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Water crisis

Batch Data Processor | Saturday, Jun 16 2007 6:40 PM

Last Updated: Saturday, Jun 16 2007 6:43 PM

Kern County water officials declared an "emergency" last week as pumps were shut down in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and water supplies to local crops threatened.

Valley farmers and many urban residents depend on water from the delta. Without pumps sending delta water down canals to farmland, Kern County faces a $100 million loss from crop failures and unemployment. Losses will not be confined to farmers. Consumers will pay much higher prices for the scarce food they can find in stores.

At the heart of the "emergency" is the shutdown of the State Water Project to prevent the endangered delta smelt from being sucked into pumps and killed.

It is the latest skirmish in a decades long battle between environmentalists, who have fought to protect the delta's endangered species, and agricultural and urban customers in the Central Valley and Southern California who depend on the delta's water.

The shutdown this month stems from a judicial determination that inadequate mitigation measures had been taken to protect the delta smelt. More recently, fish were found trapped in the pumps.

Limited pumping resumed last week, but combined with drought conditions throughout the state, reduced delta water supplies can have a catastrophic impact on California's economy.

No doubt, short-term solutions will be found to resolve to some degree the immediate crisis. California isn't quite ready to dry up and blow away.

But the "emergency" stunningly demonstrates how fragile the delta is, how California's growing population is becoming increasingly dependent on the delta's water and how a long-term permanent solution must be implemented.

Certainly urging Californians to conserve must be part of the long-term solution.

But building additional reservoirs to store water supplies and building a canal to divert water around the fragile delta to enable it to flow into the State Water Project are improvements that are much needed and long overdue.