Letters to the Editor: Could local water projects make $16-billion Delta tunnel unnecessary?

To the editor: A yes-or-no decision is no way to evaluate a $16-billion water infrastructure project such as the Delta Conveyance Project, a tunnel that would bolster a system bringing water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Southern California.

A tunnel could be handy during atmospheric rivers. But with $16 billion invested, who would want to let so much fresh water go from the rivers into the ocean in drier years, even if fish die and the San Francisco Bay turns green?

Consider Tulare Lake, once the largest natural freshwater lake in the west before it started drying up in the 1800s. California’s abdication of water planning to local interests has rendered Tulare Lake a flooding nightmare.

Why bring more fresh water right past this nightmare, adding to the water already in the California Aqueduct, where one major earthquake could create a giant moat around Bakersfield?

How about alternatives? How about decentralized infrastructure, such as continuing to improve storm-water recovery in Southern California?

To make an intelligent choice on a $16-billion water infrastructure project, we need to evaluate that decision against some intelligent alternatives.

Alan Bair, Pasadena

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To the editor: Restore the Delta, a group opposed to the tunnel, reminds me that you can’t please all the people all of the time. The group is also misnamed.

Its goal is not to restore the Delta, but to preserve the current mode of operation that convey water from the State Water Project through the Delta, a huge benefit for local agriculture.

The Delta Conveyance Project would actually result in water flow that more closely resembles historical flows before the State Water Project was constructed, which would be more environmentally beneficial.

The executive director’s statement that “it is a lot easier, in a catastrophe, to fix a levee than a tunnel,” ignores the fact that a tunnel is much more seismically resistant, and there are 1,100 miles of levees in the Delta, many of which are extremely vulnerable since they were constructed during the Gold Rush era.

Dan Masnada, Santa Clarita

The writer was general manager of the Castaic Lake Water Agency from 2002 to 2016.