Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
February 27, 2008
1. Top Item
Canal plans rile Senate panel; Governor's power to work without Legislature in question
By Hank Shaw, Capitol Bureau Chief
Lawmakers also are questioning whether the administration has the legal power to ultimately build a canal without them.
The idea of a peripheral canal shunting water from the Sacramento River around the Delta to the giant pumps near
They fear a canal would shut off their part of the estuary's source of fresh water, turning it into a backwater. Supporters say the estuary is so fragile the state must find a stable way to get water from Northern California to
Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman faced an angry Sen. Michael Machado on Tuesday morning during a meeting of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. Machado, a Linden Democrat who represents much of the Delta, suggested that issuing an executive order starting environmental analysis of potential canal routes was tantamount to a declaration of war against the Legislature.
Chrisman declined to comment on the possibility that Schwarzenegger could issue such an order, which was first reported in The Record on Tuesday.
"I'm not going to comment on hypotheticals," Chrisman said.
Machado noted that executive order or not, Schwar-zenegger's budget requests eight new positions and $1.4 million to conduct the study. He also read from the governor's Delta Vision report to highlight the fact that the process was supposed to be inclusive.
"You're refusing to acknowledge the inherent conflicts," Machado said, adding that the governor's report has not even determined whether a canal would help the Delta.
"There's conflicts in everything we do," Chrisman said. "We are trying to ease those conflicts out."
Work on an executive order is being done, however, according to sources close to the matter. Those sources say the idea is to begin what could be a decades-long process - Phil Isenberg, who leads Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision task force, says it could take 15 years - and insiders note that the review would include a "no build" option.
It remains to be seen whether Schwarzenegger will pull the trigger on an executive order once it is completed, however.
Senate Natural Resources Committee Chairman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, pushed Chrisman further about an executive order.
"So there's not going to be an executive order in the next seven to 10 days?" he asked.
"I don't know the answer to that question," Chrisman said. "Executive orders are always a possibility.
"The governor can do what he wants in this particular area."
That is debatable. No one disputes Schwarzenegger's power to begin analysis of a peripheral canal; whether he can build it without the Legislature may be a question answered in the courts.
Both sides are leaning on a 1984 advisory opinion from then-Attorney General John Van de Kamp.
Van de Kamp's opinion was that the state Department of Water Resources could build a canal "across" the Delta, even if it included a short portion of a newly dug canal south of Hood, known as "Duke's Ditch" for then-Gov. George Deukmejian.
But Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee Chairwoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, questions whether the state could unilaterally build a canal "around" the Delta.
DWR Chief Lester Snow thinks he can. He responded in a letter back to Wolk that he interprets Van de Kamp's opinion to mean that he can indeed build a canal around the Delta. Snow also cited favorable opinions in 1981 and 1982 by the Legislature's counsel and its analyst.
But Snow said it was unlikely the administration would go it alone.
"I want to assure you that I also do not think there is any question about the key role the Legislature has to play," he wrote to Wolk. #
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080227/A_NEWS/802270326/-1/A_NEWS
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