Fixing the Delta is critical, says commentary; compromise is essential

From the San Diego Union Tribune, this commentary by Ellen Hanak, director of research and a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, and Jay Lund, a professor of environmental engineering and co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis:

Now in a third year of drought, Southern Californians are once again facing the realities of living in a region with variable and unpredictable rainfall. Voluntary rationing, increased water rates and a proliferation of water-use restrictions are the order of the day. This is an opportunity for residents to achieve durable gains in water conservation. One key to resolving the state’s biggest long-term water crisis: fixing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

We believe there is a solution to the crisis in the Delta — the hub of the state’s water supply and the focus of years of conflict — that balances the state’s need for both a reliable water supply and a healthy ecosystem. But it’s one that requires compromise. For Southern Californians and others who rely on Delta water supplies, it is likely to mean taking less water from this source in the future than they’ve gotten in the past.

The most recent flare-up in this troubled region began in 2004, when the populations of several key fish species crashed, including the endangered delta smelt. In 2007, the fish crisis became a water supply crisis: To protect the delta smelt, a federal judge restricted the operations of water export pumps at the Delta’s southern edge. In 2008, he made a similar ruling to protect Chinook salmon. Yet the numbers have continued to tumble for smelt, salmon and other species, raising the specter of additional cutbacks. Compounding these environmental woes, the fragile levees that help keep Delta waters fresh face a high and increasing risk of failure from earthquakes and floods. A catastrophic failure of Delta levees could shut down the pumps for months or even years.

Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area depend on the Delta pumps for nearly a third of their water supplies, and Delta water irrigates nearly a third of the farmland in the San Joaquin Valley. It is not surprising, then, that water managers in regions that rely on Delta exports are reacting to the crisis with a sense of urgency.

Read more of this commentary by clicking here.

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