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Preparing for Tomorrow's Storms
Preparing for Tomorrow’s Storms
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMARCH 28, 2015
Californians are understandably focused on the state’s severe drought, now in its fourth year. But drought is not the only environmental risk the state’s residents face.
Twenty-five million Californians get their drinking water from the San Francisco Bay Delta watershed, which covers more than 75,000 square miles and stretches from the Cascade Mountains in Northern California to the Tehachapis in the southern part of the state.
Rain and snowmelt in the watershed (down significantly this year because of the drought) eventually flow to the Pacific Ocean through San Francisco Bay. Along the way, that fresh water is protected from saltwater by a patchwork of levees. If those levees are breached in a storm or an earthquake, millions living in the area will be without safe drinking water.
Experts have been worried about a breach for decades, and sea level rise associated with climate change would only exacerbate the existing risks to California’s water.
Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed a plan to build tunnels to carry water through the delta region, a system he says would better protect the water supply from contamination. A drought relief bill just passed by the California Legislature, and signed by Governor Brown on Friday, would also include $660 million for flood control projects, including the repair of levees with known problems.
The $14.5 billion tunnel plan has encountered significant criticism, both from the Environmental Protection Agency and from environmental groups in California, which are concerned that the project would greatly increase the amount of water drawn from the delta area because of the high capacity of the tunnels. This increase, they fear, would endanger fish and other wildlife.
Opponents of Governor Brown’s plan say the state should invest in projects to increase water efficiency and decrease reliance on water from the delta. Some have proposed a smaller tunnel project. Meanwhile, state officials are revising the tunnel plan and intend to recirculate it for public comment this spring.
Even when revised, the plan will most likely face significant opposition. But at least California’s leaders are thinking about these issues.
In the coming years, climate change is likely to render every part of the country more vulnerable to environmental disasters. In some states, planning for these disasters is hampered by politicians who deny the very existence of changes in the climate. In Florida, another state threatened by sea level rise and extreme storms, officials say they were told not even to use the term “climate change.”
Even when there’s recognition of a gigantic problem — as with California’s aging levees — the cost of infrastructure improvements coupled with bureaucratic inertia means it’s always simpler to put off measures that might avert future calamities. And so it’s easier to take the gamble that the catastrophe won’t happen, the storm won’t roll in, the flood won’t come, even though ever more scientific evidence says it will.
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.