Saturday, September 03, 2005


Delta Blues

According to the LA Times:

A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN -- one that is eerily similar to pre-Katrina New Orleans -- sits in the center of California. It is the 738,000-acre Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a maze of sloughs, channels and islands that funnel water from the two rivers westward into San Francisco Bay. The problem is that the delta's waters are kept on track by an estimated 1,100 miles of levees, some dating to the 1860s, that are mostly in poor repair and suffering from sporadic, underfinanced maintenance.

Southern Californians have to be concerned because the delta is the source of an average 20% to 30% of their water. It also provides irrigation water for some of the richest farming land in the world, in the San Joaquin Valley. . . .

Professor Jeffrey Mount of UC Davis calculates that there is a 2-in-3 chance of a massive levee collapse in the next 50 years. Some experts say an earthquake in the region the size of the 1994 Northridge temblor could result in up to 30 levee breaks.

With the Bush regime showing such incompetence in dealing with the emergency needs of two red states, Louisana and Mississippi,  one can only imagine the fate that blue state Californians would be abandoned to if the delta levees collapsed. 


5:29:37 PM    comment []