Stop The Canal and Bay Delta Conservation Plan!

Stop The Canal and Bay Delta Conservation Plan!

by Roger Mammon, Restore the Delta

If you want to stop the peripheral canal and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, here is your chance to speak out against it. It is imperative that everyone that has a stake in the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta show up for this Assembly Hearing on July 7th. I ask that you forward this information to everyone you know that could possibly attend this hearing. Further information will be sent as we learn more.

Restore the Delta has heard rumblings from Sacramento that legislation calling for the peripheral canal will be introduced any day now in some type of water bond package. However, the details of financing such a project will be delayed until a later date.

Can our legislators really be thinking about creating a bond without working out the financing when California is on the brink of complete financial collapse? Are they really so desperate to say that they have solved the water needs of California as way to divert public anger over their inability to fix the budget?

Can they really be thinking about spending billions to build a pipe to move water from the north to a limited number of corporate Central Valley farmers while passing on the expense to California water rate payers? Can they be using seismic threat and climate change as the excuses for building this pipe, when seismic threat and climate change could bring about even greater damage to one central pipe that is 2.5 football fields wide, rather than a Delta with a disperse levee system?

Can they be thinking about building a pipe that will destroy thousands and thousands of acres of prime farm land that produces food for all of California? Can they be thinking about building a pipe that will be wider than many areas of the actual Sacramento River? It seems so.

That is why we are asking all our Restore the Delta supporters to plan on attending the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee Hearing on proposed Delta bills on July 7, 2009 at 9 a.m. in Room 4202. The numerous proposed Delta bills will be heard as a package. As final language becomes available through the end of the month, we will share our findings with you so that you can prepare to comment at this hearing.

It's time to let our legislators know that we want real solutions to break dependence on Delta water exports and to create new water supplies for our neighbors throughout California. It's time to let them know what a bad idea the peripheral canal is for the environment, Delta communities, and the state budget.