Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta's ecological decline is breathing new life into bypass proposals

[XemaSab]

(People sampling river substrate) were taking the river bottom samples for a $13-billion project that would shunt water around — or under — the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the big aqueducts that ferry supplies south.

Nearly three decades after a proposed delta bypass was killed by voters in a divisive initiative battle, the idea is back in vogue.

Pumping water from the delta's southern edge has helped shove the West Coast's largest estuary into ecological free fall, devastating its native fish populations and triggering endangered species protections that have tightened the spigot to San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California cities.

The mounting delta problems, along with the potential threats of a rise in sea level and a major earthquake, have turned the attention of state and federal agencies to an "alternative conveyance": either a canal or, more likely, a 40-mile water tunnel system that would be the nation's longest, some 150 feet beneath the delta.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-water-delta-20101125,0,1440560.story

[tabatha]

1. This comment says it all

"Let me see if I have this straight:

Pull water out of the delta and sending it to the San Joaquin valley (mostly) so the corporate farms can have cheap water (which they're not entitled to get).

Then use the decline in the delta's environment to encourage pulling even more water out of the system.

This isn't a good idea: it's insanity and greed. And it leaves out the value of the delta for sport-fishing, farming, and wildlife."

[pscot]

2. People forget or move on or die

but corporations don't. They live on and remember, and they always come back for another try.