Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 17, 2008
1. Top Items -
Controversial Canal Best Option To Solve Water Woes, Group Says
Press Release
State Leaders Urged to Chart Sustainable Future for Ailing Region
Public Policy Institute of California- 7/17/08
Statement
DWR Director Responds to PPIC Report
Department of Water Resources- 7/17/08
Editorial
Spend money that has already been approved for water projects: Political ploys result in no action being taken, no money being spent.
The
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Controversial Canal Best Option To Solve Water Woes, Group Says
By Kelly Zito
PDT -- A giant canal that would route water around the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will best solve two of
A so-called "peripheral canal" would cost $5 to $10 billion and would bypass and essentially replace the delta, the nucleus of the state's water system that serves two-thirds of
"The delta is changing no matter what," said Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the influential institute and one of the authors of the report. "The question: Are we going to be proactive as a state and nudge them in directions beneficial to the environment and the economy, or are we going wait to let it happen and suffer the consequences?"
The full 184-page report, titled "Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta," is scheduled to go public today and will almost certainly ignite a new round of controversy. Though all sides agree the delta is on life support, there are as many cures as there are stakeholders.
Some environmental groups question whether the canal would actually aid deteriorating fish populations. What's more, many believe the solution requires more sweeping change - including across-the-board conservation, water recycling systems and the "retiring" of certain farmland that is already suffering from salt and chemical build-up.
"We're facing a new normal in
The notion of a peripheral canal has arisen over the last several years as the state grapples with lower rainfall and snowpack, the deterioration of the estuary itself, and the crashing of certain fish populations - namely the tiny delta smelt. A federal ruling to protect the smelt that limited the amount of water that could be pumped by state and federal facilities has only underscored the system's flaws and given new life to an old idea.
A peripheral canal was first floated in the early 1980s, but it was rejected out of hand with Northern California voters fearing a "water grab" by
Last week, Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein announced a $9.3 billion bond measure that would shore up the water system and increase funding for reservoirs, recycling and desalination projects as well as the improvement of the delta.
A state advisory panel tasked with crafting a management plan for the delta is also considering a "dual conveyance" system that would combine a peripheral canal or pipeline with continued pumping from the delta. They will meet in
Though a canal or any other large-scale project is likely years off, there will be winners and losers under any scenario. Among the losers in the peripheral canal scenario will be those who farm the roughly half-million acres within the Delta. Unlike most other farmers in the fertile Central Valley, the canal will redirect the fresh water from the
"If you're a delta farmer (a peripheral canal) means you're pumping salt water," said Barry Nelson, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "You're out of business."#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/BA3911QA9U.DTL&type=printable
Press Release
State Leaders Urged to Chart Sustainable Future for Ailing Region
Public Policy Institute of california- 7/17/08
Under current policy, water is drawn from the Sacramento River and sent south through the Delta to enormous pumps that deliver water to millions of households in the Bay Area and Southern California and millions of acres of Central Valley farmland. This approach, which disrupts the natural water flow, has threatened native fish and made the Delta attractive to invasive species. Furthermore, it is unsustainable. Projected sea level rise, crumbling ancient levees, larger floods, and high earthquake potential will inevitably result in a dramatically different Delta environment. This environment will have saltier water, which will be much more costly to treat for drinking and ultimately unusable for irrigation, the report says.
Although it would be best for fish populations if California stopped using the Delta as a water source altogether, this would be an extremely costly strategy, according to the report, authored by a multidisciplinary team including Ellen Hanak, PPIC associate director and senior fellow, and Jay Lund, William Fleenor, William Bennett, Richard Howitt, Jeffrey Mount, and Peter Moyle from the University of California, Davis.
The PPIC-UC Davis team concludes that a peripheral canal is not only more promising than the temporary and ultimately unsustainable “dual conveyance” option – which combines the current approach with a canal – but is also the best available strategy to balance two equally important objectives.
