California Peripheral Canal Plan Resurrected

California Resources Agency ^ | April 30, 2008 | Peter Finn

[PeterFinn]

I am posting this important and breaking news ahead of Sacramento TV stations and The Sacramento Bee. The California Resources Agency this evening in Clarksburg, California held a meeting in which they presented their plans to "save" the vital agricultural heartland of California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region. Option four of the presentation (which can be found here: http://baydeltaoffice.water.ca.gov/sdb/bdcp/bdcp_draft_scoping_meeting.pdf ) includes a PERIPHERAL CANAL starting south of Freeport in Scribner Bend and following the exact route of the proposed 1982 Peripheral Canal to the pumping stations of Clifton Court Forebay.

But that's not all. Option four as presented this evening also includes "restoring" virtually all of the California Delta farmland to 'wetlands' and 'habitat'. The towns of Clarksburg, Courtland, Locke, Walnut Grove, and Isleton would be subjected to seasonal flooding in order to effect 'habitat restoration'.

All of this is really about throwing a bone to the environmentalists at the costs of several hundred thousand acres of farmland and the ending of a way of life for thousands of people. All of this in order to create an excuse to push through a Peripheral Canal to send more water to Southern California.

There was media coverage at the event in Clarksburg tonight so hopefully it will be in the news and there will be proper articles to link to and discuss. But the time to get the info out on this is NOW.

I have more documents I'll be posting on Google tomorrow and I'll provide links to them as soon as I can. Thank you.

[caseinpoint]

Thanks for the information. Add me to a ping list if you have one.

[rottndog]

Peripheral Canal is probably cheaper than fixing all those levies...

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Frankly, I'm Ok with people wanting to live in reclaimed swamps, as long as I don't have to pay to bail them out. Unfortunately, this is a pipe dream.

[Abathar]

Remember the words of a Presidential hopeful:

“We will take from you for the greater good of others.”

Seems that sentiment is alive and well in your area.

[rockinqsranch]

“Option four as presented this evening also includes “restoring” virtually all of the California Delta farmland to ‘wetlands’ and ‘habitat’. The towns of Clarksburg, Courtland, Locke, Walnut Grove, and Isleton would be subjected to seasonal flooding in order to effect ‘habitat restoration’.”

This (Option four) does not appear to be an intelligent piece of legislation. One might guess California’s Legislature is somewhat lacking of common sense to even propose this.

It will be interesting to read all the options presented.

[SierraWasp]

"One might guess California’s Legislature is somewhat lacking of common sense to even propose this."

Are you series? Surely you jest! This is hugh!! They're just having a "Wetlands" dream!!! (snort!)

[SierraWasp]

Where’s the godless Gubernator Arnoiled Wilsonnegger, the world’s biggest political hermaphrodite, on this? (he asks rhetorically)

[kellynla]

Who cares what RINOld’s position is on this issue...or any issue!

I’m ready for another recall... how ‘bout you?

We could/should be building nuclear cogenerating electrical/desalination plants off the coast of CA that that would give us all the electricity & water we will ever need...all we need is some LEADERSHIP in Sacramento!

[ElkGroveDan]

There's nothing wrong with the peripheral canal in and of itself, the problem here is the enviro-whack component where they want to shut down agriculture in the Delta. We need to build the canal because our state's economy and a substantial portion of the nation's produce production depends on a reliable supply of water.

Farmers generate about $59 billion in personal income for Californians, or 6.6% of the state's total annual personal income.

Agriculture supports 1.1 million jobs in California, accounting for about 7.4% of all employment.

Fresh and processed fruits, treenuts and vegetables have the greatest impact of any commodity group, leading to $30 billion in personal income and 567,000 jobs.

Animal products account for $11 billion in personal income and 214,000 jobs.

Food and feed grains account for $10 billion in personal income and 192,000 jobs.

Agriculture is especially significant to the economy of California's Central Valley where it accounts for 21% of all income and 25% of all employment.

[PeterFinn]

The Peripheral Canal will eventually shut down a significant amount of agriculture as the diversion of fresh water during the summer months allows salt water to intrude further into the delta. As proof of this, one of the justifications for the canal is that in the summer salt water has been intruding near to Clifton Court Forebay.

We do not need this canal to protect the delta, Los Angeles wants the canal so they can replace the water they're anticipating losing from the Colorado River as water contracts are renogotiated.

[PeterFinn]

It’s not a pipe dream. Several hundred people were told last night that this is dead serious.

[ElkGroveDan]

We do not need this canal to protect the delta, Los Angeles wants the canal so they can replace the water they're anticipating losing from the Colorado River as water contracts are renogotiated.

