Friday, August 28, 2009

(BY)Pass the SALT

The State's favorite water fight is brewing up again as a package of legislation moves through the Legislature. The sole intention of this package is to fix the Delta watering hole, with its six million acre feet of straws sucking on it's life giving sustenance.

The San Jose Mercury News ran this recent story. And then STAND BACK and watch the vitriol begin.

My response is one familiar to those who have read other posts on this blog:

In addittion to defending the veracity of Dr. Meral's op-ed piece, I commented:

It is the Delta farmers and boaters that are trying to mislead us again. If you really want to end agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley, stop this vital piece of plumbing from being built.

If the canal was built 25 years ago, as the State Legislature and Governor Jerry Brown agreed, 50 million LESS tons of salt would have been deposited on the farmlands as millions of acres were irrigated with salty water from the aqueducts.

With sea level rising, this rate of
salinization will increase and the Central Valley farmlands will become permanently destroyed even sooner without the east Delta bypass channel in place. This may serve farmer/speculators well as salted lands are converted to cheap housing and strip malls.

It's shameful to watch and even encourage the loss of such a huge agricultural resource, after billions of federal and state dollars were invested in dams, pumps and canals to grow enough food and fiber to feed much of the US and several other countries. Farming uses 80% of the State's developed water.

The Canal is really about saving farming not about
SoCal vs NoCal. Please educate yourselves and save us from making the same mistake twice. There won't be a third chance!

No comments: