Small flotilla protests "peripheral canal"

More boaters than usual launched from the Martinez Marina last weekend as participants of the “Million Boat Float” made their way from the Carquinez Strait up the Delta in protest of the proposed building of a “Peripheral Canal” — a massive canal to shuttle water from the headwaters of the Sacramento, Stanislaus, American and San Joaquin Rivers, bypassing the entire Delta, to Central and Southern California.

The flotilla made its way up the Sacramento River to Sacramento for a Sunday night rally. On Monday the group marched on the Capitol. There, they “expressed the Delta’s need for a voice in these legislative committee hearings, the complexity of this important issue, and the fact that these proposals will cost taxpayers billions of dollars while providing the State with no new water,” according to Bruce Connelly, Oakley City Council member and coordinator of the Million Boat Float.

“The drilling in search of the best place to start the canal just below Sacramento is about to get underway. Certain legislators in Sacramento are determined by any means to destroy the Delta by moving legislation ahead to construct a water conveyance system comparable to the Panama Canal circumventing the fresh water flows into the Delta which will surely nail the coffin closed for the greatest estuary in the western hemisphere,” said Connelly.

According to Restore the Delta spokesperson Roger Salazar, representatives from the Sierra Club California, Restore the Delta, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Friends of the River, Californians against the Canal, Organic Sacramento, North Delta Cares, California Striped Bass Association, Fish Sniffer, the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, the Environmental Water Caucus and the Planning and Conservation League gathered with the boaters to express concern that a legislative water package (SB 229 – Pavley; SB 12 – Simitian; AB 39 – Huffman; AB 49 - Feuer; and SB 458 – Wolk) was developed with no public input and their worry is that the bills will be rushed through in the last three weeks of the legislative session.

“The Legislature is having a hearing on these bills and they have had virtually no input from the public, including those most-affected by this project – Delta residents,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director for Restore the Delta. “We [rallied] to show the Legislature that we should have a voice in this process and we will be heard.”

California Senator Mark DeSaulnier attended the rally in support of the picketers, and in opposition to the “Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force,” a panel formed by Governor Schwarzenegger that supports the Peripheral Canal plan.

“Any meaningful legislation that comes out of this building in the next few weeks, months, years — if we’re really going to change the water policy in California, we have to have a voice in that,” DeSaulnier said to the 100-person crowd. “We are the stewards of the 500,000 acres that are just farm land in the Delta, the $2 billion that the Delta creates for the economy of California. [The Legislature] racing ahead in a prejudicial way that determines that we do need a peripheral canal. That we need a lot of architecture. That is based on politics rather than science.”

Salazar said the legislative package, if enacted, would result in a costly restructuring of California’s water laws and water infrastructure - covering several contentious water issues including governance of the Bay-Delta region, water conservation, new dams and an updated version of the multi-billion dollar Peripheral Canal, which was overwhelmingly rejected by California voters in 1982.

A press released issued by the members of the California Sportfishing Alliance, the

Planning and Conservation League and Restore the Delta explained the impetus behind the two-day demonstration.

Participants are described as recreational and commercial fishers, boaters, Delta residents and farmers. If the canal is built, the farmers of nearly 800,000 acres say the Pacific Ocean would intrude further up the Delta from the San Francisco Bay and the salt water would destroy them.

The Environmental Water Caucus, a non-profit, non-partisan group, released a new report on the topic this month entitled “California Water Solutions Now.”

“California is in the grip of a water crisis of our own making. Like all problems that humans create, we have the potential to use the crisis as an opportunity to make positive and long-lasting changes in water management. The crisis is not a water shortage – California has already developed sufficient water supplies to take us well into this century – the real crisis is that this supply is not used efficiently or equitably for all Californians nor is it used wisely to sustain the ecosystems that support us,” reads the report’s executive summary. “A sampling of the report’s 65 recommendations include: aggressive state-wide water conservation targets that provide adequate water for all Californians and preclude the need for major new surface storage projects; a reduction of exports from the Bay Delta in order to protect this valuable resource and its fishes – including strong concerns about the potential for a Peripheral Canal around the Bay Delta to increase exports instead; significant improvements to our valuable river habitats; elimination of water supplies to irrigate impaired farmlands; improvements in water quality; regional self-sufficiency; and improved funding for environmental agencies”.