This sums it all up

[Ned Morris]

Saw this in the Sunday SF Chronicle. Write your local congressman

[Frank Alessio]

Never a truer word spoken....It is easy to be on the winning side...All you need to do is move South....

[mikel]

Never a truer word spoken....It is easy to be on the winning side...All you need to do is move South....

And grow pistachios for export

[Scott V]

If you are down south, take a look at Pyramid lake next to the 5 freeway. When I drove past a week before Thanksgiving, it was full to the top. And I mean FULL!

[Frank Alessio]

Not a drop of rain in the 10 day forecast...Probably not for the rest of 2013....

[Ned Morris]

Not a drop of rain in the 10 day forecast...Probably not for the rest of 2013....

Global Warming is just a myth right?

[STEELIES/26c3]

Pyramid and Castaic are the smallest, water storage reservoirs (fed buy the CA aqueduct) so a bit skewed to point them out as full... but make no mistake... I'm all for prevention of the twin tunnels and extremely concerned for the future of our fisheries, the Sacramento/SJ Delta ecosystems and even our domestic water supplies.

Stay educated, vocal, socially and politically active, and conserve water as if your life depended on it.

[Bob Loblaw]

We need to do a lot of things if we are to secure our water supply and protect our fisheries...in no particular order.

1.80% of water is used by Ag so first we need to overhaul our agriculture policies and subsidies. no more thirsty crops allowed. Its illegal to grow hemp which uses little water but cotton is ok? tomatoes are fine? almonds? oranges? in a desert? We also need to blow up the archaic system of inherited water rights and the practice where taxpayer subsidized water is gifted to millionaire farmers for pennies on the dollar...much of which they sell on at a huge profit!
2. the remaining 20% of water is used by residential and industrial. The savings will be smaller but we all need to do our bit....turn off the sprinklers.
3. It is not a viable or even a humane solution to just say let LA rot in the sand. That will NEVER happen...if you don't believe me just count the number of elected officials in Sacramento from LA County versus the 9 county Bay Area or the number of Congress members ...hint...they outnumber us nearly 2-1. So any workable solution will involve a safe and secure water supply for Southern California whether we like it or not. the hard part is finding that sweet spot.
4. The delta is not working either as a fish habitat or as a water conveyance system. If we get an earthquake in the wring place it will become one huge brackish pond and will serve neither interest. We need to look at ways to make it work better or work around it...neither way is cheap or easy. I don't know if a peripheral conveyance or a completely re engineered Delta is the best overall solution, the bottom line is we need to be smarter with water.
5. We need cast iron laws that clearly prioritize the pecking order for water. Fish and wildlife should always be first. Farming is a gamble with no guarantees...there are wet years and dry years, good harvests and bad, been that way for thousands of years...only CA farmers with this artificial water supply have become hooked on the guaranteed harvest every year. Sorry guys, that's just not right.
6. The current twin tunnel plan is massive. The rationale is that the flows will be strictly monitored and that the capacity will only be fully utilized during peak flood events thereby catching and hopefully storing big runoff during the spring and then turning down the spigot the rest of the year to allow for fish migrations etc. This sounds great on paper but only works in reality if we do point number 5 first. There have been too many fish kills in the recent past because farmers have had their hand on that spigot.
7. The EIR for BDCP is 25,000 pages. Public comment opened at 8am on Friday. By 8:15 DWR had received dozens of comments declaring the document flawed and inadequate....lots of very accomplished speed readers out there! We as a state need to park the angry rhetoric and understand we are all in this pickle together. We have more people than ever and less water. We need to figure what the future looks like and not try to preserve our old ways just because we believe them to be our birthright...yeah I'm calling out the farmers again.

Personally I could find a way to support the BDCP with some big caveats...first among them is the need for more south of the Delta off stream storage....either groundwater recharging or new/expanded reservoirs (I see there are proposals to expand San Luis...I think that's good). If we do not build south of the delta storage the inevitable fall back is the raising of Shasta dam and the flooding of more of the McCloud....I think we can all agree that its better to put the water in a hole in the ground in Fresno or Kern County.

[STEELIES/26c3]

I agree with most of that but the problem with the last point...

first among them is the need for more south of the Delta off stream storage....either groundwater recharging or new/expanded reservoirs (I see there are proposals to expand San Luis...I think that's good). If we do not build south of the delta storage the inevitable fall back is the raising of Shasta dam and the flooding of more of the McCloud....I think we can all agree that its better to put the water in a hole in the ground in Fresno or Kern County.

is that Resnick and Westlands Water is 'grandfathered in' to receive X amount of water which the feds are not currently able to allocate. I'm not sure the government can even legally create infrastructure to store water in Kern County and compete with Westlands and its contracts with MWD.

It is the old "Tragedy of the Commons" Garrett Hardin outlined in the 1960's... only worse, as the population is greater, the resources are fewer and the relationships between big money and politicians, more expansive and more deeply entrenched.

I don't understand how the ESA and Public Trust Doctrine legislation have no teeth in the matter... but assume it's because few people (myself included) have the time or resources to thoroughly understand the complexities and how to present solutions to them in a way which favors the sustainability of our natural resources...

[bmcclintic]

2. the remaining 20% of water is used by residential and industrial. The savings will be smaller but we all need to do our bit....turn off the sprinklers.

We waste thousands of gallons of water watering our lawns and in the process we dump thousands of gallons of water polluted with chemical fertilizers into our streams and waterways. (see the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico)

Think globally and act locally.

You can start with killing your lawn and planting a home based farm. Your lawn provides no return on investment. When was the last time you went out and clipped some fresh grass for your lunch or dinner? Most people don't even use their lawns but spend hundreds of dollars every year to keep them green, cut and watered because it looks nice. There was a time when every house had a garden for sustenance (remember Victory Gardens?). It wasn't until after WWII and the push to the suburbs when water was plenty and gas was cheap that this changed. We as a country, a state, a community need to change the way grow our food and use our resources. Cities and towns need to change the rules. You can have a lawn in your front yard but not a vegetable garden?

People talk about "peak oil" and they havoc that could insue without it. We can live without oil, we can't live without water. Water is the real crisis in this state and in this country.

We, as stewards of the rivers, streams and lakes, need to stop this project in it's tracks and explain to our friends and neighbors what the short and long term impacts will be them and to our communities. We also need to look at how we can impact this issue right in our own front and back yards.

Just my $.02