Suppliers seek approval for the “Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program”
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 1, 2008 at 1:15 pmFrom the Antelope Valley Press:
Water suppliers in the state no longer call it a peripheral canal - but a proposed project to bring water from Northern California down south would serve the same purpose, a way to bypass the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Funding to kick off that plan, called the Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program, received the go-ahead from the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency board, with one proviso: Contractors whose shares of the State Water Project total at least 90% must commit to the $140 million study and design plans in order for AVEK to participate. That would keep AVEK’s cost at a maximum of nearly $2.7 million.
“If (at least) 90% of the entitlement doesn’t participate, we don’t want to be in it,” said AVEK General Manager Russ Fuller.
AVEK board members approved the plans in a 6-1 vote. Director George Lane cast the sole “no” vote. “It’s a good program,” Lane said. But, given the current economic crisis, he added, he felt compelled to vote against the funding proposal. “I don’t feel this is the right time to spend (about) $2.5 million of (Antelope Valley) taxpayers’ money,” Lane said.
The Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program is seen as part of a remedy for issues that the State Water Contractors face in trying to get water deliveries through the delta. Various environmental problems have plagued the delta, including a decline in the population of an indigenous species of fish called the delta smelt that die in the pumps that send water into the California Aqueduct, which carries water to this Valley and other Southern California communities.
Support for new aqueduct comes from unexpected source
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 23, 2008 at 7:43 amFrom 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.
A new look at risk revives an old plan: California policy-makers lay groundwork to reintroduce proposals for water-conveyance canal
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 19, 2008 at 7:53 am
From Engineering News-Record:
A proposal to build a 42-mile long, 400-ft-wide water conveyance canal soundly rejected by California voters in 1982 is rising from the mists of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta again. It is driven this time, in large part, by a heightened appreciation for risk and the physical fragility of the state’s water supply. Consider it a legacy of Hurricane Katrina.
“Not long ago, risk was a dirty word, but things have changed,” says Martin W. McCann Jr., project technical director of the “Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Risk Management Strategy” study, one of several concurrent studies analyzing water issues in the state. “Now, [risk] is becoming every man’s tool. But it’s a unique expertise. We need to find the balance in how and when to use it.”
McCann, who also is a dam safety expert and an associate professor at Stanford University, spoke on Nov. 7 about the DRMS study, a project of the state’s Dept. of Water Resources, at the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 138th Civil Engineering Conference in Pittsburgh. He was part of a panel on risk-assessment evolution and expectations.
How experts define and plan for risk mitigation on infrastructure facilities is changing in the post-Katrina world. The emergence of new disciplines developed while studying and recovering from the disaster in New Orleans has led to techniques for evaluating the fragility of infrastructure and weighing that against the probability of failure and its consequences.
At the direction of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), California launched at least four studies to attack the problem of its water supply and the protection of the ecosystems in the delta. The reports are coming in and are refocusing attention on the need for what is euphemistically called a “dual-conveyance” water delivery system. The first conveyance system is the waterways of the delta; the second is a revitalization of plans for a bypass, or peripheral canal.
Read more from the Engineering News-Record by clicking here.
Dan Bacher commentary: Is Schwarzenegger trading Klamath dam removal for the destruction of the Delta?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2008 at 6:35 am
From Dan Bacher:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger never misses an opportunity to push his environmentally destructive and enormously costly $ 9.3 billion water bond proposal to build two new reservoirs and “improved conveyance” - the peripheral canal.
True to his role as the “Fish Terminator,” the Governor used a press conference that he appeared at with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Mike Chrisman, California Secretary of Resources, in Los Angeles Friday to promote building new dams in California the day after an agreement in principle was reached between Oregon, California, PacifiCorp and the Bush administration over Klamath Dam removal.
“We are here today to celebrate something really big, which is a great victory for the environment of California,” Schwarzenegger gushed. “With the Klamath River Agreement we are making actual history, because this will be the biggest dam removal project ever in the history and the biggest one in the United States. So this is great for California and this is really great also for Oregon.”
