The California Delta is in trouble. As a local resource with national responsibilities, the Delta supports California’s economy, which is the largest of any state in the United States, and is the eighth largest economy in the world. Unfortunately, the Delta and its system of levees, ecology and infrastructure were not designed to meet the needs of the agricultural and industrial giant that California has become.
By Jah Mackey
Published: June, 2010
Keys to Disaster
Originally, the Delta was a system of levees designed and built to provide access to local farmland that had been claimed as marsh by nature. Former gold-rush miners and Chinese labor performed much the reclamation process, beginning in the mid-1800s. Federal reclamation laws helped to pave the way for progress, and today over 738,000 acres of land has been reclaimed. This makes the California Delta the most significant agricultural development in California’s history.
Population Increases
Agriculture has long been the central activity of the Delta region, but urbanization has been on the rise. The Delta’s proximity to the fast growing communities of Stockton and Sacramento has increased demand for housing. With continued population growth, greater demand for urban, environmental and recreational uses adds to the stress to a strained levee and environmental system. More than two-thirds of California’s 23 million people derive benefit from the Delta, not to mention California’s agricultural exports.
Water Quality and Runoff
Agricultural, industrial and urban runoff has polluted the Delta’s waters. An extensive network of drainage ditches keeps the Delta islands from flooding. Because many of them are already 10 to 25 feet below sea level, the islands must be pumped to keep the groundwater levels deep enough for crops to grow, as well as prevent flooding.
The massive water diversions can alter water quality in the Delta because fresh water releases from the reservoirs are not enough to push back and dilute the salty ocean water flowing in from San Francisco Bay. Fresh water flows into the Delta are important to maintaining the water quality, because when too much fresh water is diverted, the salty seawater can penetrate upstream, endangering municipal supplies and reducing agricultural crop productivity.
Water Exports
As a water distribution system, the Delta not only serves the State and federal projects but also many agricultural and municipal water diverters surrounding and within the Delta itself. Delta water from the State Water Project serves both urban and agricultural areas in the Bay Area, the Silicon Valley, the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast, and Southern California.
Environmental mandates to protect the resident Delta smelt and the salmon migrating through the region limit state and federal water operations. Environmentalists point to the water exports as a leading cause of the Delta ecosystem’s deterioration. Water users note the importance of Delta water to California’s economy and say that alternative actions, such as improving habitat conditions, can offset the impacts of water exports.
Invasive and Non-Native Species
A rich and productive habitat for more than 750 species of wildlife, the Delta’s unique ecosystem supports 20 endangered species, such as the salt harvest Suisun Marsh mouse and the Delta smelt, and serves as a vital migration path for salmon traveling to and from their home streams and to the Pacific Ocean.
Some of these species, such as the striped bass, white catfish, and American shad, were brought into the estuary intentionally, and they flourished alongside the native salmon runs, supporting commercial fisheries while other species arrived by less controlled means.
Levee Condition
Over time, erosion, seepage, animal burrows and plant roots have weakened the levee system. Numerous studies have found the Delta levees are continually deteriorating, and that repair and maintenance costs millions of dollars annually.
According to several reports by the California DWR and CALFED, much of the levee network in the Delta (and throughout California) is built only to 100-year flood standards. (As a reference, New Orleans was built to 250-year flood standards.) California levees have failed 162 times in the last 100 years, and since reclamation projects began in the mid 1800s, every one of the Delta’s 70 islands or tracts has experienced flooding. The most recent flooding incident occurred in 2004, when the Jones Tract Levee broke, inundating 12,153 acres of farmland and resulting in millions of dollars of damage.
Possible solution and ongoing efforts
In 1994, state and federal resource agencies signed an agreement that led to the formation of CALFED Bay-Delta Program. CALFED’s objectives include developing and providing support for projects that improve the Delta’s water quality, better management of the water supply, maintaining levee integrity and ongoing efforts to restore the Ecosystem.
For more information, please visit CALFED at calwater.ca.gov, the Water Education Foundation at www.watereducation.org, the California Delta Chamber and Visitors Bureau at www.californiadelta.org.
For more specific information on the politics of the Delta, please visit the California Department of Water Resources at www.water.ca.gov, and review the Public Policy Institute’s report “Envisioning Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta” at www.ppic.org.
Jah Mackey, is President of Oceanus Marine Group (OMG), which provides outsourced marina management services to public and private marinas. Mackey is the current commodore of California’s first internet-based yacht club, OMG’s Delta Yacht Registry, and is an avid boater with over 20 years of boating experience on the San Francisco Bay and Delta Regions.
