Delta Water Wars Will Heat Up When Legislature Returns

Delta Water Wars Will Heat Up When Legislature Returns

by Dan Bacher

If you thought the summer budget battle was fierce and ugly, "just wait until you see the uproar that’s about to take place in Northern California over the resurrection of the old 'Peripheral Canal' water conveyance project," advised Andrew Acosta for Restore the Delta. Once the legislature has returned from their summer recess on Monday, August 17, a package of water bills is set to be released and the debate will heat up.

The word from Alf Brandt, consultant to the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, is that the language in five bills regarding the Delta will emerge in the "pre print" version in the next couple of days.

"The Governor is working to rush this new version of the Peripheral Canal through the process without any meaningful public input," said Acosta. "In fact, they have already started drilling even though the process is not completed and environmental effects are still unknown!"

Surveyors from the Department of Water Resources will be drilling holes in the river bottom at 16 locations on the Sacramento, Mokelumne and San Joaquin rivers next month to explore potential intake locations for this enormously costly government boondoggle. Much of the drilling will take place on the Sacramento River between Walnut Grove and Freeport, south of Sacramento.

This canal project would rival the Panama Canal in size and length and would slice through the Delta region. The canal, to accomodate 15,000 cfs of Sacramento River water, would be 500 to 700 feet wide with a 1300 foot right of way. This canal and right of way combined would amount to being the size of 100 lane freeway! In comparison, the Panama Canal is 500 to 700 feet wide.

The canal would be 47 to 48 miles long, compared to the Panama Canal's 50 mile length. A growing coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Delta farmers, Delta businesses, California Indian Tribes and environmentalists is opposing the "Panama Canal" north because of its obscene cost and the catastrophic threat it poses to collapsing Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish populations. This canal also threatens to drive the southern resident population of killer whales, which depends on Sacramento River salmon for food on the ocean, over the abyss of extinction.

"The subsequent water grab would be the equivalent of draining Lake Shasta twice every year and would cost taxpayers between $15 and $24 billion," he stated. "It would have the same devastating consequences for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, San Francisco Bay, and the entire Pacific salmon fishery as the one rejected by the voters in 1982, but it would cost billions of dollars more."

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director of Restore the Delta, said the group sees many opportunities to solve some of the water issues that have plagued the state for so long, but is fearful of what will not take place in this debate when the Legislature re-convenes.

"Draft legislation under discussion reportedly proposes that a politically appointed council make the decision as to the adequacy and implementation of the BDCP, which INCLUDES the Peripheral Canal," wrote Parrilla in the Capitol Weekly on July 23 (http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_c=y59mp4ql4vpp55&xid=y54yekvz0ldgsf). "There needs to be a system of checks and balances put in place and the Legislature must have the ultimate oversight on these key issues. If not, next year we will be left with a plan that allows the Peripheral Canal to slice through the Delta."

"This canal would be built to help the legacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but not for good public policy," she concluded. "The Peripheral Canal was a bad idea in 1982 and it is still bad idea today; the only difference is a higher price tag."

When the Legislature returns to the State Capitol on August 17, they will be greeted by the Million Boat Float, a "guerrilla flotilla" of boaters from Antioch and throughout the Delta to protest the peripheral canal. Everybody who is concerned about saving the Delta and stopping the construction of Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Big Ditch" as a monument to his giant ego should attend this unique protest. For more information, go to http://www.millionboatfloat.org/index.htm.

For more information about Restore the Delta, please contact Andrew Acosta or Roger Salazar at (916) 444-8897 or go to http://www.restorethedelta.org.