state water project

By Lloyd G. Carter

When Assembly Member Alyson Huber of El Dorado Hills failed to get an economic feasibility analysis bill on the controversial proposed peripheral canal out of committee recently, she was probably unaware that a similar challenge had been made to the finances of the State Water Project in 1960 by the late George “Elfie” Ballis, a legendary figure in Central California water and farmworker politics.

Huber’s bill (AB 550) would have required express approval of the Legislature for any “conveyance facility, an honest cost-benefit analysis of a peripheral canal or tunnel around the Delta” (which proponents claim would help the Delta) and prohibit any diminishing or negative impact on Delta water supplies, water rights, or water users. It failed to clear the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife on a 7-5 vote. But the vote was not along party lines. It was based on geography. North State legislators, including committee chairman Jared Huffman voted for it. The Southern California Committee members voted against it.  READ MORE »

The California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance have filed comments on a proposal by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to alter the way DWR distributes State Water Project water in times of plenty and in times of drought. Is it another big giveaway of a publicly-owned resource? Judge for yourself. CLICK HERE

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Contra Costa Times – December 8, 2007

By Mike Taugher, staff writer

Customers of one of the state's largest water delivery systems secretly commissioned a study last year to estimate how much it would cost to build a highly controversial peripheral canal to deliver water around the Delta.

The $50,000 study, completed in August 2006, shows that contractors of the State Water Project were actively considering a new canal similar to the aqueduct voters killed in 1982.