Bill Seeks Protection of Delta Water in Case of Quake

A Southern California lawmaker introduced legislation Tuesday aimed at protecting against contamination--in the event levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are destroyed by an earthquake--of a water supply that serves much of the state

The bill by Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) would require the Department of Water Resources to develop a program by 1987 to assure that clean water would continue to flow to the Central Valley and Southern California even if the levees collapsed.

Water for the California Water Project and the federal Central Valleys Project is collected in the delta and shipped south. If the levees failed and the numerous islands they protect were suddenly flooded, the volume of fresh water flowing from the delta into San Francisco Bay would drop off sharply. And that would allow salt water from the bay to invade the delta.

“This state does not have a delta levee protection plan,” Peace told a press conference. “An emergency such as an earthquake would result in our inability to deliver potable water from the delta.”

Peace noted that recent research by a Department of Water Resources geologist warned that the levees could fail in case of an earthquake because they are constructed of such unstable materials as peat and sand. For years, the levee system has come under fire for being poorly maintained.

Gerald Meral, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League, noted that eight earthquake faults lie under the delta region. He endorsed the Peace bill.

Peace, a supporter of the voter-rejected Peripheral Canal project that would have moved water south by skirting the delta, insisted that protection of the water supply system in case of an earthquake was the only concern of his bill.

“We’re not talking about more water to Southern California or simply improving the delta,” he said.

The state geologist who conducted the research, Michael Finch, warned that the delta area is a “definite earthquake hazard” because of the rapid rate of soil and levee erosion and the ineffectiveness of the use of sandy sediments for levee maintenance.