal. “Everything that existed 26 years ago that Sunne advocated against exists today, except it’s worse.”

An interesting read, well worth the click through. Check it out from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.

November 23, 2008 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal