Western Water: Finding the Fix
More from the May/June 2013 issue written by Gary Pitzer:
The 2009 legislative water package defined the co-equal goals for the Delta as “providing a more reliable water supply for California and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem. The co-equal goals shall be achieved in a manner that protects and enhances the unique cultural, recreational, natural resource, and agricultural values of the Delta as an evolving place.”
The Delta Plan and the BDCP are separate processes that revolve around the same intent of meeting the co-equal goals. The water package requires the BDCP to be incorporated into the Delta Plan, provided it adheres to the standards of a Natural Communities Conversation Plan, the state’s version of an HCP that has higher standards of environmental protection and process requirements for transparency. Questions about that determination can be appealed to the Delta Stewardship Council for approval.
Procedural issues aside, it is the talk about large underground tunnels and the disruption of people’s lives and property through a multi-year construction process that fuels most of the BDCP controversy.
Concern about the BDCP’s possible impacts is most deeply held within the Delta, which supports a robust agricultural economy and through which the new conveyance would operate. That infrastructure would come at the expense of 100,000 acres of productive Delta farmland.
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