He then touted the tentative pact as a consensus-style, win-win situation for the Klamath Basin. “And I’m very proud that everyone here worked together, because something like this cannot be done if not everyone is cooperating and working together, if it is environmentalists, if it is the farmers, the Native American tribes, salmon fishermen, the state and the federal agencies, the PacifiCorp, everyone, and I want to thank them all for their great cooperation. Everyone cares so much about the magnificent river and also the water quality and the fish population, and that is why this came about,” Schwarzenegger gushed.
After making that statement, of course, Schwarzenegger just had to promote building new dams and sub-surface water storage, although he didn’t specifically mention “improved conveyance” - the peripheral canal. In numerous press conferences and photo opportunities over the past two years, Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein have campaigned for a water bond measure that would two new unneeded reservoirs, Temperance Flats on the San Joaquin River and Sites on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, in spite of the fact that water in both watersheds is dramatically over-appropriated already and the chances are that these dams would never fill anyway.
Discovery Bay CSD to weigh in on Frank’s Tract project; some fear it is a precursor to a peripheral canal
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 14, 2008 at 6:47 amFrom the Brentwood Press:
As residents and local agencies throughout East County continue to grapple with the details of a proposal backed by the state and federal governments to improve water quality and habitat conditions in the Delta, the Discovery Bay CSD Board is preparing to respond to a state agency’s request for public input on the Frank’s Tract Project.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Federal Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) are proposing the construction of flow-control gates in the Frank’s Tract sector of the Delta. The purpose of the project is to improve the salinity of the water while preserving the habitats of the Delta Smelt.
But while some agree that the short-range benefits, particularly to Discovery Bay and surrounding areas, are indisputable in terms of water quality, it is the long-term effect of the project that has some viewing the proposal as little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing – and the wolf is a peripheral canal.
Reclamation 800 District Engineer Chris Neudeck is one such person. Speaking before the CSD board at a recent meeting, Neudeck urged the board and the community to see beyond the proposed scope of the Frank’s Tract Project. “Your interests in this (project) are substantial and you have much to lose,” said Neudeck. “Where you live and play could be grossly impacted.”
Read more from the Brentwood Press by clicking here.
Dan Bacher commentary: Professor challenges PPIC report backing peripheral canal; upcoming meeting on the PPIC’s technical data next week
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 9, 2008 at 6:49 amFrom Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org:
Dr. Jeffrey A. Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center and Associate Professor of the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, on October 23 published a superb study challenging the controversial PPIC report calling for the construction of a peripheral canal to “solve” the problems of the California Delta.
The report, “The Economics of Ending Delta Water Exports Versus the Peripheral Canal: Checking the Data of the PPIC,” harshly criticizes the report for using “fabricated” and “exagerrated” data to push for the construction of a peripheral canal. The data has been used by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Delta Vision Task Force to provide the “scientific” justification for building the canal.
“The issue of the peripheral canal has returned to the center of the debate about the future of the Delta,” said Michael in his summary. “The case for building the peripheral canal has recently received a major boost from a report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) that endorses the peripheral canal as the best long-run solution for the Delta. The PPIC report considers alternative strategies, most notably ending Delta water exports. They find that ending Delta water exports is significantly better for the environment than a peripheral canal, but reject the strategy because it is too costly.”
However, Michael contends that the PPIC’s cost estimates are “exaggerated.” “They depend on inaccurate assumptions that utilize outdated, undocumented, or fabricated sources. When adjustments are made to their population growth and desalination cost assumptions to reflect the best, documented sources, the cost of ending Delta exports are likely to be similar to a peripheral canal. With similar costs, ending Delta exports is the best strategy due to its superior environmental benefits,” he concluded.
More from Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org by clicking here.
Related Note: PPIC will discuss the data behind their report in this upcoming meeting:
CALFED Science Program Workshop - Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (PPIC II): November 12th and 13th at CALFED Bay-Delta Program, Delta Room; 650 Capitol Mall, 5th Floor, Sacramento.
