More support for a delta canal

A high-ranking state committee has endorsed the idea of building an aqueduct around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to improve water deliveries to Central and Southern California.

The proposal for a new system to take water from the Northern California delta has been gaining traction as its mounting environmental problems create more pressure to curtail pumping from the southern reaches of the estuary.

A blue-ribbon task force last fall made a host of recommendations to restore the delta ecosystem and change the way water is conveyed through the region. In a paper released Friday, a cabinet-level committee embraced most of those recommendations, including "dual conveyance."

Under that concept, state and federal water managers would continue to move some water supplies through the delta, which is a maze of farm islands and water channels. But a new canal would be built to transport some supplies around the delta and carry them from the Sacramento River directly to the pumps.

A proposal to build a more ambitious version of such a canal in the early 1980s sparked a bruising battle between the state's north and south and was voted down.

The Delta Vision Committee Implementation Report also endorses proposals for new reservoirs, more statewide water conservation and stepped-up efforts to correct the delta's myriad environmental ills.

The recommendations, which would require some legislation and bond money to move forward,  represent the latest in more than a decade of so-far-unsuccessful efforts to stop the environmental hemorrhaging of the delta, which supplies two-thirds of the state with urban and irrigation water.

The delta suffers from rising sea level, crumbling levees, crashing fish populations, pesticide pollution and invasive species.

-- Bettina Boxall            

Comments

[Yes]

And most of all, the delta suffers from government.

[East coast tree hugger]

The need of a dam near Carquinez straight would be the best thing to do to protect farmland and drinking water from the effects of sea level rise. Look here to see for yourself what the effect of flooding would do to farmland and drinking water and the way of life.

http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=38.0167,-121.7326&z=7&m=1&t=2 .

[sheila]

the link to the paper does not work...

so, all this intense debate about water, yet the idiots at CPUC and the Governor's office continue supporting water-wasting power plants like geothermal and concentrating solar, instead of rooftop solar, despite the sprawling, baking urban heat islands covering this state? what gives?

CSP uses a minimum of 90,000 gallons of water a year PER MEGAWATT for daily mirror rinsing (which is done from a GHG-spewing diesel truck), and more usually, especially in hotter regions like our deserts, where output drops drastically in the afternoon, and the air cooled plants are far more expensive and far less efficient, 2 MILLION gallons per year per megawatt for water cooling. these numbers are insane, yet nobody is squealing about them and revealing how un-green they are, especially at the Times. why not?

the existing Geothermal steam plants in CA are now literally running out of steam, as they all inevitably do, so here come the plans to "inject" billions more gallons of our precious, scarce water into the ground to generate energy - energy that we could all generate on our own rooftops if we were ALLOWED to, but we're not. why not?

CA Solar Incentive intentionally limits our generation capacity to the amount of power we use (ditto net metering), for the sole reason of preventing US from participating in the free market and getting PAID for producing clean power that does not deplete our water supplies, nor destroy our functioning ecosystems - all because Big Energy wants to maintain its monopolistic chokehold over ratepayers, even if it has to destroy the environment and bankrupt us to do it.

Meanwhile, Germans get paid 65 cents/kWh for clean power they produce on their own roofs. and CA thinks it is so "progressive?" what a joke.

SAVE OUR ECOSYSTEMS AND OUR WATER AND LOBBY FOR OVERSIZED PRIVATELY-OWNED ROOFTOP PV SYSTEMS AND FEED IN TARIFFS SO WE CAN BE PART OF THE SOLUTION!

[jgogek]

The Peripheral Canal is just a canal. It's not the boogie man. Managed properly, it will not cause environmental damage to the Delta, and may, in fact, create benefits compared to the likely collapse of antiquated system of dikes and levees that now makes up the Delta. If we use the canal to drain away all the water from the rivers and Delta, we're doomed. But if we don't build the vital infrastructure to wisely manage the resources that we desperately need, we're also doomed.

Read more at:
http://tinyurl.com/peripheralcanal
http://tinyurl.com/californiawaterfight

[tardigrade]

Before we start jumping around going, "WOO HOO!" remember, the population of California is 36,457,549, 9,948,081 of which lives in Los Angeles County and 2,941,454 live in San Diego County.. both counties depend on water from Northern California, Colorado River, and less so these days, from the Owens Valley.

California is experiencing the effects of Climate Change more than any other state except Alaska (ice melting causing century old towns to have to move inland) and will have LESS water to distribute to its inhabitants (people, plants and animals) in the very NEAR future. In fact, WE will most likely be witness to great losses to the environment and to farmland. And, considering that the majority of water used in urban areas is for watering turf lawns.... we are headed for trouble.

Now, to understand all of this, we need to look at what we S. Californian's consume, now.

Using numbers from an Oakland Tribune article on June 30, 2004 on the back of an envelope of what MWD expects to pump over time...

Fact one: one acre foot of water = 326,000 gallons (2 families for a year)

2) 1990's MWD pumped 226,896 gallons to S. Cal.
3) 2000 MWD pumped 456,400 (1.4 million acre feet) to S. Cal.
4) 2004 MWD pumped about 521,6000 (~ 1.6 million acre feet) to S. Cal.

What does that mean??? well, from 1990 to 2000 pumping of water was increased by 49% more to S. Cal.

And, between 2000 to 2004, MWD pumped 87.5% more then the year before to S. Cal!!

That means that MWD is pumping MORE water- (this could change upward considering the population growth projected) as the amount of snow melt (available water in ground) from the Sierra's is DECREASING as well as in the Colorado River (same reason - Climate Change).

Also, open water storage and culverts loose LOTS of water from evaporation, especially when water is in motion (like going down stream in warm weather).

So, in essence, our water company, MWD, wants to take more from a sensitive source which is loosing more and more water water every year, for people down stream who are NOT just drinking the stuff.... But what surprises me is that there is great cheering for this wrok around from the Sierra Club???!!!!!

The only method to protect such a FINITE resource is conservation and alteration of human life styles .... otherwise Mother Nature will come take a small chunk out of our population on her own.