That's a very old and very simplistic argument. Water these days, like money is fungible. The more we have and the easier it is to move around, the cheaper and more available it is for everyone. Of course Los Angeles wants and needs more water. They will get it one way or another. There is one water market in California and availability and cost affect our critical agricultural industry. California has growing water needs and the peripheral canal will solve much of that.

[PeterFinn]

So to hell with the people whose families have farmed the delta for 150 years - LA wants water, is that right?

[DoughtyOne]

Where ever he is, my guess is that he is on the wrong side of this just like other issues.

The time was that lower California needed to pull in fresh water from the north. With recent developments in desalinization, I think it’s time for Southern California to launch an effort to obtain fresh water from the ocean.

I don’t honestly know if it is reasonable for it to get all it’s water from the ocean, I would tend to doubt it, but it could sure ease the situation. SoCal needs to become more responsible for it’s own fate.

I do not favor altering the farming practices mid-state for SoCal’s benefit at this point. If SoCal has a major problem, then let the idiots who think it should be the home of millions of illegal immigratns, donate their water to quench the illegal’s thirst.

[ElkGroveDan]

So to hell with the people whose families have farmed the delta for 150 years - LA wants water, is that right?

No. The Delta plan is the enviro whackos idea. I am opposed to that.

[SierraWasp]

They just announced a “poll” on Sacramento TV this morning that Schwartzenfrauder is in like flynn with 58%!!! You gonna git to another Recall with polling like that? The idiots in this state are suffering with terminal GANG-GREEN!!!

[SierraWasp]

Yep! Where water flows, the economy grows!!! Build Auburn Dam!!!

[SierraWasp]

"With recent developments in desalinization..."

What's that? The last I heard, it took about as much electricity to do that as it took to separate water from oxygen to make hydrogen, or to make alumininum!!!

And that takes a heck of a lot of electricity that can only come from night production from enough nuclear plants when all other needs are lower!!! (then more hydro for peak production needs)(like from a hydro electric Auburn Dam)(which could also flush out the salt water in the delta created by the peripheral canal that Peter worries about)

[PeterFinn]

What's amazing here is that the proponents of the Peripheral Canal are promoting it this time by saying the very same things that were said to defeat it in 1982! It's tantamount to saying that Hurricane Katrina would be a good thing for New Orleans.

And the proponents of the PC added the proposed massive new swampland (a protected mosquito habitat, I'm sure) to please the enviro-whackos. And the total detail of this makes the whole thing California's largest engineering project of the past forty years.

[Mat_Helm]

Many replies seem to think this is about obtaining more water for Southern California. That is just plain wrong! Water stored in northern reservoirs is only a small fraction of water diverted in the state. Most of that water is used for agriculture. The dams and conveyance facilities including the California Aqueduct have been paid for by farmers as they pay the capital cost to deliver water every year to deliver water to their land. While the larger bodies of water like Shasta and Orville provide flood control, they primarily supply water for the State and Federal water projects for farming and wildlife refuges. This water is already going through the delta and in most all years accept the driest represents a tiny fraction of what goes out San Fransisco Bay to the ocean. A peripheral canal would move the same water in the same historic quantity, but would convey the water around the delta instead of through the delta.

The delta smelt issue shuts down the export pumps on the south delta. There is no science to support shutting down the pumps. Cities around the delta are doing more harm to the smelt by killing the plankton and and organisms the tiny fish eat. The pumps take a few hundred fish and billions of dollars are lost and agriculture suffers in a starving world short of food because of brain dead environ wackos suing to shut down the export pumps. One big earthquake later when the delta levees fail, just like hurricane Katrina, and the delta is broken for years and the California aqueduct shuts down because the water has turned to salt, and California dries up and goes back to the 1850's. Morons! The canal should have been built decades ago.

[SierraWasp]

Remember when we used to say... "How do ya drain the danged swamp, when yer up to yer ass in allegators?"

If'n we revive the swampiness then it'll become "Silent Spring" in reverse with pandemics of malairia without any DDT!!! Ha Ha Ha!!! (that'll sure solve the illegal immigration problem along with all the TB)

Aren't EnvironMentalists using GovernMentalists really quite funny??? I sure think so!!! They're literally cutting off their noses, to spite their faces and being hoisted on their own ridiculously horrendous petards!!! (smirk)

[AuntB]

Please add me to a ping list, too PeterFinn. First I’ve heard about this. It must be a lousy idea if it came out of Sacto.

[AuntB]

“So to hell with the people whose families have farmed the delta for 150 years - LA wants water, is that right?”

That’s the usual reason. The cities rule us, always have and won’t give up that power easily.