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has recently released an on-line edition of its report “Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.” Much of the core technical information and reasoning behind the comparison of potential futures in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is contained in appendices available with the report (http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=810). This two-day workshop will feature presentations and question-and-answer sessions focusing on material contained within each appendix. A concluding panel featuring CALFED Science Program advisors will discuss the best use of science for the Delta’s future, given the results of the PPIC report and ongoing planning processes.This workshop will be webcast:
November 12, 2008: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=53108
November 13, 2008: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=53111
For more information see http://www.science.calwater.ca.gov/pdf/workshops/workshop_ppic_public_notice_110308.pdf
Restore the Delta commentary: A Gradual ending of Delta water exports - a potentially cost effective solution to the Delta’s water woes
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 7, 2008 at 6:36 amFrom the Restore the Delta E-news, this commentary:
In a new report, Dr. Jeffrey A. Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center and Associate Professor in the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific, calls into question the findings of this summer’s Public Policy Institute Report endorsing the peripheral canal as the best long-run solution for the Delta. Dr. Michael notes that the PPIC report finds that “ending Delta water exports is significantly better for the environment than the peripheral canal, but reject the strategy because it is too costly. ” Dr. Michael then elaborates that cost estimates in the PPIC report are exaggerated because they depend on “inaccurate assumptions that utilize outdated, undocumented, or fabricated sources” in relation to future population growth and desalination costs.
In his findings, Dr Michael also asserts that:
The headline news about the PPIC report is that a group of independent academics concluded after an extensive study that the peripheral canal is the best strategy for the Delta. This is unfortunate, because there is no objective way of reaching this conclusion with their data. The PPIC report finds that ending Delta exports has higher environmental benefits (including direct economic benefits to fisheries and recreation they do not calculate) that they do not attempt to value in economic terms, whereas the peripheral canal has lower economic costs in terms of its water supply costs and benefits. To reach their conclusion, the authors most impose their own subjective value judgment that the environmental benefits of ending Delta exports is not worth the additional costs of the water supply system. However, it is quite plausible that these environmental benefits could have values in excess of $1 billion per year, and the burden is on the PPIC team to argue that the benefits are less — It is astonishing that a group of reputable academics would make such a value-laden conclusion in a research report rather than simply identify the trade-offs.
Since the release of the PPIC report this summer, Restore the Delta has questioned the report’s incomplete economic analysis and the lack of value that it ascribes to Delta agriculture, fisheries, and communities, while promoting the economic value of another region in California. What is particularly disturbing is that the PPIC reports promoting the peripheral canal have been considered an important source for decision making by the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, leadership at the Department of Water Resources, and those promoting the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. What we find in Dr. Michael’s analysis is that the second PPIC report is truly an incomplete and inaccurate source for making such important water policy decisions.
Dan Bacher commentary: Canal controversy continues; Task force proposes peripheral canal in the Sacramento Delta
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 6, 2008 at 6:00 amFrom the Sacramento News & Review:
Last month, a special task force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a controversial strategic plan recommending the construction of more dams and an updated version of the peripheral canal to address the “co-equal” goals of water supply and ecosystem restoration.
“If we don’t fix the Delta, we are headed for a water crisis,” said Phil Isenberg of Sacramento, the chairman of Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force. “The Delta as we know it today is not sustainable. Our plan is designed to meet the needs of California’s growing population, from north to south, east to west.”
While water-agency representatives and some environmentalists praised the plan, fishing groups and the Winnemem Wintu tribe blasted the task force for pushing the peripheral canal at a time when they believe the reduction of water exports and the retirement of drainage-impaired lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley are what is truly needed to restore collapsing Central Valley chinook salmon and Delta fish populations.
Read more from the Sacramento News & Review by clicking here.
