Will the Water Board get it right this time?
Mike Taugher quotes Roger Patterson, assistant general manager for the Metropolitan Water District. Meeting the 75 percent target “would obviously devastate water supplies,” Patterson said. He speculates that if pollution, invasive species, and other issues in the Delta are addressed, more water could be taken out.
Taugher notes that meeting all of the requirements “would require San Joaquin farms, Southern California and portions of the East and South Bay Area cities that rely on
pumps in the southern Delta to cut their Delta water use by one-third in addition to recent cutbacks required by endangered species rules. For other water users upstream, including water utilities that service Oakland and San Francisco, the impact could be even worse – up to 70 percent, because of the goal to increase river flows.”
Reporting in the Stockton Record, Alex Breitler quotes Dan Nelson, executive director of the San Luis and Delta Medota Water Authority in Los Banos, which provides water to Westside agriculture. “The (report) is a purely theoretical exercise with no application in the real world,” said Nelson.
So again, the pressure will be on the Water Board.
But at least we know now how much water the Delta needs.