Help stop plan for increased Delta pumping

Can the San Francisco Bay/Delta stand a 27% increase in water pumping - removing up to a million acre feet per year - more than 325 billion gallons or enough water to serve two million households?

Already the massive pumping stations of the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project divert, on the average, about half of the fresh water that once flowed naturally into the Bay-Delta - largely for use by Central Valley farmers and Southern California cities.

Meanwhile in our Bay/Delta - the largest estuary on the West Coast - scientific studies show that several species of open-water fish, and the complex food web that sustains them, have declined rapidly over the last few years. Last fall the endangered Delta smelt, a small fish native to the Delta, dipped to the lowest recorded number ever. Many species are now listed as threatened or endangered, and the Bay/Delta ecosystem continues to decline.

The pumps kill millions of fish each year by sucking in eggs and larvae in addition to adult fish. The pumping also changes water currents to the degree that fish get lost in the sloughs and channels of the Delta, where they become easy prey or die in dirty water that has become too warm for their survival. The decline of the fisheries corresponds closely to the rate of pumping.

The increased pumping proposed in the so-called South Delta Improvement Project of the California Department of Water Resources would further devastate this collapsing ecosystem.

In contrast, according to the draft California Water Plan Update, we can meet water needs well into the future without taking more water out of the Bay/Delta. Investing in water-use efficiency and recycling can supply four times more water than the Delta pumping plan. It makes no sense to even consider increasing pumping when the Bay/Delta is already so stressed.

WhatYouCanDo

Write to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at:

State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814-4991.

Urge him to stop any increases in Delta pumping and to champion a sustainable water policy through investments in water-use efficiency and recycling.

Eric Wesselman