• Inspection Trip: State Water Project

One of the obligations of a city council member is to get informed on a number of issues (probably closer to "countless issues"), and field trips are a key part of that. I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Sacramento to learn more about the State Water Project.

I left the house on Friday morning around 6am, and returned about 5pm the next day. Other than a chance to sleep for a couple of hours between Friday and Saturday, it was nonstop learning while either on a motorcoach or in a conference room. 

Our first stop was Lundberg Farms. They grow 18 varieties of rice, and also produce many different rice based treats. They are an organic farm that doesn't use pesticides or herbicides. 

I wasn't able to get any photos here. They had strict dress codes to enter the production area, and even stricter photography rules.

It's an interesting balance of flooding the fields early in the grow cycle to kill the grasses, but not the rice. Then drying out the fields to kill the water based weeds, but not the rice. 

We then departed for Oroville Dam. 

This dam is an impressive site in person.

The rebuilt spillway.

An artsy photo taken through the trees as we puttered by in the bus.

You may remember the damage to the spillway from a couple of years ago. 

From Google images.

From Google images.

While in that area we stopped in Maxwell and heard an hour long presentation on The Sites Project by project manager Jim Watson.

I've seen competing estimates of how much water would be in Sites Reservoir.

The hope of the Sites Project is to create an off-stream reservoir that can be used to store more than a million acre feet of water. It will also help keep the water flowing, and at a cooler temp, for salmon swimming upstream.

The Sites Project has been talked about since at least the 1950's and is still being argued over.

Saturday morning started with a 7:30am breakfast and a 90 minute, 110 slide presentation by Curt Schmutte. Below is a video from 2012 and (though far shorter) is nearly a duplicate of the presentation we had seven years later.

It gave a great foundation for the next part of the excursion: seeing [parts of] the Delta up close, including the Delta Cross Channel Gates...

Delta Cross Channel Gates.
These gates are closed much of the year do to issues with endangered species.

Google images of the cross channel and the gates when opened.

...Sacramento Weir and the Yolo Bypass. 

There we met up with Jacob Katz who gave us more information on the ecosystem of the Delta and what they hope to accomplish with the water project

The Sacramento River with the Weir on the right hand side of the image.

The backside of the weir. When the river gets to flood stage, the parts above the concrete are removed to allow water to flow into the bypass, saving Sacramento from surging waters.

Curt Schmutte with the sunglasses on and Jacob Katz with the ranger hat take turns discussing the many competing factors of the Delta and California's water project.

Brief Recap/Thoughts on the trip

We in SoCal need water, but there isn't enough water locally to provide for us all. That means we need imported water. 30% of our imported water comes from the Sacramento Delta region. 

Two-thirds of California's population lives in SoCal, but two-thirds of the water is in the north.

The attitudes of the general population in the north is that they don't want us to have "their" water. Of course, the water belongs to the State as a whole, not to a handful of counties.

The Delta is covered by acre after acre, mile after mile of orchards. Not sure what these saplings are, but if I had to guess, I'd say almonds.

It wasn't easy to tell what these were as we passed at 60 mph, but again, I'd guess almonds. There were some trees already in bloom, and those were thought to be cherry.

Over the years, the locals up there have looked for one excuse or another to block the export of water to the rest of the state that needs it. 

Back in the '80s they came upon a species of fish called The Delta Smelt and weaponized it against any that wanted to change the way the State's water allocations were made.

The almighty fish of NoCal
AKA the Delta Smelt.

During the trip I learned that it doesn't take many Delta Smelt to stop the pumping process. The stat of 100 fish a year —A YEAR— is all that they discover getting into the pumps.

That's just one every three days

I asked Curt if I heard the stat correctly or not. The answer I got was that for each fish found, it's assumed that 4 fish were somewhere in the pumping system.

Let's get this straight... on a yearly basis, 400 two inch fish find their way into a system that pumps millions of acre-feet of water a year and that's enough to turn off the pumps that service over 25,000,000 people?

If you guessed "yes" you guessed correctly.

It's only about science when it furthers their aims.

To circumvent the over hyped goldfish wannabes (can you tell my SoCal bias with that description?), twin tunnels that bypass the Delta (and its super fish) have been suggested, and approved by former Governor Brown.

New Governor Newsome said he favors a single tunnel option. Which isn't supported by science. The science (the way I heard it) favors a two tunnel option.

The local opposition, which is generally comprised of farmers and environmentalists, oppose any tunnels for a variety of reasons, but they can be boiled down to the following options: (with number 4 being the real reason - money)

1) NoCal doesn't like SoCal

2) It's our water, go find your own

3) This fix, which will be paid by rate payers, not tax money, makes the Delta Smelt practically insignificant in state politics once again.

4) With the Delta water issues settled, that would mean maintaining the Delta waterways would fall back on the locals. 

Currently more than 80% of the costs to keep a failing system working falls on the taxpayers throughout the state. Once SoCal finishes with the tunnel(s), the Delta infrastructure will revert back to a local (or regional) issue. Which will cost them a lot of money that we currently are subsidising with our tax dollars.

Summing up the 36 hour trip.

Freeport Bridge.

Water issues in California are a long way from being agreed on or settled, but it was a very good trip to see some of the key components of the discussion up close. If you ever get an opportunity to be part of such a fact finding mission, I suggest taking it.

That said, I'm sure that I'd get an entirely different slant if the rolling schoolhouse (the bus that would not stop) had been piloted by those against the State Water Project fix.

Here is a link I found that came up when I looked for opposing views to the twin tunnel fix.

•                •                •

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Wildomar Rap is the drop of water that you can drink to your heart's content. 

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