Contra Costa supervisors talk strategy on canal around Delta
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 5, 2008 at 5:55 amFrom the San Jose Mercury News:
With 2009 shaping up as a pivotal one for the Delta, the Contra Costa County supervisors on Tuesday took steps toward developing a political strategy to influence decisions affecting the West Coast’s largest estuary and a key source of water.
Contra Costa has a lot at stake because the way water is delivered through, or around, the Delta could affect fisheries, recreation and drinking-water quality in the county. The Delta, which forms a triangle with corners at Antioch, Tracy and Sacramento, is a source of water for two-thirds of Californians and the sole source of tap water for 550,000 county residents. Perhaps the biggest decision that might be made next year is how to continue delivering Northern California water to regions south of the Delta, including parts of the East Bay, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
An aqueduct proposed to carry that water is under serious consideration. An earlier version of such an aqueduct, known as a peripheral canal, was defeated by voters statewide in 1982 with political opposition centered in Contra Costa.
“There’s an objective — a canal — that has been identified as a solution,” said Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho, whose father, the late state Sen. John Nejedly, was a key leader in the earlier fight against the canal.
Read more from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.
There’s nothing peripheral about state’s continuing water wars, says editorial
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2008 at 6:28 amFrom Stockton’s Record, this editorial:
A panel appointed by the governor has recommended a peripheral canal and shooting water through the Delta as possible ways to solve the state’s water woes.
Critics of the peripheral canal - and there are many, especially on this end of the state - dismiss the validity of the recommendation, saying it was preordained.
The chairman of the group, Phil Isenberg, a former assemblyman and before that mayor of Sacramento, called the group’s 20 months of work “arduous.” But in the end, the work resulted in a unanimous 6-0 vote supporting the recommendations.
Perhaps nowhere else in the nation is the old saw attributed to Mark Twain, “Whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting over,” truer. Californians have been fighting over water - who gets it, how much, where it goes and, most importantly, who controls it - for decades.
No matter how arduous the study and how sincere the suggestions, the state’s water war will not end. And it’s a war that has a distinct north state/south state flavor.
Read more of this editorial from Stockton’s Record by clicking here.
Salmon crash adds pressure for new canal, says editorial
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 27, 2008 at 6:05 amFrom Redding’s Record Searchlight, this editorial, which notes the the fate of the salmon is tied to the health of the Delta:
This week, a federal judge in Fresno ruled that the state’s water-pumping operations in the delta put wild salmon “unquestionably in jeopardy.” He hasn’t ordered further action to stem that jeopardy yet, but the pressure to cut pumping has added a forceful push to revive the peripheral canal - an idea the governor’s “blue ribbon” delta panel also recommended in a report released mid-month.
By some accounts, a properly designed canal could improve conditions for fish. It would certainly improve the water quality and reliability for the millions of Californians who depend on water from the delta.
But that tighter link around the delta would also create intense pressure to pipe more water south. That makes it a very risky deal for the north state - but we might not get a choice.
Read the full text of this editorial from Redding’s Record Searchlight by clicking here.
Solano County Supervisor Mike Reagan stands against peripheral canal, says commentary
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 19, 2008 at 7:19 amFrom the Vacaville Reporter:
If Fairfield or Vacaville were to propose that a construction project that would harm even a few acres of the Suisun Marsh could be justified on the grounds that global warming makes salt water intrusion into the marsh inevitable, the state and federal agencies with jurisdiction over the marsh would summarily reject the proposal and, behind the scenes, mock it.
Because of the importance of the 116,000-acre marsh as home to numerous rare and endangered plants and animals, several state and federal agencies monitor and control the quality of its water. In 1989, salinity control gates were established to minimize saltwater intrusion. The California Department of Water Resources has imposed such strict water quality standards for the marsh that the effluent from Solano County sewage treatment plants must be cleaner than most tap water. Since the 1970s, Solano County taxpayers and businesses have spent billions ensuring that water flowing into the marsh meets those standards.
