PUBLISHED 7-15-2007

When pollsters recently asked people in Southern California to define the word Delta, most responded that it was an airline. They had no clue it is a system of rivers, canals and levees between San Francisco and Sacramento that supply drinking water to 25 million Californians and irrigation water to 2 million acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland.

And they had no clue that a crisis looms. A natural disaster, such as a significant earthquake, would wipe out water supplies from the Delta, leaving people throughout the state high and dry at their faucets.

State water and emergency services officials liken the potential disaster to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans and the  Gulf. Sacramento River and San Joaquin River farmlands would be flooded; salty ocean water would flow into the Delta, contaminating drinking water; and water delivery systems would be destroyed.

But it’s not just a natural disaster  we should fear. Already this summer, a court ordered the temporary shutdown of state pumps that suck water from the Delta and send it flowing south to cities and farms. The pumps are killing the Delta Smelt, a small endangered fish.

The Delta’s earthen canals and levees that form islands and support railroad lines, roads and pipelines, as well as carry water south, are old and prone to collapse. Consider the devastating flooding of the Delta’s Upper Jones Tract a few years ago, requiring that millions of tax dollars be spent for repairs.

With California’s population expected to reach 60 million people by 2050, dependence on water flowing from the Delta is increasing. Repairing the crumbling Delta is long overdue. So is building a canal around the Delta.

Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the Jones Tract, the need to protect a variety of fish species, and the shutdown of state water pumps have been wake-up calls, giving California’s political leaders and water officials the courage to support constructing additional water storage facilities and a canal.

A political fight in 1982 over construction of a canal to take water from the north and send it south triggered a civil war. Opponents placed a referendum on the ballot and convinced voters greedy people in Southern California were trying to steal Northern California’s water.

The election campaign and court battles were so bruising that few politicians since have been willing to even hint that they support construction of a peripheral canal.

The growing threats to the Delta are changing this. Gov. Schwarzenegger has shown the political courage to lead the charge — to actually declare his support for a canal.
But we we are a long way from getting one built. First, people who live in urban areas need to understand how vital the Delta is to California today and tomorrow.

Kern County Water Agency directors have started an educational fund and invited other water users to contribute. The $10 million they hope to collect will be used to get the word out.

And while some who opposed building a canal in 1982 are now in support, delicate negotiations must occur to develop a plan that balances numerous competing interests, including Northern California’s resolve that it not be ripped off by the water-hungry south.