Another instance where the original plan of the Peripheral Canal was the best plan, but public leadership failed to implement it then, but it is still needed and will cost so much more now, not to mention the cost of the Delta’s degradation over the past several decades since.
Once they work through the “through-Delta” plan, the best one, again, should emerge and one hopes public leadership stays on course this time around.
Canal plan is floated for Delta woes
By Matt Weiser - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, September 24, 2007
Most people have heard of the peripheral canal. Now it's time to meet the canal's new stepchild.
Amid a drought year and declining fish populations, California water officials are again sketching lines across the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, hoping to move fresh water to people and farms without wiping out endangered species.
The last attempt -- the infamous peripheral canal -- was pilloried by California voters in 1982. It was a relatively simple trench that would have carried a portion of the Sacramento River around the Delta to state and federal export pumps, and then to points south.
A generation ago, critics feared the canal was a south state water grab, though scientists now seem to agree that separating exported fresh water from the Delta's environment may be a good idea.
The new canal on the scene aims for something similar, but without actually taking water out of the Delta.
Instead of a self-contained canal that skirts the Delta, the new proposal diverts a portion of Sacramento River flows into a series of armored levees that wind through the center of the Delta. Most proposals would turn the south fork of the Mokelumne River and Middle River into this proposed canal.
Called "through-Delta conveyance," it also includes gates across some side channels to keep out salt water during high tides. Bolstered levees would be built to withstand earthquakes, floods and a predicted sea-level rise caused by global warming.