“Coupling a peripheral canal – the least expensive option – with investment in the Delta ecosystem can promote both environmental sustainability and a reliable water supply,” Hanak says.
The new report, Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, builds on the findings of a 2007 PPIC study by the same team, which concluded that the need for a new Delta strategy is urgent. The new report was funded in part by Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Among its recommendations:
· Plan to allow some Delta islands to flood permanently. The state should invest in the levees that protect high-value land, ecosystem goals, and critical infrastructure – and allow lower-value islands to return to aquatic habitat.
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· Begin the transition from the current Delta management system. The current system is harming the native fish now, as federal court rulings have found. Over time, it will hurt the state’s economy. Natural forces will impose change on the current system, and planning for change now will make Californians less susceptible to the potentially much larger cost of earthquake, floods, or levee failures.
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· Develop a new framework for governing and regulating the Delta. With the proper safeguards, a peripheral canal can be economically and environmentally beneficial. It is a more cost-effective strategy than dual conveyance, which, because it relies on continued pumping through the Delta, is an interim solution.
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“Choosing a water strategy is just the first step,” UC Davis researcher
ABOUT PPIC
The Public Policy Institute of California is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to informing and improving public policy in
http://www.ppic.org/main/pressrelease.asp?i=859
Statement
DWR Director Responds to PPIC Report
Department of Water Resources- 7/17/08
“Today’s report underscores the need for a long-term solution to fixing our water crisis in the Delta. It is even more clear that we need to resolve the conveyance issue for the betterment of our environment and our economy. The comprehensive water plan offered by Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Feinstein will provide the tools we need not only to invest in Delta sustainability, but also to meet our future water needs with more conservation, new surface and groundwater storage and regional water self sufficiency. With our state facing a severe drought, climate change, federal court restrictions on water deliveries and growing challenges to our environment, economy and water infrastructure, it’s critical that all sides come together around a consensus plan that can be approved by voters in November."#
http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2008/071708responseppic.doc
Editorial
Spend money that has already been approved for water projects: Political ploys result in no action being taken, no money being spent.
The
A bond measure to address
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein rolled out a $9.7 billion proposal that includes all three elements we believe should be part of a comprehensive solution: surface storage, underground storage and a dramatic boost in conservation efforts.
But the state has bond money from earlier measures that hasn't been appropriated yet -- and should be. Proposition 84, passed by voters in 2006, authorized $5.4 billion for water projects and watershed protection. To date, lawmakers have appropriated only $2.8 billion of those funds. There is also still money available from Proposition 50 in 2002 and Proposition 13 from 2000.
Last year, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill by Senate leader Don Perata that would have appropriated those unspent funds. It was an unsubtle attempt to get Perata's help in advancing a new water bond to build reservoirs. The gambit failed, and now the state's water problems have worsened.
Perata and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass came back this week with a new bill that would allocate $812 million from the earlier bonds for water supply, conservation and flood-control projects.
Of this money, $50 million would go to cleaning up groundwater basins, an essential source of supply in
More than $15 million would go toward studies of new reservoir projects. While critics say they are tired of spending state money on studies of reservoirs, there's no getting around these reviews. No reservoir project will get permits, or approval from taxpayers, if the state can't say how much water will result, what it will cost, who will benefit and what the environmental impacts will be.
That money wouldn't be enough to do all we need to do to enhance and protect the state's water supply, but it would be an excellent start. And the bond measure Schwarzenegger and Feinstein now propose may provide the rest of a solution, if voters pass it in November.
We are badly behind the curve when it comes to addressing the state's water problems. Population -- and demand for water -- continue to grow, just as supplies are weakening, in part because of the effects of global climate change. Many of the solutions proposed are long-term -- particularly new surface storage projects, which take years to build.
But that's not an argument for sitting still. We've been doing that for far too long. It's time to spend the money that's already available for water projects of every sort, and get ready to raise more funds to finish the job down the road. #
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/734855.html
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