Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

For over 50 years, California has been pumping water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for extensive urban and agricultural uses around the state. Today, the Delta is ailing and in urgent need of a new management strategy. This report concludes that building a peripheral canal to carry water around the Delta is the most promising way to balance two critical policy goals: reviving a threatened ecosystem and ensuring a reliable, high-quality water supply for California.

More information can be found in the following supporting appendices:

Appendix A. Policy and Regulatory Challenges for the Delta of the Future

Appendix B. Levee Decisions and Sustainability for the Delta

Appendix C. Delta Hydrodynamics and Water Salinity with Future Conditions

Appendix D. The Future of the Delta Ecosystem and Its Fish

Appendix E. Expert Survey on the Viability of Delta Fish Populations

Appendix F. The Economic Costs and Adaptations for Alternative Delta Regulations

Appendix G. Peripheral Canal Design and Implementation Options

Appendix H. Delta Drinking Water Quality and Treatment Costs

Appendix I. The Economic Effects on Agriculture of Water Export Salinity South of the Delta

Appendix J. Decision Analysis of Delta Strategies

Interactive Map: Voting Patterns on Proposition 9 (Peripheral Canal), June 1982