Despite all of this, the state is again proposing the construction of a peripheral canal that would take water out of the Sacramento River before it reaches the Delta for delivery to Kern County cotton farms and Southern California cities. If built, the canal will cause saltwater intrusion into at least 25,000 acres of the marsh, creating a vast pickle weed desert; will reduce water quality in much of the remainder; destroy much of Solano County’s best farmland; and ruin freshwater aquifers used as domestic and agricultural water supplies.
Read more from the Vacaville Reporter by clicking here.
San Joaquin man, his fellow farmers standing on opposite sides of peripheral canal debate
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 21, 2008 at 9:47 amFrom Stockton’s Record:
Ray Latimer pedals through his walnut orchards on a Schwinn bicycle he bought used in 1950. It keeps him fit, the farmer said.
Latimer, 73, is firm in his ways - and his words. And it might cost him in November as he tries to keep his seat on the Stockton East Water District board of directors, which will see its first contested election since 2002. Stockton East both manages the east county’s groundwater, a precious resource, and delivers river water to the city of Stockton.
Latimer’s seat is threatened because of his strict stance on one issue: the peripheral canal. He supports it, which places him in the obvious minority in San Joaquin County, particularly among farmers. Expect no apologies. “I’m my own person,” said Latimer, elected in 2000. “I’m not everybody else. I’m my own person, and I make up my own mind.”
Even if it means he loses. “It very well might,” he admitted.
Latimer’s position is simple: The government agreed to supply farms and cities south of the Delta with water, just as it has agreed to provide Stockton East with water from the Stanislaus River. And it has failed. A peripheral canal would help officials honor their contracts, Latimer says.
“There’s plenty of water in California,” he said. “The problem is it’s just not in the right places. We’ve got to learn to use what we have wisely and move the water that is here to where it can be used most effectively.”
Read more from Stockton’s Record by clicking here.
California farmers’ ads clash over Delta water
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 4, 2008 at 7:58 amFrom the Sacramento Bee:
California’s ageless struggle over water has seen battles between man and nature, between cities and farms, and, of course, between rich and poor. Now it’s farmer vs. farmer.
In an advertising slugfest in newspapers and on television in recent weeks, farming interests have waged a war of words over proposals to build a canal to divert water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Yesterday’s top story (click here) was about Delta farmer Dino Cortopassi taking out full-page ads against Schwarzenegger’s water bond & and peripheral canal. Now, the Bee adds this:
Cortopassi, 71, was a major donor to Schwarzenegger’s campaigns. But he recently quit the Republican Party over the matter, and is now registered as an independent. “I have served as a catalyst to get this thing where it should be in the public eye,” he said. “I will fight to the death to protect the Delta, because I love it.”
In response, a coalition of politically active farmers in the San Joaquin Valley last week purchased a full-page ad in The Bee targeting Cortopassi. These farmers depend almost entirely on Delta water, and consider a canal the best fix. “Shame on you, Dino Cortopassi,” shouts their ad, which goes on to criticize his “desperate attempt to confuse the issues.” It was signed by Jean Sagouspe, a Los Banos farmer, and purchased by California Westside Farmers State Political Action Committee.
Many members of the PAC buy their water from Westlands Water District in Fresno County, the largest agricultural consumer of Delta water. Sagouspe is Westlands’ board chairman. He did not respond to a request for comment. Sarah Woolf, treasurer of the PAC, said Westlands itself is not a member of the PAC. She said the committee’s ad was “not an attack on Dino.” Instead, the goal was to rebut his claim that taxpayers will bear the burden of building a canal.
Read the rest of this story from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.
Farmer campaigns against Schwarzenegger water plan
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 3, 2008 at 6:23 amFrom the San Francisco Chronicle:
Dino Cortopassi is a wealthy farmer who grew up in California’s fertile delta region and, as he tells it, is passionate about protecting it.
In recent weeks, he has channeled that passion into an expensive and highly negative advertising campaign against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Through the ad blitz, which has cost him at least $100,000 and is centered on the capital’s media market, Cortopassi has emerged as an outspoken critic of one of the governor’s main policy initiatives — upgrading the state’s water delivery system. It’s a turnabout for a relatively unknown figure who once gave lavishly to promote Schwarzenegger’s political fortunes and even has spent time with him smoking cigars.
