Congressional Delta Caucus
We residents of District 11 live in a unique environment. Agriculture, ecology, recreation, and our communities have co-existed for hundreds of years. The wonderful technology and enterprise of the American pioneer, homesteader and now our farmers have allowed countless millions beyond our own district to enjoy the benefits of agricultural products, recreation and water supply from the Delta region. However, in the last several decades the demands for water, even beyond what is surplus for our needs, from our politically powerful neighbors in southern California have become increasingly shrill.
Poor water policy implemented at both the State and Federal level, urban sprawl and subsidized agriculture in arid lands have created a crisis in the south that now constitutes an emergency for us in the Delta region. Actions are now underway to take our water supply, our water rights and water quality through the environmental degradation caused by a peripheral canal around the Delta. Southern California will suck the Delta dry as they did the Owens Valley decades ago, if we stand by and do not act.
The Delta is indispensable to the ongoing vitality of our region. They view the Delta and its unique environments as unsustainable. Their studies have purported that there is a two in three chance that an earthquake or flood, sea-level rise, or some other event will doom the Delta thereby endangering more reliable water supplies so they can continue to grow subsidized cotton and sustain urban development in the most arid reaches of the State.
But with the demise of the Delta, its islands, agricultural tracts and levees, so goes other vital infrastructure of the State. Important north-south and east-west travel corridors including – Interstates 5 & 205, State Highways 4 & 12 would be vulnerable to the pervasive advance of an inland salt sea. Railroads, ports in Sacramento and Stockton, power transmission facilities, natural gas conveyance and storage facilities, water diversions and aqueducts feeding the Bay-Area that transect the Delta all would be exposed to increased jeopardy and possible failure.
We need to have our representatives take this fight to Sacramento and Washington, D.C. We need to band together as residents of the Delta region and stand up for our political and economic rights and that of our land and water.
This is why Jeff Takada, alone among the candidates, proposes a Congressional Delta Caucus, a congressional level group which meets regularly to discuss and coordinate a united front between representatives of those living in the `legal` Delta (California Water Code Sec. 12220). Airing the concerns of local water boards and districts on Capitol Hill will result in stronger laws shielding the Delta from rapacious and short-sighted interests.
As the organizer of this body, Jeff Takada would advance the causes of the local Delta Counties Coalition at the federal level. Specifically:
- Emphasize water storage options, such as conjunctive use and groundwater recharge, and recycling as part of a comprehensive state-wide flood management and water supply system.
- Protect the Delta ecosystem as essential to the economy of the region – vital multi-billion dollar fisheries, little known natural gas production that is critical to getting us off of foreign fuel sources, flood control, and prime agriculture.
- Require that any water conveyance plan for the Delta be aligned with the principles of the Congressional Delta Caucus and the Delta Counties Coalition.
- Support immediate improvements and a long-term commitment to maintenance of flood protection measures, evaluate improved through-Delta conveyances such as the Delta Corridors plan and enhance regional self-sufficiency through development of inter-regional conjunctive use projects that provide benefits to communities in the foothills, valley and East Bay.
- Protect and promote the economic vitality of Delta agriculture and the many communities and industries that sustain it.
- Always work with and include an equal voice for local government in any proposed governance structure in the Delta.
- Uphold the historical, existing water rights system and the legislative protections established for the Delta.
- Maintain appropriate Delta outflow for a healthy estuary and promote improvements in water quality through local administration.
Today, the critical hub of California’s water supply – the Delta is in crisis. Again, California’s attention is drawn to the Delta following the collapse of CALFED, a multi-billion dollar State and Federal program designed to fix the Delta for future generations.
Over forty studies are ongoing with focused determination on fixing some aspect of the Delta. At the center of this has been the Delta Vision’s indomitable resuscitation of the long-dead coup de grace of the Delta, the Peripheral Canal.
An additional five million acre-feet of new supply was promised with the development of the State Water Project back in the 1960s. Unfortunately, that promise is yet to be realized. Our focus must be on not just fixing the Delta but on finding a better way to conserve, store, desalt, recycle and reuse water supplies to achieve greater regional self-sufficiency, statewide. So that all in California may find a golden future and especially those who call this part of California home. That is why a Delta Caucus is needed. To help fight the fight on Capitol Hill for those that truly do call this part of California home!