You might appreciate this 1994 article.

Fred Charles Ikle a Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, served as under secretary of defense for policy in the Reagan administration and as director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Ford administration.

OUR PERPETUAL GROWTH UTOPIA
Fred Charles Ikle (1994) [snip]

http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2008/04/bigger-isnt-always-betterwords-from.html

“Our country and state have a special obligation to work toward the stabilization of our own population so as to credibly lead other parts of the world toward population stabilization.” Ronald Reagan, Governor, State of California, Hearings before Subcommittee on Census and Population, 1974.

[SierraWasp]

Have you heard the latest? They’re going to create Delta Smelt Fish Hatcheries to replenish what the pumps chew up!!! REALLY, TRULY!!! (we go from the ridiculous to the sublime!!!)(or is it the other way around???)(well who the hell cares anymore, right???)

[SierraWasp]

"Likewise, growth in population density is to be welcomed if it is associated with increases in GNP or per capita income."(emphasis added by me)

Both Ronald Reagan and I like(d) the increases in "per capita income because he counciled everyone that we din't need more taxes as much as we needed more taxpayers! The best social welfare program ever invented was dignified employment!!!

So this author who was a hold-over from the Ford/Rockefeller short-term administration is really trying hard to put a fine point on this argument that kinda sounds right, but I still like most types of economic growth, especially from stuff that comes up out of the ground from mining and agriculture.

That's the ONLY place new wealth of any kind actually springs from with the help of water, except that which springs from the inventive/creative mind of mankind!!!

[Czar]

You know where he is on this—the wrong side, just as he always is. This jackass of a foreigner doesn’t have a clue.

[BOBTHENAILER]

That's the ONLY place new wealth of any kind actually springs from with the help of water, except that which springs from the inventive/creative mind of mankind!!!

Always nice to see the Stinger git on up that thar SOAPBOX, and zap 'em.

[hedgetrimmer]

I too am ready for a recall. What’s California’s deficit now, $20 billion? What idiots are even considering wiping out a chunk of our Ag economy and homes and towns of taxpaying citizens so that LA can have more water for illegals?

[kellynla]

“What’s California’s deficit now, $20 billion?”

I have no idea...wasn’t it just a couple of years ago they had some HUGE surplus that they didn’t know what to do with it...

Talk about “cooking the books”...the Mafia has nothing on state and federal governments. LOL

[PeterFinn]

One big earthquake later when the delta levees fail, just like hurricane Katrina, and the delta is broken for years and the California aqueduct shuts down because the water has turned to salt, and California dries up and goes back to the 1850's. Morons! The canal should have been built decades ago.

The plan here in each of the options is to build the Peripheral Canal AND let the delta fall to pieces and allow more salt to intrude as levves are destroyed or allowed to fail in order to create more marshland.

So the farmers in the delta get screwed and LA gets their water. Obviously, you don't live in the area affected by this, do you?

[PeterFinn]

And there has been absolutely NO media coverage on this despite the over six hundred people who attended Wednesday night’s meeting. Why am I not surprised?

[Mat_Helm]

The plan you reference will never happen. Even so, many so called farmers in the area already fallow their land and sell their water to the Bay area and northern communities that have shallow ground water problems, with some water also going to SoCal. Areas like Yuba County, Glen Colusa, Yolo, Contra Costa, and many others sell their water. A lot of rice is not being planted. The levee break from two years ago has still not pumped all the water out of the island created and some of this land may never be farmed again. A massive return to wetlands is what the environ wackos want. Central Valley farmers already are being devastated compared to north delta farmers who have 100% of their water allocation this year and a great deal would gladly sell their water to South delta farmers if they could move the water, but the export pumps are held back because of ESA smelt ruling by the federal court.

So, NO! I don't cry for north delta farmers, but I do for south delta farmers who are being screwed as we speak and its not an iff or but, it is happening right now. State contractors have already lost over 500,000 acre feet of water this year and only have 35% of their water. Federal contractors only 45% of their water mostly from the Judge Wangers ruling and partially from a very dry March and April hydrology. The Governor and most AQWA members are not going to let the levees fall apart and most of the left wing democratic legislature is in the hip pocket of environmental groups who force the politicians to earmark and spend wasted billions of dollars on the levees and will attempt to block the canal. Every agency in the State agrees that a canal is needed in some form or other and it will happen eventually, but not for Metropolitan water district or Socal area, but for central valley farming. Only if common sense prevails.

[PeterFinn]

Say what you will, but this is happening and the State is going forward on it. Deny it all you want but they LA water interests are teamed up with the environmentalists on this to ram it through. Feel free to attend the next meeting in Stockton if you don’t believe me.