In an interview, Cortopassi said he is convinced that Schwarzenegger, Southern California water districts and agricultural interests that farm land south of his in the Central Valley are conspiring to build a canal that would pipe fresh water around the delta. He said doing so would irreparably harm the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s ecosystem, which he says is just as important to the state as the water it provides for cities and farmers. Sensing a political threat to the region he calls home, Cortopassi moved to attack Schwarzenegger’s proposal even before it has been placed before voters.
“I love it,” Cortopassi said of the place he has lived all of his life. “I build habitats with my own money. It’s a magnificent place.”
A 71-year-old grandfather, Cortopassi and his wife of 50 years live in the house they built near Stockton after buying their first piece of land. He got his start farming with his father and has built an agricultural empire that ranges from olive oil production to agribusiness lending.
He also said he has a lifelong interest in the delta’s wildlife and has created a 750-acre bird habitat. In part, it was that interest he said prompted him to act when he learned that Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein were proposing a $9.3 billion revamping of the state’s water system.
Their proposal doesn’t specifically allocate money for a peripheral canal, but Cortopassi said it would give the state a virtual “blank check” that the administration could use for the project.
He accuses the governor of supporting a peripheral canal as a quid pro quo with Republican lawmakers who represent farmers south of the delta. In exchange for supporting the canal, Cortopassi reasons, Schwarzenegger would get their votes for a tax increase as a way to end the state’s budget stalemate. The state has been operating without a budget since July 1.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
Tracy City Council says no to peripheral canal
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 3, 2008 at 6:15 amFrom the Tracy Press:
The Tracy City Council voted Tuesday to join other government agencies in and around the San Joaquin Delta to oppose a proposed canal that would deliver water to Southern California. The vote is the latest installment of a decades-old fight between those who live in water-abundant Northern California and their brethren in Southern California deserts.
A plan to build a peripheral canal died at the hands of voters in 1982, but has been revived by a panel appointed by the governor called the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force.
Supporters say a canal that would steer water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta toward Southern California would not only improve water quality, but also help restore a teetering ecosystem that seems near its deathbed. But that’s not how many people around the Delta see it.
The city councils of Stockton, Lodi and Manteca have joined the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors to oppose the canal, as Tracy’s did Tuesday night. Five counties around the Delta have also banded together as peripheral canal opponents.
Read more from the Tracy Press by clicking here.
Delta landowners distrust canal study; Meetings show access to property would be an issue
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 29, 2008 at 4:41 pmFrom the Capital Press:
The push to build a peripheral canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has never been stronger, and delta farmers fear that such a waterway would destroy their way of life. They’re not about to roll over lightly.
The state has been holding meetings with delta landowners so engineers can get permission to traipse across their property to see if their farm might be a good place to dig. If last week’s meeting in Walnut Grove is any indication, getting that permission could prove difficult.
“Why should I allow you to come on my property?” asked Clarksburg alfalfa and wheat farmer Jeff Merwin. “I see absolutely no upside to that. None. You guys are like rapists knocking at the door, saying “let me in!’”
Merwin expressed the frustration the roughly 150 farmers and landowners in and around the Clarksburg-Walnut Grove area say they feel with the state Department of Water Resources, which is looking at several possible routes for a canal.
Merwin and others in the delta are getting the sense that a canal is inevitable. “I have a feeling that if I say “no’ and you need to study my property, you’re going to do it anyway,” he said.
Water Resources director Lester Snow said his department is doing everything it can to answer landowners’ fears and to set up individual deals with each one to gain access to do their testing. If push comes to shove, “We can go to court and seek temporary access to the property - by individual parcel,” Snow said.
Read more from Hank Shaw at the Capital Press by clicking here.
