Published
3 years agoon
The beating heart of California’s massive system of capturing, storing and distributing water is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Water flows into the West’s largest estuary from the Sacramento, San Joaquin and several lesser rivers that drain the state’s mountain chains on its northern and eastern edges.
Related Story: Gov. Newsom Proposes New Plan for Managing Water
In the 1990s, Bruce Babbitt, the former Democratic governor of Arizona who had become interior secretary in the Clinton administration, attempted to mediate the conflicts with Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s blessing, and seemed to succeed. “Peace has broken out amid the water wars,” Wilson said at the time.
It was a premature declaration of victory and Wilson’s successor, a notoriously risk-averse Democrat, Gray Davis, stood aside as the conflict continued to simmer, mostly in federal courts.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to revive the peripheral canal as twin tunnels beneath the Delta, which Brown, in his second governorship, enthusiastically embraced.
Brown also brought back Babbitt as a mediator and bequeathed to successor Gavin Newsom the beginnings of a peace process through “voluntary agreements.” Newsom continued to pursue it, even vetoing a bill, Senate Bill 1, that would have locked Obama administration environmental rules into state law after water interests and Sen. Dianne Feinstein warned that it would torpedo the negotiations.
Last week, Newsom unveiled a compromise framework that would enhance flows through the Delta by up to 900,000 acre-feet a year and restore 60,000 acres of habitat for wildlife, particularly salmon, facing decline or even extinction due to the diversions.
“Today, my administration is proposing a path forward, one that will move past the old water binaries and set us up for a secure and prosperous water future,” Newsom wrote in CalMatters.
An aerial view of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California (Shutterstock)
The framework is just that. Many details remain to be nailed down, and it also would need the approval of various state and federal agencies. But it’s progress.
Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He has written more than 9,000 columns about the state and its politics and is the founding editor of the “California Political Almanac.” Dan has also been a frequent guest on national television news shows, commenting on California issues and policies.
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