Welcome to
(i.e. what the government wants to do with the Delta)
(click
on graphics to open full sizes of each)
Update 11-2-09 A staggering number of bills and
amendments to bills, all related to the New Delta water plan were
introduced, revised and amended. Review is scheduled to happen
Monday November 2, 2009 at the State Capitol building. If you
care to read the bills, here they are in PDF format. (Note
that the DWR website is down for maintenance the whole week end,
until 8:00 PM tonight. Interesting timing!) Go to the
Planning Maps pages to get a
visual idea of the complexity of the proposals
Link to another great video-
history of CA water woes and who's behind the battle now!
Cut & paste web address to your web browser address bar:
http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/2009/10/video-presentation-lloyd-g-carter-on-californias-water-mess.html |
click on picture above for 4-minute video about Delta
people, but come back to see more planning maps here!
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Sept 2009 update: The current official legislative session
for the year has ended and
the new "Delta Plan" has not yet been approved. However,
assembly members are calling for a special session to deal
ONLY with the water bills. The Federal government, via
Secretary of Interior, has said they will now be involved in the
largest plumbing remodel job in US history. A few weeks ago, the 5 different
water bills were revised so much that State Senator Wolk pulled her
bill for a Delta Conservancy, and other environmental groups
withdrew their support. But don't be fooled by the
gamesmanship going on. Stalled does not mean stopped.
The East Canal is already halfway dug and Statten Island and Bacon
Island could
easily become "In Delta Storage" facilities according to visual
records:
Connect the Delta
Dots report and decisions from studies reported in
2005. Here's and interesting link
and pay special notice all the reports from 2003-2005:
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/wq_control_plans/2006wqcp/revised_app2_refdocs.shtml#cbda
 There's
also an interesting series of maps developed 2004-2006 showing the
concept of the SoCal water districts to very quickly do a
"Eco-crescent central canal" in the Delta, using gates to stop
possible salt water intrusion if islands to the west happen to fail
in a flood or seismic event. In this map the "two gates"
project seems more like a "5 gates" project. Compare maps This
type of canal would split the Delta in half, east and west, and
lands to the west of the central canal would be encroached by salt
water, lands to the east would still have the fresh water of the
Sacramento River. So it seems the folks
at Bethel Island and DiscoBay do have valid reason to voice their
concerns! Go to the 2006
documents. The 2006 UC Berkeley Colloquium on Water talked
about a "Delta Central Park" concept or a "Delta National Park"
also.
You can go to Youtube to see those interesting lectures.
Historically,
the state has come close to doing a major
water project, then "couldn't find the funding" and the feds stepped
in and "saved the day". Californians then were happy because their
perception was that someone else was paying for California benefit
(ignoring its our own federal tax dollars that fund the fed
projects) and since the federal legislators were for the project the
EPA-types and other environmentalists or opposition of those
bygone days
backed off somewhat. For example, part of the "Project Levees" were
built/paid for in part by "New Deal" Federal Funds when the state
legislators of that time agreed they wanted to improve the levees
but couldn't find the funds. Our
prediction for the last few months: We would
not be surprised if a "big name" from Washington DC came to California
to
"save the day" so that infrastructure monies can flow into
California like water through the aqueduct after a rainy winter!
That would make many Californians happy, but would in effect take
away the land rights of the Delta landowner. (Since this
prediction was made in August 2009, the Feds have clearly gotten
involved & Senator Feinstein is working on the "biggest bill" of her
career as of October 14, 2009) |
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The amount of
California tax dollars that has been spent to generate reports in
support of the new Delta Plan is staggering. From
documentation it appears that a decision was made by the water czars
in 2000 to switch to a new Delta Plan, and the lead agencies were
advised in January 2001 their Delta restoration focus should be
Delta-wide, not just the South Delta area. Take a look at the
document trail starting with 2001 to 2005. Of course, the
studies can be validated (if one would ask) by the decisions in the
1990's regarding safe water flow for
the Delta. Note the 2003
letter from our governator, sent to our senators BEFORE he was
governor. Note the 2006 letter from the governator to several
CA state legislators. We have not been
able to get a clear picture of the total funds or where the funds
came from so instead we will start uploading the literally hundreds
of thousands of pages of studies, slideshows and reports generated
in the last few years to support the "dual conveyance" plan while
also looking at areas of the delta that could be restored as
mitigation for the damage to be done by taking extra water.
