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April 2, 2009
State officials constructing a conservation plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta made a long circuit of public-input events up and down the state last month, delivering a Powerpoint outline of alternatives in a plan to save the delta's collapsing native fish habitat while maintaining water exports in future dry years. It was all part of the required public-comment process for the state's Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Some previous meetings had been calmer. Others - especially those in and near the delta, where locals feel they're on the losing end - were more lively. Their last meeting was one of their liveliest events. On March 26, the middle school auditorium in the tiny town of Clarksburg, which hugs the western levee of the Sacramento River south of the capital, was packed to standing room. The team of federal and state officials made its usual presentation, and the following comment period lasted the rest of the night. The surrounding Clarksburg winegrape appellation accounted for a number of speakers, who protested a move toward higher salinity in delta waters and the loss of property values they said would result. References to past wars were abundant. One speaker compared the plan to the aggression of Nazi Germany, another to the internment of Japanese-Americans, saying its confiscation of rights and possessions would be similar. The entire plan was denounced as a water grab for Los Angeles. Four-letter words were used. Some speakers drew a connection from restored wetlands to West Nile virus, including a woman recently left paralyzed by a mosquito bite. "We are not prepared to see the delta restored to its natural state, as environmentalists are clamoring for," said Dave Sterling, a resident of nearby Walnut Grove. "Please don't throw those of us who call the delta home under the bus." To show he identified with their concerns, Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources, sported the same neon-yellow T-shirt worn by most in the audience. It was handed out at the door by the organization North Delta CARES, which opposes any water diversion upstream from the delta, saying increases in delta salinity would destroy their livelihoods. One way or another, pumping from the delta will harm endangered species, including the Delta smelt, currently the most high-profile of a list of endangered or threatened species native to the estuary. To balance the health of delta ecosystems with water needs in a future widely expected to be drier, various studies and plans have recommended some version of a peripheral canal-an idea that's been around for decades, most recently defeated by voters in 1982. Such a canal would allow water slated for pumping south - to San Joaquin and Imperial valley farmers and southern cities - to bypass the delta altogether. This would reduce the effects of the current south-delta pumping; the huge force of the state and federal pumps draws in endangered fish, and disrupts habitat by reversing the delta's flow direction. Therefore the state must apply for a federal permit that shields it from penalties and legal action for killing those species. For the permit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requires a management plan that would ensure the species' long-term health. "Folks realize it's a major challenge to restore an ecosystem in a place such as the delta," said Carla Nemeth, spokeswoman for the California Natural Resources Agency, which is constructing the conservation plan. "We're contemplating some pretty big changes in the hydrodynamics of the system. The folks who live in the area have a pretty big stake." Linda Robertson drove an hour and a half from her home on Bethel Island, near the delta's mouth, to attend the Clarksburg event. She operates boat slips and hosts contestants for bass tournaments, and protested that any plan for above-delta diversions would turn local waters salty, impacting the bass and her business. "We are going to fight in any way we can to stop this water grab by L.A.," Robertson said. "That's all this is." But a return of some salt to the delta is exactly what planners want. The delta lost its brackish tidal flows starting after the Gold Rush, when settling miners began dredging its channels and building levees to form islands. The shift to fresh water has also contributed to shifts in the overall ecosystem, and native species have declined. Current alternatives offered for the conservation plan, therefore, include areas where salt water would once again flow in with the tides, creating intertidal marshes that host an abundance of species. Some speakers in Clarksburg agreed with the aim of preserving ecosystems and endangered species; others described their decline as natural evolution. The delta is what it is now, many residents say, not what it was a century and a half ago. |
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