Delta Flows - Weekly Highlights from Restore the Delta for the Week of May 5th, 2008
"To innovate is not to reform."
---Edmund Burke
Welcome to the new Delta Flows, Restore the Delta's, once again, weekly newsletter on Delta news.
Due to the phenomenal growth experienced by Restore the Delta this past year (over 1000%), our email and web systems imploded in early March. Over the last six weeks, Restore the Delta staff has been busy working with a team of computer experts to create new systems that will support our current activities and that will give plenty of room to grow over the next few years. The end result is a newly designed newsletter with numerous website updates with enhanced communication features being released over the next six weeks.
We are interested in hearing your feedback regarding our new look, as well any suggestions that you may have for our newsletter.
Also, if you have had problems reach us via email over the last six weeks, please contactBarbara Barrigan-Parrilla at
Barbara@ restorethedelta.org
Scoping Meetings on the Peripheral Canal?
The Department of Water Resources is working with the Delta Protection Commission to develop a Delta Emergency Response Plan. According to their advertisement the response plan is being formulated to protect water deliveries to 25 million Californians, to protect millions of acres of farmland (this number surely goes beyond Delta farmland), and to protect lives and infrastructure in case of a disaster in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
While Restore the Delta agrees that these are all essential areas of concern for which state and local government agencies need to plan (and actually implement programs and build infrastructure), it will be interesting to see if these meetings become nothing more than a means for selling the public on the supposed "benefits" of the peripheral canal. The peripheral canal -- which, of course, is nothing more than an innovation on diverting fresh water out of the Delta -- will do nothing to strengthen Delta levees, protect Delta residents from flooding, or restore fisheries.
The idea of building a peripheral canal is not a water policy reform - it will not give Californian more water; our supply each year is finite. In fact, the peripheral canal will weaken surrounding levees, potentially increase flooding on neighboring Delta islands and urban areas, and finish off what's left of Delta fisheries.
Nonetheless, we need to see what the Department of Water Resources if offering up to the public. Four meetings are left on the schedule, with one being held this evening in Stockton.
May 5, 2008 - Stockton
6 pm
San Joaquin Farm Bureau
3290 N. Ad Art Road, Stockton
May 6, 2008 - San Jose
6 pm
Santa Clara Valley Water District
5700 Almaden Expressway, San Jose
May 7, 2008 - Los Banos
6 pm
City of Los Banos Public Services Department
Senior Center-Miller & Lux Building
830 6th Street, Los Banos
May 8, 2008 - Los Angeles
1 pm
Junipero Serra State Building
320 West Fourth, Carmel Room 225, Los Angeles
Senator Simitain's SB27 On Hold In the Assembly
The Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee, decided last Tuesday to hold SB27, Senator Joe Simitian's bill calling for the construction of the peripheral canal. Under the leadership of Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Davis), the committee agreed with Wolk that more information and good science was needed regarding the health of the estuary before a decision could be made regarding the peripheral canal. Wolk, Chairperson for the Committee added, "To leap to the conclusion that a new canal or conveyance facility is the answer, and focus our attention solely on that solution, is truly premature."
Wolk then urged the committee, which agreed, to hold Simitian's proposal until next year, after the Governor's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force issues its strategic plan this October.
Restore the Delta staff testified in opposition to the bill and reminded the Committee that before undertaking any new conveyance solution the state's governing agencies need to first to restore water quality in the Delta to support Delta fisheries and local Delta uses. Restore the Delta staff also reminded the Committee that researchers needed to determine how conveyance would ultimately affect water quality, public health, and the economic and ecological health of delta communities.
A Special Delta Event
The First Annual Waldo Music Fest - May 31, 2008
Waldo Holt, a dedicated defender of habitat in and near the Delta and Conservation Chair for the San Joaquin Audubon Chapter, passed away on July 11, 2007. His family, friends and colleagues, however, are keeping his good work alive by creating a conservancy in his memory. Their first project includes the purchase of a lovely piece of riparian habitat land on the Mokelumne River, which they hope to buy with matching funds from the San Joaquin County Parks Department. Their group then plans to donate the land to the Woodbridge Ecological Preserve, where it will be open for hiking, bird- watching and fishing, undeveloped except for unpaved foot trails.
To learn more about their efforts, click here
To honor the memory of Waldo Holt and to support this community effort, you can also attend the First Annual Waldo Music Fest, Saturday, May 31st from noon to 6 p.m., on the banks of the Calaveras.
For details on the event, click here
It's May and We are Counting the Days to Victoria Island Blueberries
Restore the Delta staff, having eaten pounds of Delta asparagus from Zuckerman Farms, is now anxiously waiting for Victoria Island Blueberries. We look forward to the day that we can celebrate eating Delta fish safely with the same enthusiasm that we have for our local agricultural goods.
