Wolk says money, time will keep peripheral canal at bay
Kevin Parrish
Recordnet
11/17/2009
STOCKTON - A 49-mile canal carrying water around the Delta is the wrong solution for Southern California, and it is too expensive and "won't ever get done," State Sen. Lois Wolk said.
Wolk, D-Davis, is still steaming about the process that led to legislation Nov. 4 designed to reform state water policy. She told The Record's editorial board Monday that, realistically, the efforts were a waste.
"It was awful, incredibly awful," Wolk said. "I've never seen anything like this."
She said the legislation was written by Westlands Water District, which serves western Fresno and Kings counties, and the Metropolitan Water District, which serves much of Southern California. "They wrote it in private meetings, and then it emerged in the middle of the night."
Wolk estimated total canal costs, including landowner and environmental mitigation, at somewhere between $38 billion and $60 billion. She also said construction will take "50 years - or never."
She said there is an emerging dialogue among some large Southern California water users that there are other, less expensive approaches to solving chronic shortages:
» Further developing desalination prospects.
» Investing in recycling in major quantities.
» Cleaning up the groundwater, making it available.
She said those proposals will gain traction long before the state starts trying to build any kind of conveyance system around the Delta.
Wolk pointed with hope to the long-range role of the new, five-county coalition that opposed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's push for the water legislation.
"It was an accident of history," she said. "A coincidence that they came together. They were terrific, unified, reasonable."
Wolk said there were two important compromises made by the coalition of local leaders: They never demanded a veto over construction of a canal, and they never demanded a majority voice on the new Delta governing council.
"These concessions were never appreciated or understood," she said. "They were just discounted. Nobody believed that they had come together."
The five Delta counties are Contra Costa, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano and Yolo.
Supervisor Larry Ruhstaller represented San Joaquin County.
Wolk believes the new coalition will play a role in whatever forward motion Delta reform takes.
"There is plenty of work to be done," she said. "You can't actually do any of the work on the ground without local landowners and the counties involved. Many of those who wrote this legislation don't know anything about the Delta. They can't move forward without the local communities."
Wolk remains dumbfounded by the role of Sacramento Democrat Darrell Steinberg, president pro tem of the state Senate. Despite representing a county bordering the Delta, Steinberg pushed Schwarzenegger's water package through the Legislature. She called his role "disturbing."
Steinberg threw Northern California Democrats "under the bus," Wolk said.
In the end, Wolk believes the bills, including an $11.1 billion bond requiring voter approval, were a step backward.
"The legislation was written by those who don't care about the Delta - Westlands and Metropolitan," she said. Metropolitan Water District estimated canal construction costs at $6 billion to $12 billion.
