By Steve Geissinger, SACRAMENTO BUREAU
Inside Bay Area
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger began campaigning Tuesday for water-related aspects of his $222 billion public works proposal that could resurrect a decades-old battle over a canal skirting the Bay Area Delta - a plan voters overwhelmingly rejected amid fears it would drain Northern California to quench the thirst of the south state.
The governor's Strategic Growth Plan plan does not specifically propose a new Peripheral Canal, but administration officials said that as part of the effort, they are eyeing the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and a combination of remedies that include a smaller canal to divert river water around the east side of the region.
"We've determined that the current path we're on (in the Delta) is not sustainable, and the economy of the state of California is at stake," said Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources.
The Peripheral Canal would have diverted water from the Sacramento River, skirted the eastern side of the Delta and delivered it to huge pumps near Tracy. There, water would have been channeled south.
But a bitter regional fight over transferring more north-state water to Southern California ended with voters soundly rejecting the Peripheral Canal in 1982. Ever since, the state has chosen to transfer river water from the Sierra Nevada snowpack through the Delta, instead of around it.
Now, however, there is wide consensus among state and federal water officials, Delta stakeholders and experts that the region's woes have grown critical, including risk of more aging levees that protect farms and homes crumbling due to flooding or earthquakes, water-quality problems, environmental concerns and land-use issues.
Complicating matters, major roads, electricity towers and oil pipelines crisscross the region, maintained by a patchwork of small flood-control districts.
Water from the Delta supplies much of the southern Bay Area, farms to the south in the Central Valley and nearly 20 million Southern Californians. The East Bay Municipal Utility District, which delivers water to large portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, relies on pipelines from the central Sierra that run through the Delta.
State water officials said they do not want to just put bandages on Delta woes, especially as some areas of the state continue swift growth.
"We're looking at what the Delta should look like a hundred years from now,"
Snow said.
The administration is eyeing a combination of remedies such as a mini-Peripheral Canal, changing the flow of water in the Delta, knocking down some weak levees and shoring up stronger ones.
"You could have partial isolation of the water supply, a much smaller canal," Snow said.
But there is little consensus, especially among environmentalists, that a canal should be part of the plan.
Emotions were so high over the issue when studied by CalFed, a state-federal program created in 1995 to save north-state ecosystems while supplying water to the south, that it was formally shelved until next year.
At the same time, lawmakers in the Democrat-dominated Legislature are criticizing both the Republican governor's $35 billion, 10-year water plan that would aid the Delta and the overall $222 billion public works proposal because they say it takes too much decision-making power over politically sensitive matters from them and gives it to nonelected bureaucratic officials.
Schwarzenegger, as part of his efforts to win legislative and voter approval of initial parts of the infrastructure plan, covering everything from roads to ports, has kicked off a campaign to promote the water-related elements.
Officials said they include a broader range of water-management tools, including more water conservation, recycling and desalination.
In the wake of Snow's Capitol news conference Tuesday, the governor is scheduled to appear today in Tulare, Yuba City on Thursday and Orange County on Friday.
Contact Sacramento Bureau Chief Steve Geissinger at sgeissinger@angnewspapers.com.