Over the next few weeks, we will be uploading the documents, most in pdf format and all assumed to be indented for public viewing as they
were generated by public entities or else private entities paid for
by public funds, and therefore appropriate for public viewing at
this time, without infraction of any copyright laws.
Then, as
now, the state may pay for levee improvements to protect STATE
interests, like avoiding flooding in Sacramento area and stopping
salt water intrusion into the Delta so that the water will be good
enough for transport to other areas of California.
A short history of California's water
wars from the perspective of a Delta landowner:
In the 1850's to
1900's the state sold lands owned in the Delta area to individuals
who wanted to reclaim land for farming and other beneficial uses.
People purchased their lands and built up the existing natural
levees to protect against floods. In the meantime, refuse from
the gold mines washed downstream in the winter months, literally
filling up some of the formerly naturally deep waterways with silt
and mining muck. The "Middle Fork" of the Sacramento River, a
naturally deep passage for boats traveling from San Francisco to
Sacramento, later renamed Steamboat Slough, is an example. By
1880's this river was not useable in low tides due to all the
silting. In the 1910's
and thereafter, the Federal government agreed with California state politicians that protecting
some levees and waterways in the Delta were important to assure flood protection
for Sacramento area, and also to assure fresh water supply through
the Delta. Hence using some of the "New Deal" infrastructure
monies, certain levees were improved and thereafter labeled "project
levees". Th e Federal government also built the first of two
main water channels or aqueducts to carry some of the water from the
Delta down to the growing SoCal cities, especially Los Angeles.
Later, California decided to do another water project, so that more
water could be taken from the Delta to send to barren lands of the
Central Valley, like Fresno and Kern counties. The farmers on
the east side of the Central Valley had primary water rights because
their water had been taken from the San Joaquin River where they
riparian water rights. The farmers on the west side of the
Central Valley, however, had to contract for water, and their
contracts allowed them water ONLY when there was enough water in the
Delta to ship out. Their water rights are called secondary and
in low rain years they might not get the water allotment they had
contracted for. The Westland Water District was formed to
protect the water contract rights of these farmers, and to work with
the state to find more consistent sources of water for the Central
Valley farmers on the west side of the valley.
In the 1960's the State of California water wonks came up with an
idea for a California-built canal that would go around the Delta, taking the fresh
Sacramento water to the then-new California aqueduct to send it on down south.
1965
Map. It didn't get built because folks thought it was a
bad idea to mess with the wonderful Delta. In 1980 the same
"peripheral canal" idea was put to a vote of the people of the state
and again it was turned down as a bad idea. Starting in 2003
and earlier, a group of mostly SoCal large land owners started
pushing for the idea again and the current governor allowed millions
in state funds to be used for studies to validate why NOW would be a
better time to build that same canal that was considered a bad idea
before. This time they call it "Dual Conveyance".
We've been gathering more documents, most in pdf
format, so our viewers can open and read the documents. It
appears about One Billion Dollars of the California deficit must
have been spent on all these reports, studies, proposals and
meetings. So what is all this Delta talk about anyway?
... Simply stated, the drinking water of the state is taken
mostly from the San Joaquin River and so much water is being taken
out that the salt water from the San Francisco Bay is merging with
the fresh water, which makes it to salty for drinking and farming
without extra filtering or treatment. So instead, some state
agencies want to take the water out of the Sacramento River.
Sounds simple, but it isn't. By taking more water out of the
Sacramento River, the very productive Delta islands around the lower
Sacramento River will potentially be ruined by the extra salt water
that will infiltrate the Sacramento River. There's also the
complications of various fish species failing to thrive due to the water
suction pumps, which suck up and kill the fish.
More to
come... |
