Controversial canal best option to solve water woes, group says

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A giant canal that would route water around the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will best solve two of California's most vexing problems: an increasingly unreliable water supply and fast-dwindling populations of threatened fish, according to a non-partisan policy group.

A so-called "peripheral canal" would cost $5 to $10 billion and would bypass and essentially replace the delta, the nucleus of the state's water system that serves two-thirds of California's population. Authors of the Public Policy Institute of California report said a canal trumps three other options - a combined delta and canal system, continued pumping through the delta, or the end of pumping altogether - because it balances the needs of humans and wildlife, while taking into consideration rising sea levels, subsiding land and earthquakes.

"The delta is changing no matter what," said Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the influential institute and one of the authors of the report. "The question: Are we going to be proactive as a state and nudge them in directions beneficial to the environment and the economy, or are we going wait to let it happen and suffer the consequences?"

The full 184-page report, titled "Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta," is scheduled to go public today and will almost certainly ignite a new round of controversy. Though all sides agree the delta is on life support, there are as many cures as there are stakeholders.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/BA3911QA9U.DTL&tsp=1

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