A new study begins.
California begins study of canal's effect on delta
By Mike Taugher
Bay Area News Group
Article Launched: 03/18/2008 01:37:51 AM PDT
Plans to build a peripheral canal to divert water around the delta took a key step forward Monday when the Department of Water Resources launched a 30-month study on how to stabilize unreliable water supplies.
The environmental analysis will examine the effects of building a canal, along with other methods of getting water from the Sacramento River to the East Bay, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
The study comes as state officials search with increasing urgency for a fix to the delta's myriad problems, which include collapsing fish populations, increasingly unreliable water supplies and aging levees that could fail and cause flooding while also jeopardizing water deliveries.
Since 2006, water agencies, regulators and some environmentalists have been meeting to craft a "Bay-Delta Conservation Plan," which would relieve water agencies of onerous endangered species requirements in exchange for a long-term commitment to help recover dwindling fish populations.
In a sign of the urgency with which state officials view the delta's problems, the analysis of the plan is being launched even though the plan is not complete and its participants have not agreed on a solution.
The state's top water official, Lester Snow, said the two efforts will be closely coordinated and that starting the analysis now will speed a solution.
"We need to get started on the official processes," said Snow, the Department of Water Resources director.
