Sacramento San Joaquin Delta

A levee break that flooded an island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was declared a federal disaster Thursday by President Bush, qualifying the state and local governments for millions of dollars in federal aid. The breach last month ruined farmers' homes, killed animals and left 12,000 acres of crops under water.

The continuing search for a politically acceptable means of apportioning water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta advanced Monday with a joint announcement by Gov. Pete Wilson and U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt that a draft of the final plan will be released by year's end. Even that plan, however, may only signal the beginning of a multiyear process aimed at repairing years of environmental damage to the delta while meeting agriculture needs and growing urban demands.

The "water buffaloes" like to frame their fight as farmers vs. fish. It is not. It's about farmers and fishermen. A California water buffalo is someone who instinctively battles to develop water -- so named, I'm told, after the beast that reputedly can smell water from 200 miles away. The fight isn't necessarily about "versus" either because farmers and fishermen often are in the same boat, dry-docked for lack of water. Up and down the San Joaquin Valley, farm fields have been fallowed and field hands can't find work because there isn't enough water to irrigate crops.

In a move that could usher in even tighter restrictions on water exports to Southern California, state wildlife regulators have decided to protect another fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The California Fish and Game Commission voted 3 to 0 to adopt protection for longfin smelt. The tiny fish makes its home in the delta, which serves as headwaters for the state and federal canals that send water to Southern California.

Federal wildlife officials on Monday released new restrictions on pumping water from Northern California, further tightening the spigot on flows to Southern California cities and San Joaquin Valley farms. The curbs, intended to keep the tiny delta smelt from extinction and stem the ecological collapse of California's water crossroads, could in some years cut state water deliveries by half. "The water supply is becoming less certain," state water resources Director Lester Snow said.

You may have thought that by voting for $4.9-billion in flood control bonds last November, you were protecting Southern California's water flow from the north. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta would be repaired and shielded against a Katrina-like catastrophe. And fresh water would flow south forever down the California Aqueduct. Wrong. For the delta, the bonds will buy only some tape and putty.

California has to change the way it manages the hub of its vast water system or face economic and environmental disaster in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, warns a report released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California. The book-length document, written by a group of UC Davis experts and institute research fellow Ellen Hanak, adds to a growing consensus that the status quo in the delta, which provides two out of three Californians with fresh water, is unsustainable.

A Superior Court judge has given the state two months to get environmental permits in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or he will shut down the massive Northern California pumps that kill endangered fish in the process of supplying the Southland with much of its water. State officials vowed to fight the ruling, predicting dire consequences for the California economy if the pumping stopped.

A pair of wayward humpback whales continued their improbable trek through the inland waterways of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta on Monday, pressing toward the Pacific before stalling out near a steel bridge 60 miles from the sea. The mother and her calf spent most of the day circling in the Sacramento River north of the Rio Vista Bridge near the mouth of Steamboat Slough, as more than half a dozen boats -- including a Coast Guard cutter -- shadowed their moves.

For the second time this year, a judge has ruled that management of California's water system is illegally imperiling fish, making it increasingly likely that the state will have to pump less water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Southern California cities and Central Valley farms. U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger issued the ruling Friday and ordered a hearing for next week at which he could issue a stay in the case, forestalling any immediate effect on the pumping operation.