Delta folks hot over water tunnel plan. Upper Roberts Island, San Joaquin County -- Strolling down a dirt levee road, farmer Mike Robinson passed his fields of alfalfa and yellow safflower. A worker pumped river water toward a tomato crop, and two men and a boy laughed as they sped by on personal watercraft. It was an idyllic summer scene in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, but one that did not veil Robinson's anger over the latest chapter in the state's never-ending, north-south water war. "The Southern California interests want our water. Now they've got the answer, and they're falling all over each other to justify it," said the 65-year-old owner of Robinson Farms Feed Co., which sits north of Tracy and west of Stockton. Fighting over water is a birthright in the delta. And downstream residents are convinced they're being set up for ruin by a multibillion-dollar plan, backed by Gov.
Ready to fight "They want to leapfrog the water rights system, and make inferior water rights into superior water rights," he said. Time to get real about California's water supply. Thirty years ago voters resoundingly rejected an enormous "peripheral canal" to ship more Northern California water south. Today, that old idea has been repackaged as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. This time it's even more expensive and less practical.
Estimated to cost between $12 billion and $54 billion, the plan is backed by large water interests that say they will pay for a portion. But, in truth, all ratepayers and taxpayers will be the ones footing the bill. It's time for a reality-based approach, not more expensive pipe dreams. Despite its new name, this plan has less to do with providing water needed to "conserve the delta" than it does with providing a 50-year permit to divert even more freshwater from the delta through a newly constructed canal or tunnel. I believe that there is a commonsense alternative approach. Here are some suggestions: Secure delta water: The possibility of levee collapse in the delta threatens the ability to move water to other regions of the state. Calif. delta tunnel plan would increase pumping. Sacramento -- The amount of water pumped out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta would significantly increase and some species would be harmed if massive tunnels are built to move water around the fragile ecosystem, according to thousands of pages of documents released by state officials Wednesday.
Additionally, more than 110,000 acres of fish and wildlife habitat would be created in the delta, representing the largest habitat restoration in state history. Officials stressed that the plan is preliminary and that they expect significant changes before it becomes final. John Laird, secretary of the California Resources Agency, said the unusual early public release of as many as 10,000 pages of documents was meant to elicit input to further refine the proposal.
"This is a starting point for what we might actually do for the delta," Laird said. Two large tunnels State officials hope to have a final version of the plan by the end of the year. Recovery theory 'Comprehensive analysis' Delta what? | Opinion Shop. Sutter Slough winds through the delta. Just months before Californians may vote on a $11.1 billion water bond to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta ecosystem and build new reservoirs, a new poll finds most Californians don’t know what the delta is. Poll findings released Jan. 27 showed: 78 percent of Californians statewide did not know what the delta is or hadn’t heard about it. 86 percent of Southern Californians did not know about the delta 70 percent of respondents outside of Southern California did not know about the delta. 60.4 percent would vote yes on the “Safe, Clean And Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012″ (the bond measure) Yet, California is facing two big decisions this year about the delta: 1. 2.
Among the poll responses to: Tell me what you know about the bay-delta. “It’s an area where big cities exist.” The governor has indicated that he would like to delay the bond measure, already held over from the 2010 ballot. To get to know the delta, watch this slideshow: Delta Planning in 2012: No Drought of Activity | City Brights: Tom Philp. The snowpack may be thin in the Sierra, but in the halls of government and throughout the Internet, key planning documents to shape California’s water future are piling up in a veritable blizzard of activity.
Two planning processes with similar-sounding names are the primary sources of documents. One process is called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. The other is called the Delta Plan. Each planning process actually has two different hubs of activity. Let’s start with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Normally in the initial drafting stages, these kinds of plans don’t get posted on the Internet. Now let’s go to the Delta Plan. The Delta Plan itself is currently in its fifth draft. Can historic change happen in the Delta through these sorts of transparent planning processes? California water project won't be decided at poll. Sacramento -- Thirty years ago, Californians soundly rejected a proposal to build a canal to move water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and deliver it to Central Valley farmers, Southern California residents and some Bay Area cities.
