Charting California’s water future: Time to reconfigure the delta’s plumbing
Share this pageIt’s easy to get lost in California’s delta, a vast network of channels, islands and marshes. Mercifully, GPS readings and marine patrols rescue befuddled boaters.
But rescue missions for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta itself—where an environmental and economic disaster is unfolding—are another story. While fish, farms and drinking water are all endangered, proposals to fix the delta drift into political swamps, never to be seen again.
Last year, I introduced a bill to change the way that water for drinking and irrigation is moved from the north end of the delta to the south. The most encouraging responses I got were the noncommittal pleasantries that sensible people use to humor the deluded. The legislation that is now Senate Bill 27 stalled.
Full Op-Ed on the San Francisco Chronicle website