A (very) brief primer on California water

[usonian]

https://jabberwocking.com/49544-2/
Kevin DrumPublished on January 24, 2025

Key points:
1. It will take upwards of 20 years to build a tunnel, so it's a moot point for now. For now, we have pumps; we have farmers in the delta who want to keep their water; and we have farmers in the Central Valley who want water and don't care about the health of the delta.

2. The whole thing is purely an irrigation and drinking water issue and has nothing to do with fighting fires. We have plenty of water for that and always have.

3. Smelt?
The smelt is basically used as a canary in the coal mine: when smelt populations dwindle it's a sign that the delta ecology is failing. That's the real reason for focusing on the smelt.

We get water from the Sierra Nevada snow melt, some of which is diverted south through the San Joaquin Valley and then to Los Angeles. Would you like to see how? If you're not from California it might surprise you a little bit:



The original pumps, built 50 years ago, suck in water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and then route it south through a labyrinthine network of levees and rivers. Eventually it gets to a couple of pumping stations near Tracy, where local canals deliver it to the California Aqueduct.

Needless to say, this massive pumping does nothing good for the environment of the delta, and that's been at the core of the water wars in California ever since it started. This has taken two forms. First, the original pumping plan also called for the construction of a peripheral canal, which got killed by an initiative in 1982; followed by a proposal for two giant tunnels; followed yet again by a proposal for a single tunnel. The tunnel would take water directly from the Sacramento River before it ever gets to the delta and shunt it directly to the aqueducts. This effort to build something has been going on for about 40 years—or 80 depending on how you count.

Second, there's the ecology of the delta. Generally speaking, the tunnel wouldn't increase water deliveries. However, the delta pumps are shut down periodically when environmental conditions in the delta deteriorate.¹ The idea behind the tunnel is that it can be used during pump shutdowns to keep water flowing south. Environmentalists aren't happy about this since it's not clear if it's any better to take the water before or after it gets to the delta. Either way, the delta gets starved of freshwater.