Delta farmers to fight tunnel project

 

Sutter Island, Sacramento County -- As a child, Brett Baker learned farming fundamentals from his grandfather, who taught him to drive a tractor and gave him some advice about water.

"There may come a time," his grandfather said, "when you have to grab a shotgun and sit on the pump."

The vast delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, where Baker's family has lived and farmed since the 1850s, has long been the center of California's chronic water conflicts. It is the switchyard of the state's water, the place where the north's liquid riches are shipped to the irrigation ditches of the San Joaquin Valley and the sinks of Southland suburbs.

Now, as if heeding Baker's grandfather, the delta has become the defiant seat of rebellion against the most ambitious water supply project proposed in California in decades, a multibillion-dollar plan that has the backing of the administrations of Gov. Jerry Brown and President Obama, as well as the state's most powerful irrigation and urban water districts.

'Secret' plan

"Our secret plan is to fight them to build it," Baker said. "If it's built, fight them to operate it. And then fight them to tear it down. We're not going anywhere."

Delta landowners have refused to grant access to state crews doing preliminary soil testing for the project. They have demonstrated against the proposal in Sacramento, pitchforks in hand. They have organized a vocal coalition that has produced a documentary film - airing at public forums around the state - to drum up support for their cause.

The proposal, which is not final, calls for the construction of two 35-mile-long tunnels that would carry water underground from intakes on the Sacramento River a few miles north of here to the giant pumps that fill southbound aqueducts.

The government pumping operations currently suck supplies entirely from the south delta, a practice that plays havoc with the tidal estuary's natural salinity and flow patterns, creating a hospitable environment for invasive plants and fish. So powerful are the pumps that they reverse the flow of some delta channels, confusing native fish and drawing them to their deaths.

Advocates say the tunnel project, which also calls for the restoration of more than 100,000 acres of delta habitat, would reduce the pumps' harmful effects and help imperiled fish species rebound. They hope that in turn will allow the government to lift some of the endangered species protections that have restricted delta water exports.

The cons

But delta farmers want none of it. They fear the restoration efforts will cost them portions of their land. They worry that their irrigation water will grow saltier, hurting crops, as fresh Sacramento River water that has always flowed through the delta is instead diverted beneath it.

Opponents, including a number of conservation groups, warn that migrating salmon will run afoul of the massive river intakes. They argue that the big tunnels will inevitably be used to send more water south, robbing the delta ecosystem of needed flows.

"It's really taking away from one place and giving to another," said Baker, 28, a UC Davis graduate in fish and conservation biology who does related consulting work.

Recently married and expecting his first child, he is the sixth generation of his family to call a slice of Sutter Island home. The small north delta island has no towns. It is a neat grid of pear and cherry orchards, vineyards and scattered houses where about 150 people live, protected by earthen levees more than a century old. The Sacramento, California's largest river, rolls by the island's northeastern shoulder and two sloughs wash its flanks.  Read this article

 

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