AB 500 (Huber) just misses...

[Darian]

Bob,.... I've said this before on this BB and I'll say it again.... IMO, the perfect solution is to build a dam across the Carquinez Straights. That way the Delta is no longer an issue as I envision a reservoir that extends from roughly south of red Bluff to somewhere near Bakersfield. Not sure what the actual depth would be but it'd be at least 115' and all fresh water. The only pumping necessary would be for conveyance over the Tehachapi's and the bay area would be protected.

This discussion is a lot like political debates. Lots of accusations, emotion and scary stuff said and nothing happens. Makes me wonder what their real interests are....

[Tracy Chimenti]

I love our pragmatism, Bob. You do have common sense. Perhaps this pipe dream will be built and policies that are tenable to fish and wildlife will be observed. But after reading in so many areas that export folks believe water going under the G. Gate to be a waste of resources, I can only assume they have no clue about anadromous fish, or simply don't care. Hey, if i was that thirsty I probably wouldn't care either! I am a small farmer in Placer County and I know how precious water is, but I don't ask for more every year-- in fact they are going to make us use far less in the future. Our local water agency has read the fine print in SB68 and believes it is likely that Nor-Cal will endure 20% conservation reductions to our supply, while So-Cal and larger coastal communites will only have to conserve 5%. I will post this story next.

As far as stripers causing damage to the delta system, I'm going to have to lament record runs of steelhead and salmon occuring numerous times since striped bass were introduced in 1879, as well as a consistently productive commercial salmon fishing industry.... until a time of record exports... when striped bass indexes were at their lowest. Still are.

In regards to de-sal, I toured the Mulholland Plant in Santa Barbara with a senior engineer. One of two portable trucked-in plants, it was mothballed, as the drought was over by a year or so. The engineer admitted that CWP canal water was slightly cheaper than de-sal and that technology was closing in rappidly enough that it would be slightly cheaper to desalinate in a couple of years.

I say de-salinate all you can. Put the salt under a mountain somewhere. I say set up the nuke plants in teh safest areas of the desert to supply this energy for de-sal, as well as to plug in electric cars so we can clean our air. Like the Newlands Project in Nevada, the farms there were robbing the life from Pyramid Lake. In the end, the government bought out the unproductive lands, leaving the local farm industries lean and mean. The lake is back and is a huge draw for visitors. It is again a national destination. This would not have happened if someone didn't have balls.

I guess most anyone from northern CA is supicious of this campaign-- unless they're Bob the Lawyer/Lobbyist!! I just want my kid to have something else besides ipods and u-tube to look forward to. Currently, my10-year old kid loves salmon and striped bass fishing (Ben's up against Westlands, Paramount Farms, and Metropolitan water to name a few).

By the way, the nut exports are up so much that hundres of thousands more trees are slated for planting this year... think how much water they'll need when they mature!? This is when policies are re-interpreted.

[Bob Loblaw]

Water discussions do tend to get pretty heated and impassioned which is half the problem. I try to stick to the facts and listen to what people have to say rather than question their motives.

When engaged in policy dilemas like this I try to boil things down to "must haves" and "like to haves". I must have clean drinking water and I'd like to have great fishing, when the two are in conflict (and I'm not saying they are in this instance) the "must have" ought to win every time. I believe through better conservation and tighter regulation of agriculture we can reduce our water demand to the point that we no longer have to divert damaging amounts of water away from the delta.

The viability of the delta however is a whole other conversation. Even if we reduce our water needs to a fraction of the current load, the delta will still be a very weak link in a critical delivery/life support system. Having a water deliver system dependent on 100 year old piles of dirt is as dumb as dirt.

I too want a California for my kids where there are wild places and wild animals and fish in the rivers too, but they will only be able to enjoy that California if they are able to live here, and to live here they need water.

I watched Rivers of a Lost Coast again last night and was reminded just how fragile many of our ecosystems are and how man can damage them to the point of no return by callous thoughtless action. But we cannot forget that 38 million people are part of California's environment too and they need water just as sure as salmon do....of course they can get by using a lot less than they currently do.

As for SB 68, I haven't read it, but if it calls for the biggest per capita water users to make the biggest conservation efforts, I don't have a problem with that. Like I said previously, water users in San Francisco use 57 gallons per capita per day, in Sacramento people use 288 gallons per day. There's no rationale that can justify that discrepancy. My whole famiily uses 60 gallons a day because we conserve every drop and recycle what we are allowed....even some that we aren't allowed under grey water regulations. I think its criminal that people use 288 gallons of treated and subsidized drinking water every day to water lawns, wash cars, flush the toilet 20 times a day, take 20 minute showers, and fill swimming pools. Criminal. We should start with conservation because the greenest, cheapest, most sustainable gallon of water you use, is the gallon you don't use. If coastal cities have lower conservation requirements its because they use less water in the first place. You can't conserve or recycle what you don't use.

Someone's Ox always has to get gored when big chajnges are made. Under your proposed plans we have cheap nuclear power but the people of Yucca Nevada have to house the waste and the people all around the country who live near rail lines have to live with the risk of an accident while that waste is in transit. Your deasl plans persent the same risks. Toxic brine that contains heavy metals and all sorts of bio threats would have to be pumped or shipped great distances to be dumped on someone elses's doorstep so that we can preserve our environment and have enough power and water to live in sunny Califorinia. If I lived in Nevada next to Yucca Mountain, I'm not sure I'd be happy being California's trash can. We need to create self sustaining systems not export our problems elsewhere. That said your proposals are a little more realistic and less devastating than Darian's dam idea...a lake from Red Bluff to Bakersfield???

We live in a largely man made and managed environment. Any talk of conservation or preservation should be looked at through that lens. There are all sorts of conservationists out there; there are fishing conservationists who want watersheds and flows protected to conserve fish stocks, there are others who wear the conservationist label who want to bust out the retonone and remove all non-native fish because they eat endangered frogs (trout in the Sierra) or juvenile fish (Striped Bass in the Delta). So when people tell me they are a conservationist, or an environmentalist, I always try to find out what exactly they are trying to conserve or which version of the environment are they seeking to protect. Everyone has skin in the game and there's always a poor ox getting gored.

Our own DFG has spent millions stocking lakes and streams with hatchery rainbows and a few year later millions more trying to remove them because public opinion has shifted, yet it is all done under the guise of "environmentalism". I'm sure you've read An Entirely Synthetic Fish which documents this silliness in great detail.

Bottom line, the delta is a man made and man managed environment...there is little if anything natural about it, so the "environmental" arguments don't really wash with me...salmon and steelhead excepted...they were here first. I can't understand rhetoric that supports the tearing down of dams and the building up of levees...thats cognitive dissonance at its finest.

Like I said earlier, conservation is the solution to this problem. We need to reduce demand and we do that by passing laws banning cotton and rice growing in California. Grow industrial hemp instead. Requires a fraction of the water and no pesticdes and its illegal...go figure. We should alsio penalize domestic users who abuse our water supply. Give every Californian an allotment of water and when their meter goes over that number they pay through the nose for it. If you want a green lawn in August in Susanville or Fresno or Los Angeles, its gonna cost you big bucks.

By putting a fair market value on water you drive down demand overnight...but you still need a safe conveyance system.

I think I'm done.

I think.

(as for the Striped Bass argument, its all a matter of perspective. They are apex predators and voracious feeders and are a non native species. Dropping them into the Delta is like dropping lions into Yellowsone. The other apex predators won't be too badly effected, salmon, steelhead grizzly and wolf will all do OK, but you are flipping the rest of the ecosystem on its head...man has a really lousy track record of screwing things up when he plays god with animal species)