The Sacramento Delta: A Gordian Knot - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 207

pheral Canal plan was grandiose and became entangled in a water dispute between Los
Angeles and San Francisco. Discussions broke down, and in 1982 the Peripheral Canal
proposal was rejected by 62.7 percent of voters in a ballot initiative; in San Francisco,
the vote was 95 percent against the canal.
Governor Schwarzenegger revived the plan in 2006 and began to push for a revised
Peripheral Canal. But farmers worried that routing large amounts of freshwater around
the Delta would turn their fields to dust. Despite record agricultural production in the
Central Valley in 2007, farming losses were estimated to be as high as $245 million in
2008. Farmers worried that a Peripheral Canal could remove a further half million acres
of farmland from use.
Environmental groups, which split bitterly over the 1982 debate—with some arguing
for a Peripheral Canal, to protect the Delta's ecology, and others against it—reached a
consensus in 2008 that a Peripheral Canal would siphon too much freshwater from the
estuary and destroy habitats and aquatic life.
By mid-2010, California's twenty-nine water agencies had yet to reach agreement
about how best to manage the Delta, and the Peripheral Canal, which was estimated to
cost some $3-$4 billion, at a time when the state was facing bankruptcy, was politically
unpopular.
“We have bad hydrology, compromised infrastructure, and our management tools
are broken,” observed Timothy Quinn , executive director of the Association of Califor-
nia Water Agencies (ACWA). “All that paints a fairly grim picture for Californians try-
ing to manage water in the twenty-first century.”
While in some ways the gridlock over the Delta is specific to California, it exemplifies
the kind of complicated multiparty water disputes that are popping up everywhere. As
in other parts of the country, where debates over mining, energy, and the “rights” of the
ecosystem have flared, the battle over the Delta represents a competition between re-
sources in which water is the focal point. Such “resource wars” will be a signature issue
of this century.
With this scramble for water in mind, I invited Peter Gleick to join me on a driving
tour, to see the Delta mess from a smelt's-eye view.
INTO THE HEART OF RUBE GOLDBERGIAN DARKNESS
As I parked my rented Prius behind his Prius, Gleick bounded out of his house in Berke-
ley with a large pair of serious birder's binoculars slung around his neck. He folded his