McNerney: Delta water decision needs local input

WASHINGTON, D.C.
October 23, 2009 9:12am

Businesses and residents in the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta are not being heard in the growing cacophony over divvying up the state’s main source of fresh water, says U.S. Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton.

In a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, released Friday, Mr. McNerney says local voices need to be heard in the debate over potential changes to the state’s water policy that may be considered by the California legislature.

The letter urges Mr. Schwarzenegger to take into account input from the families, farmers and businesses that live in the communities surrounding the San Joaquin Delta as these changes as considered.

“Efforts to improve water supplies in drought-affected areas … must also protect clean water availability for the four million people living in the counties that are most directly dependent on the San Joaquin Delta,” he says in the letter. “The voices of families, farmers, and businesses in San Joaquin Delta communities must be heard as federal and state collaborative processes advance.”

Mr. McNerney also says he will oppose plans for a mammoth peripheral canal to be built to siphon fresh water around the Delta to customers in the south.

“I am deeply concerned by initiatives that may be intended to lay the groundwork for a canal that diverts additional fresh water from the San Joaquin Delta. Such a canal would further erode water quality for several million people,” says the congressman. “A canal and related proposals are expected to threaten jobs by turning family farms into uninhabitable salty marshlands and could raise water rates by decreasing the supply of clean water for families and businesses in the San Joaquin Delta area.”

The letter to the governor comes on the heels of Mr. McNerney calling on Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to actively solicit input from the residents who live in the San Joaquin Delta area and ensure their seat at the table as any federal proposals on the Delta are considered.