different sectors having interests that aren’t always aligned; sometimes that maps with the parties, but sometimes it really doesn’t. Southern California water interests are certainly varied shades of red, blue and purple, right? There are really a lot of common water interests. Washington matters a lot for some of the solutions in California because the federal government owns and operates a big piece of infrastruc- ture in the Delta and a big part of the Delta solution relates to Washington. I think the state can actually take a lot of the leadership there and then get the backing from Washington if we have our act together.
View the Water Education Foundation’s slideshow on watersheds.
Leavenworth: I really kind of agree with what Ellen said. There are cer- tainly Republicans in California’s con- gressional delegation that still want to build the Auburn Dam and so there’s a little bit of partisan stuff on those kind of projects. But look at how aligned Dianne Feinstein is with a lot of Republicans in the San Joaquin Valley on a Delta fi x. Feinstein is the one that’s putting pressure on Democrats, members of her own party, to really get serious about doing something with Delta. And while I don’t always agree with her position, I fi nd it interesting that she’s decided to play that role. I think it is more geographic and intra- state alliances that makes water kind of interesting to follow from a political standpoint in California.
Pitzer: A group of folks met recently and talked about non-controversial project solutions to the Delta. Is that the way forward? To meet in the middle and decide what is realistic?
Hanak: They are talking about near- term actions, and near-term actions are important because the Delta fi x being sought by the BDCP is not a near-term solution. We’re looking at 10 or 15 years at best before there’s a new con- veyance operating.
Davis: Not to put too fi ne of a point on it but that’s at least the lifespan of
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a general manager of a water agency today, so whoever is here now is prob- ably not going to be here when the Delta fi x actually starts to operate. That’s a long time to be vulnerable to climate change, and as a manager, how do I make sure I’ve got enough water in the right place at the right time? That’s why these things have to go in parallel and why it’s really important not to look at the Delta by itself. You have to look at it from a wide angle lens.
Hanak: I’ve been encouraged by the near-term action group that has been meeting because it has brought folks together whom you might not expect to come together. There are pieces of the near-term action proposal that are about fl ood protection, water supply, and reliability. But also about habitat in the Delta, which has been kind of a contentious issue for some folks in the Delta who say, “Hey, don’t come and mess with our land.” There are some projects on that list that are things that ecologists think are the most promis- ing ways to go forward. One of them relates to the Yolo Bypass, some islands up in the North Delta that every- body agrees would be really good for habitat that The Nature Conservancy has been pushing along with other folks. Those are important to start because we really can’t lose any time with trying to address the needs of the native fi sh in the system.
McClurg: What do you think has changed in the last 10 years and what do you see for the next 10?
Saracino: With respect to groundwater, I think there’s a growing public aware- ness that groundwater plays a role in the overall water supply system and that we don’t really have a handle on understanding what’s happening with our groundwater in a number of key regions in the state, although there have been various attempts to move in that direction. You mentioned the water elevation monitoring, it’s a good step. Is it suffi cient to manage? Not at all. It’s not measuring extractions.