The state is again trying to save the Delta smelt by proposing a bypass canal that will take more (most) fresh water from the San Joaquin Delta. “Delta pumps throughout the Delta are depleting the Delta smelt.”
This is bunk. It’s a state ploy … we have been pumping for years; all species of fish get caught in pumps, but not to the point of extinction. The Delta smelt, salmon, stripers, steelhead and sturgeon all must lay their eggs in pristine fresh water – bottom line. Think about it: the fewer fish eggs that will make it to finger-length size that enables them to make their cycle to the ocean are short lived because of the salinity. If this were not true, why don’t these fish lay their eggs in the ocean?
We have tides in the Delta. Less fresh water means more salt water – an easy equation. Water has become a commodity. It seems to me that the water agencies will do and say anything to get their fresh water, with the state’s backing.
The new ploy is that if we don’t take the pressure off of the levees with this bypass, the levees will break. You think just maybe if they take more fresh water that just maybe the tides will make it up with saltwater? And the levees will break anyway.
Robert Bay, Discovery Bay
Would it not be more prudent and cost effective to build water desalunization plants on the southern coast ?
Safe the Delta, Save Money, Less Enviromental impact, Happy Southern Californians, Happy Northern Californians, sad local water gurus thinking only about thier special interest.
Call your Politicians and ask why they can't build a desalunization plant instead....