A Manteca-area farmer and engineer takes a state-sponsored November report to task.
The November report to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by the Delta Vision Task Force contains a wealth of information and an extensive analysis of Delta protection needs and water supply issues. It correctly states that the present method of exporting Sacramento water through Delta channels is not acceptable either for protection of the Delta or for reliability of water supply for much of California.
Unfortunately, however, some of the report’s basic conclusions and tentative recommendations are based on assumptions that are not physically feasible.
Prior to the vision process, the task force members and Schwarzenegger apparently decided that a peripheral canal of some sort was necessary for water supply and that the Delta could be protected better than it is while operating an isolated conveyance canal. These assumptions are wrong, but the task force did not discover this, because it ignored the reasons why a canal is not necessary for water supply and the reasons why the Delta would be trashed if Sacramento River water were exported through a canal.
The plan also fails to explain that the basic problem is that the state’s population has already outgrown the developed water supply. It ignores a plan that was submitted and could meet objectives without a canal.
Isolated versus in-channel conveyance
The report seems to build on the preconception that exporting water through an isolated conveyance facility (aka a peripheral canal) is necessary for water supply reliability and that it can also be compatible with protection of the Delta. This apparent pro-peripheral canal bias led to a failure to address either the impacts of a canal or alternatives that would meet the vision’s goals.
It is acknowledged that “there is not sufficient information” to ensure that a canal is a viable solution. Then the report refers to “an assessment of a dual conveyance system as the preferred direction.” The report does not call for analysis of the effect that any isolated conveyance would have on salinity in Delta channels, including in the south and central Delta during months and years when the river flow is low. A technical analysis will soon be available that demonstrates the inevitable rise in salinity. This rise would be a disaster.
Dual-facility proposals
The report ignores the fact that exporting water through the isolated portion of a “dual conveyance facility” would increase salinity in the through-Delta portion above acceptable levels for Delta water users. A dual conveyance system is therefore unsustainable.
The report does not make it clear that a canal would have to go through the Delta, not around it, due to development on the east side. It would sever waterways, roads, farm fields, irrigation and drainage systems and interrupt the circulation of channel waters. It would create blind sloughs where salinity, dissolved oxygen and invasive water hyacinth would not be controlled. It would be a barrier to major flood flows from south and east of the canal and cause increased flooding.
Analysis of a through-Delta plan
The report does not call for assessment of an improved system of export through existing Delta channels that could achieve the goals of the vision plan. It does not even mention the plan submitted to the task force by the South Delta and Central Delta water agencies, which incorporates the Delta Corridor Plan.
It would separate and protect the San Joaquin fishery from the export system; it would keep in-channel salinity at levels that would preserve Delta farms; and it would assist in quick recovery of both exports and Delta protection if multiple levee failures were caused by a major earthquake. It would maximize the water available for export while protecting the Delta. It would cost less and could be implemented faster.
The task force report also does not mention that endangered Delta fish species thrive best in water with low salinity.
Putting Delta farmers out of business
Delta farmers are the primary maintainers of the rural levees that preserve the basic pattern of channels and lands that constitute the Delta.
The report does not acknowledge that these farmers would be put out of business by the salinity rise caused by isolated conveyance of export water. It does not propose another means of levee maintenance. It does not discuss the consequences if levees are abandoned. It does not discuss the fact that an acre of wetlands consumes significantly more water by evaporation than is consumed by an acre of farmland. It does not discuss the consequence of conversion of farmland to wetlands, due either to the rise in salinity or to direct conversion to wetlands.
Overall, the report proposes protection of Delta agriculture and then makes proposals that would adversely impact agriculture.
Outgrowing developed water supply
The report discusses the need for more developed water. However, its discussion of this does not make it clear that the underlying problem pitting export proponents against Delta protectors is the inadequacy of the developed water supply.
It does not make it clear that no conveyance facility can increase the overall water supply. It does not mention the fact that California’s population is growing by about 6 million people every 10 years. It does not assess the magnitude of the growing demand for water as compared to the potential water yield (not storage capacity) of the report’s storage proposals. It does not distinguish between nonconsumptive water needs, such as most in-house uses, and consumptive use by croplands, wetlands, evaporation from open water bodies and so forth. A majority of the public’s water is for consumptive use.
The 2005 California Water Plan makes no provision for providing the increasing need for consumptive water use. The task force report does not do much better. The primary potential source for that water is to capture and use beneficially the water that flows from the Central Valley through the Delta to San Francisco Bay in excess of needed outflow in wet years. There are feasible ways to do this.
Compliance with existing laws and regulations
The report does not discuss compliance with the Delta Protection Statues, priority of water rights, Delta outflow requirements, salinity and dissolved oxygen standards, Agricultural Code 411 and so forth. The task force apparently intends that these protections be disregarded. This will have implications regarding legal and regulatory protections for water users everywhere.
The report should be reconsidered.
• Alex Hildebrand, a longtime Manteca area resident is a Delta farmer and engineer.
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