KTVU - Summit Looks For Solutions To Delta Depletion
The "Farms & Salmon Summit: Bringing the Sacramento Delta Together," was the third regional meeting aimed at generating solutions to restore and protect salmon populations and to fight diversion of the area's water resources, which are rerouted to other farming regions.
"The Delta is as important as the Florida Everglades, Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay," Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, said. "We should be putting effort into restoring it."
Thompson was joined at Wednesday's forum by House of Representatives colleagues John Garamendi, D-Walnut Creek, Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, and Jerry McNerny, D-Pleasanton.
He said the meetings were meant to raise awareness about the threat to Northern California's cultural heritage and coastal economy. Wednesday's event brought together farmers and fishermen, who are sometimes pitted against one another in water wars but stood together in favor of sustainability.
The Delta contains more than 738,000 acres of land covered in a maze of waterways. It includes some of California's most fertile farmland and robust natural habitats, according to the nonprofit Restore the Delta, which co-hosted today's meeting.
Most of the Delta's islands are below sea level due to subsidence and the oxidization, compacting and erosion of soil, and they rely on more than 1,100 levees for sustainability.
The Delta also houses the continent's largest Pacific Coast estuary, which houses Chinook salmon and Delta smelt. Both species' populations have suffered dramatic reductions as a result of the depleted water resources.
"You're talking about people's jobs, their livelihood," Thompson said. "It's devastating."
Speakers at today's forum, which included two panels and a public comment session, stressed the importance of restoring diverted water to the Delta so its ecosystems can recover.
"We need to develop water policy based on supply, not demand," panelist Cathy Hemley of Courtland said.
She added that she was tired of legal threats, including 13 lawsuits filed by the Westlands Water District in Fresno to eliminate Delta salmon protections.
Congressional GOP leaders are also working to wipe out Delta biological opinions issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that govern ecological policy, Garamendi said.
"We have a task ahead of us, and I learned many years ago there's no lack of commitment to protecting the Delta," he said.