The projected costs and threats of environmental damage resulted in an overwhelming defeat at the hands of voters statewide. Now, planning for the construction of a similar canal is under way, and a final design could be selected by the end of the year. The designs under consideration are smaller than the last proposal, but the biggest difference between now and 30 years ago is that this time around, voters will not make the final decision. Regulators will ultimately decide whether the state should build either a canal or a series of massive tunnels to make it easier to move water from Northern California without it flowing through the delta's circuitous sloughs and channels. The process "They have been very wise to spread around targets. Gov.
Calif. delta water plan requires transparency. Water, in California, is a fighting word. And code for changing the rules to advantage one group of warring water users over another is "reliable" as in "reliable water supply. " This week, the war drums are beating louder as regulators rush to present a flurry of water plans to the public. The cascade of decisions dictating how the state replumbs its water-distribution system, including possible construction of a canal or tunnel to move water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, moves to a new stage Wednesday.
That's when state officials will unveil thousands of pages of documents on the studied effects of such a canal on the delta ecosystem, on water quality for humans, for fish and farmers (which are all different) and, of course, on reliability. The goal is to balance the needs of the cities, farms and fish and meet legal requirements of five state and federal agencies and the Endangered Species Act. Gov. California Republicans' brazen water grab. House Republicans are poised to pass legislation that would usurp California's ability to manage its own water supply, harm the San Francisco Bay Estuary ecosystem and drive California's salmon to extinction.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Alpaugh (Tulare County), wrote the bill to reverse the way water is allocated in California. It essentially ensures water supplies for farmers by taking it from the state's native salmon, trout and other fisheries. Beyond that, it: -- Undermines water conservation efforts. -- Dries up a 40-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River - the state's second largest - by ending the restoration project that saw salmon returning two years ago for the first time in more than 60 years. -- Ends the Bay Delta Conservation Plan process but does nothing to address the problems of water supply and quality the plan seeks to address.
Democrat Rep. We agree. Central Valley reps bill would upend water rights. Washington -- Representatives from the Central Valley pushed legislation through a House committee Thursday that would upend the state's system of water rights, deploying the federal government to extract water from Northern California farms, fisheries and cities to send to farmers in the valley. The action by the House Natural Resources Committee came the same day that the House voted to require the federal government to usurp California's governance of its coastline by requiring offshore leasing for oil and gas drilling. Neither bill is expected to become law, given strong opposition from California's Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. But the water bill, HR1837, is a major salvo by Central Valley lawmakers, most of them Republicans but including Rep.
"Plain and simple, it's a water raid on the delta," said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove (Sacramento County), who waged trench warfare in the committee by offering more than 20 amendments. Water held in trust. Smelt Supreme Court ruling goes against farmers. SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Supreme Court has denied an appeal by Central California farmers who claimed the federal government lacks constitutional authority to protect the imperiled delta smelt by limiting north-to-south water shipments. Three San Joaquin Valley growers challenged the government's use of the Endangered Species Act to protect a fish that exists only in California and has no commercial value. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in March that the law is constitutional because preserving rare wildlife from extinction is a form of economic regulation that is part of Congress' constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.
Courts around the nation have agreed that "the protection of threatened or endangered species implicates economic concerns," even for species found only in one state, the three-judge panel said. Water Supply in Southern California. [Apart from the sky(!) - it can rain a lot in the rainy season here, which is why there's tons of concrete in LA for flood control as when it comes, it can come in huge quantities. However, it's nothing like enough to support the huge and still growing population of Southern California] Everyone who lives here should appreciate just how it is that we are able to live in a desert that is drier than Beirut, yet still maintain green lawns and golfcourses and have enough running water to serve the population of the 2nd largest metropolis in the whole of the US.
It took me a couple of years to think about it, then I started reading books about it, and now it's turned into a new interest for me, investigating water projects. The definitive work on water in the Southwest is Cadillac Desert (ISBN: 0140178244) by the late Marc Riesner. There are 3 main water sources coming into the Southern California serving different geographic regions: Los Angeles Aqueduct - constructed in 1908-1913. Bay Delta Consortium Online. Delta.ca.