Delta deadlock: A Peripheral Canal, new dams, court interventions and good old conservation; the quarter-century of debate has yielded no progress toward ending the impasse
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 24, 2008 at 6:00 am
From the Fresno Bee:
California voters rose up by a 3-to-2 margin in 1982 and torpedoed the most contentious water project in state history — the Peripheral Canal. The 42-mile ditch would have linked the Sacramento River to pumps near Stockton that send water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to thirsty Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.
But rejection of Proposition 9 didn’t settle anything. Instead, it locked state water politics, which revolve around the delta, into a chronic stalemate.
More than a quarter-century later, advocates for cities, farms and wildlife routinely duke it out in courtrooms and legislative halls. Crops on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side die for lack of water. Fishing boats wait out a ban on salmon. No one is winning.
Today, some think only one thing may break the delta deadlock: an epic disaster.
The potential for such an event grows every year. Century-old levees within the delta grow ever weaker, raising prospects of a Hurricane Katrina-like catastrophe — a flood of salty water that would submerge hundreds of square miles of farmland and historic towns like Isleton and Locke. It might happen after an earthquake. Or it might happen as a result of erosion as sea levels rise amid global warming. No one knows when the delta will reach that tipping point. That it eventually will is viewed as certain.
“Major changes in the Delta and in California’s use of Delta resources are inevitable,” said a December report by Delta Vision, a two-year-old task force created by Gov. Schwarzenegger to find ways to avert a water disaster. “Current patterns of use are unsustainable, and catastrophic events, such as an earthquake, could cause dramatic changes in minutes.”
A comprehensive article on the options for fixing the Delta, well worth the click through. To read the full text of this article from the Fresno Bee, click here.
Restore the Delta says stop the peripheral canal - oppose the Schwarzenegger/Feinstein water bond
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 20, 2008 at 5:41 amFrom Dan Bacher & Restore the Delta:
A coalition of recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, Delta farmers, Indian Tribes, conservationists and others concerned about the future of the California Delta is opposing a $9.3 billion water bond proposal that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Assemblyman Dave Cogdill are trying to ram through the California Legislature.
The water bond would result in the design and construction of a peripheral canal that would exacerbate the collapse of salmon and other fish populations on the California Delta, the largest and most significant estuary on the West Coast. Over the next two weeks, the California State Assembly will still be deciding whether or not to place a water bond on the November ballot.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director of Restore the Delta, is asking everybody concerned about the preservation and restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to call the members of the Assembly Special Water Committee to let them know that you oppose the bond for the following reasons:
1) The peripheral canal will not solve the crisis in the Delta or make more water for California.
2) The Department of Water Resources, while working on projects on behalf of the State Water Contractors, fails to answer for the people of the Delta “How much fresh water is required for the health of the Delta estuary?”
3) The peripheral canal will not restore fish populations, but in fact result in their demise.
4) The peripheral canal will destroy the $ 2 billion Delta agricultural economy.
Read more from IndyBay.org by clicking here.
Delta residents fight to be heard on peripheral canal
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 18, 2008 at 6:43 amFrom Stockton’s Record:
As state officials forge ahead with studies of a peripheral canal, some Delta farmers and residents feel excluded from the decision-making process, which even the highest-ranking officials admit is complex and hard to understand.
“There are too many processes going on, there’s no question about that,” Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources, told the crowd at Thursday’s community meeting. “For a working man or woman to keep up is extremely difficult.”
And yet, time is short. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s blue-ribbon task force is expected to deliver recommendations about the Delta’s future by October. A proposed $9.3 billion state water bond backed by the governor could free up money to study a canal, among other strategies.
And a flurry of meetings designed to solicit public comment are frustrating some residents, who say the state has failed to coherently explain its plans and, therefore, there is nothing to comment on.
“This is a living, vibrant community, another voice that needs to be heard in this process,” said Larry Emery, pastor of the Walnut Grove Community Presbyterian Church. “Sometimes, the Delta has not always been well-represented.”
More from Stockton’s Record by clicking here.
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