The lack of effective leadership, so far, to renew the aging infrastructure of the California water system is becoming dangerous and one hopes the legislature begins to follow the governor’s lead, supported by Senator Feinstein, to start addressing it.
This article is a great overview of the situation.
CAPITOL JOURNAL
There's still no end in sight to California's water wars
George Skelton
Capitol Journal
April 3, 2008
SACRAMENTO — Fortunately, winter snowfall in the Sierra was average. So homes haven't flooded in the Central Valley. Neither is there a drought, at least caused by nature.
There is a court-caused drought, of sorts, because a federal judge is trying to protect a vanishing little fish, the smelt, from being sucked into and chomped up by giant water pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Consequently, there's a 30% cut in deliveries of southbound water from Northern California.
But this is noticed primarily by San Joaquin Valley farmers.
So although it's fortunate that no swollen rivers have burst their banks or carwashes have been padlocked, it's also unfortunate in a way. Because public pressure is off politicians and water warriors to finally fix California's old, vulnerable plumbing system.
We're getting close to the 50th anniversary of the last time Sacramento achieved anything really significant regarding water development. In 1959, newly elected Gov. Pat Brown cajoled and coerced the Legislature -- and later the voters -- into enacting the then-controversial California Water Project.
That came only after killer floods had inundated Northern California four years earlier. It was the worst flooding in nearly a century. The main culprit was the Feather River, a major tributary of the Sacramento River. The Feather flooded Yuba City and Marysville, killing more than 20 people and floating houses toward San Francisco Bay, 130 miles southwest.
"We must build now and ask questions later," declared state water director Harvey Banks, an exhortation he used in his many speeches selling the water project. The fish-chomping Delta pumping plant later was named after Banks.
Brown formed a coalition of flood-frightened northerners, parched valley farmers and thirsty southerners to build the huge Oroville Dam on the Feather River. He also built the California Aqueduct to deliver water south.
But Brown ran out of money for a third vital piece of the plan: a peripheral canal to funnel Sacramento River water around the fragile, brackish Delta and directly into the southbound aqueduct. Since then, the Delta fishery has tanked -- not just the tiny smelt, but popular salmon and striped bass.
After Brown, Gov. Ronald Reagan also fell short of money and delayed building the canal. Gov. Jerry Brown persuaded the Legislature to reauthorize the big ditch, but an unlikely coalition of rich farmers and skittish environmentalists talked voters into repealing the legislation. Paradoxically, the farmers thought Brown had provided too many protections for the environment while the environmentalists believed he hadn't provided enough.
And that's pretty much where we are today -- except that when these facilities were built, California had 16 million people. Today there are 38 million.
We didn't know back then about global warming reducing the Sierra snowpack and melting it faster, threatening even worse droughts and floods and making water storage even more crucial. And the earthen levees of the Delta mixing bowl weren't crumbling as they are today.
But there still are the same water wars: north versus south. Environmentalists versus developers. Everybody versus farmers. Delta farmers versus valley farmers.
"This issue is more important to the long-term economic viability of California than any other issue, including budget reform," says Steve Merksamer, a political lawyer, former chief of staff to Gov. George Deukmejian and a key player in a recently aborted attempt to sponsor a water bond initiative for the November ballot. "Without water, people die. Forget growth. People will die.
