Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
January 20, 2009
Top Item –
Associated Press
Opinion:
Another View: Peripheral canal idea still thin on details
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Associated Press – 1/16/09
(01-16) 14:36 PST
Mike Robinson's family has been tilling land in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta since the 1880s, growing crops in some of
His alfalfa, hay, corn and tomatoes thrive on water pulled from the delta, the estuary that also provides water to two-thirds of the state and cropland throughout the
In recent years, the delta has become an increasingly unreliable water source, in part because of court decisions that have limited pumping to protect native fish. What to do about it is dividing California's farmers and reopening a decades-old fight over whether to re-engineer the state's water system and pipe fresh water around the delta, which stretches from the state capital to San Francisco Bay.
Within the delta region itself, the water is used to irrigate roughly 500,000 acres. To those farmers, the idea that a canal would funnel fresh water past them leads to fears of withered crops. They worry that siphoning off river water before it enters the delta would allow salty water from San Francisco Bay to intrude, ruining their water supply.
"It would be like pumping ocean water on your crops. You couldn't irrigate anything," said Robinson, a third generation delta farmer. "It would literally be the demise of agriculture in the delta."
Farmers to the south in the
Other farmers throughout Northern California view the canal proposal as a water grab by
"It comes down to whether you're going to be helped or hurt by the canal," said Richard Howitt, chairman of the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at the
There's little debate among politicians, farmers and water users around the state that something has to be done about
A federal court ruling limiting delta pumping during certain times of the year in an effort to protect the threatened delta smelt is causing hardship for many farmers in the
Supporters say building a canal would provide a more stable way to transport water from Northern California's rivers to fields in the
If the court's restrictions remain and
"Over the course of the last 19 years, we have seen our water supply be reduced year after year because of new restrictions to protect fish species," said Thomas
Delta farmers, environmentalists and sports fishermen argue the state should instead reduce how much water it pumps out of the delta, helping restore a failing ecosystem that is home to 750 species of plants and wildlife and 55 species of fish.
"Our fate is tied to maintaining water quality and flows into and out of the delta and preserving the estuary," said Dante Nomellini, a
The Schwarzenegger administration is studying a canal to determine whether it would affect the quality of the water in the delta and its flows. Those studies aren't expected to be complete until 2010.
Questions remain about how a canal would be operated and who would run it.
Northern California farmers also want assurances they would keep their legal rights to the water that flows into the delta and want money set aside to build new dams, said Steve Danna, president of Danna and Danna farms in
"We've got family farms that have held water rights literally 100 years or more. Those need to be protected," said Danna, whose family farms about 2,500 acres in Yuba and Sutter counties. "If we're going to build a canal, we also need to build some dams because the bottom line is there's just not enough water to go around any more."#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/16/financial/f132206S69.DTL
Opinion:
Another View: Peripheral canal idea still thin on details
Peter H. Gleick
Peter H. Gleick is the president of the Pacific Institute in
The governor's Delta Vision Committee recently announced its recommendations for addressing the decades-old challenges facing
Such a canal, costing billions of dollars, would move water more directly from Northern California rivers to Central and
There is no doubt that the Delta is in crisis and that the lack of action on the part of state and federal water managers, and irresponsible decisions to expand water exports from the Delta over the past decade, have made matters worse. As a result, tensions over water policy have intensified. In turn, this has ratcheted up the pressure on politicians to come up with a big response. And the peripheral canal would be big.
The arguments in favor of such a canal include increased reliability of water deliveries, better control over water quality and reduced impacts on collapsing fisheries. Arguments against it include its high cost compared to efficiency improvements that could reduce the need for water exports from the Delta, concerns about the impacts on Delta farmers and communities, and ecological concerns from saltwater intrusion into the Delta exacerbated by reduced flows.
Interest groups in
Understanding the implications of multibillion-dollar decisions like this can only be done if the details of those decisions are openly debated in a transparent, public process. And they haven't been.
Given the enormous unknowns about the actual costs, benefits, design, rules for operation and impacts, it is grossly premature to take a position either in favor of, or in opposition to, the peripheral canal. Everyone who struggles with
Some argue that the time for talk is past - indeed, there has been plenty of talk about water in
Where is a peripheral canal going to be built and how? Who is going to pay for it? How much water would it move, and at what times of the year? What rules will govern its operation and who will strictly monitor and enforce those rules? What provisions will be put in place to change the operating rules as climate change increasingly alters water conditions and in the event that new science shows new problems or advantages?
What impact will the operations have on the Delta itself - both the humans and the ecosystems that rely on inflows to the region? Provide the answer to these questions, and then we can have a real debate about the pros and cons before shovels go in the ground. Good water policy in
http://www.sacbee.com/325/story/1549550.html
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