NPR’s Morning Edition had an solid overview today of the problems facing the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The piece reiterated a point we made in our September series that examined the delta’s plight. NPR’s Joe Palca says:
If you’ve never heard of the Sacramento Delta, you’re not alone. Even people who live in California aren’t too sure where it is. But the Sacramento Delta is crucial to the health of the state, and climate change is threatening the delta’s very existence.
The story offers a good insight that you can only find on the delta: the fear that if a peripheral canal is built to move drinking water around the delta, instead of through it, the state will forget about the multitude of problems that will still persist.
About 4,500 people live in Rio Vista. [Former Mayor Marci] Coglianese says getting the state to pay attention to the levees that keep her town from flooding isn’t easy.
“I understand we are outgunned completely by powerful economic and political forces,” she says. “And the reason we’re terrified of the peripheral canal is that if we feel that we’re not counting for much now, we’re absolutely certain we’ll count for nothing if that canal is built.”