Dear RTD Supporters:
We understand that the Westlands Water District is organizing busloads of farm workers and farmers to attend the State Water Resources Control Board Meeting on Wednesday, February 18, 2015. They intend to demand that the State Water Resources Control Board abandons the few protections left in place to stop over pumping of the Delta during the drought.
What’s at stake? We are on the verge of losing Delta smelt, winter-run Chinook salmon, steelhead, and other Delta and coastal species. In addition, if any more pumping takes place beyond current minimal protection levels in the drought, water quality will deteriorate even more, which is bad news for Delta municipalities and farming communities.
It is important that the State Water Resources Control Board understand that the commercial salmon, Delta farming, and Bay-Delta recreational economies worth many billions of dollars annually are at stake if the estuary collapses.
We must tell them while the current standards (which are called D1641) have never been fully adequate for the health of the estuary, but setting them aside so that three of California’s 58 counties can have any and all water during this prolonged drought is wrong.
The Delta is always doing without, and now Westlands is demanding what little water is left, even though their water rights are junior. King, Frenso, and Kern Counties are not the only counties suffering in the drought. The estuary is in peril!
Here is where we need you to be:
Joe Serna Jr. – Cal/EPA Building, 1001 I Street, Sacramento
As close to 8 a.m. as possible. The meeting begins at 9 a.m.
Be ready to remind the board of the Delta’s right to water that meets water quality standards that are set by law!