I'm sure all of you are members of Friends of the River and have already read your copy of our "Headwaters" magazine, so this is old news
... but just in case someone hasn't, I wanted to put out some really interesting stuff to get you thinking about the on-going debate about dams and water in CA.
This is from a recent article by Steve Evans, our Conservation Director. He's been with FOR for 19 or 20 years at this point (he also just released a book about hiking trails in the Sacramento area -
http://www...esspress.com/book348.htm).
“I have just one statistic, one only, and that is 25 million people depend on Delta water for the drinking water of the state."
-- Senator Dianne Feinstein, August 21, 20007
“The Delta, a key natural estuary and the pathway through which more than 25 million Californians and 2.5 million acres of productive farmland receive their water, is in an ecological crisis that threatens people as well as the environment.”
-- ACWA, September 2007
The “25 million people depend on water from the Delta” factoid (2) is the most overly hyped and abused pseudo-fact in the water debate. Yes, 25 million people live south of the Delta, but few depend exclusively on the water from the Delta.
Not all Californians downstream of the Delta depend on the Delta for water. Millions of people south of the Delta receive their drinking water from local sources. Only about 16% of the water used in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, Tulare Basin, Central Coast, South Coast, (including Los Angeles and San Diego), and the California Desert comes from the Delta. The rest comes from groundwater, recycling, local watersheds, and non-Delta exports (such as Colorado and Owens River water to Los Angeles).
Of the water exported from the Delta, nearly 80% goes to the San Joaquin Valley and the Tulare Basin, where the primary use is agriculture. About 500 farmers in the Westlands Water District in the Tulare Basin receive more water every year from the Delta than the Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco Bay metropolitan areas combined.
Federal and state courts have ruled that state and federal agencies must reduce water exports from the Delta to protect the endangered Delta smelt. This limits but does not halt Delta water exports. Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger and his fellow Republicans in the Legislature have opposed any water bond that may resolve Delta problems, particularly if it does not include substantial public funding of new dams. Even worse, the new dams pushed by Governor Schwarzenegger are likely to make the Delta situation worse by providing more water for export.
It is absolutely true that the ecological crisis in the Delta threatens the environment. But the Delta’s water quality, ecosystem, and native fish species are directly threatened by the state and federal government’s fresh water exports from the Delta. The rhetoric of the water interests is a classic case of turning the victim (in this case, the Delta smelt) into the perceived threat.
You can read the whole article here:
http://www...gename=FORDamLiesArticle
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