Write to the governor and Senate President to oppose new dam construction and to support water conservation, efficiency, recycling, groundwater clean-up, groundwater storage, and conjunctive use for the long term

Suggested language for your letter:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841

Senate President pro Tem Don Perata
State Capitol, Room 205
Sacramento, CA 95814
Senator.Perata@sen.ca.gov
Phone: (510) 286-1333

Dear Governor and Senate President pro Tem Don Perata:

I urge you to abandon efforts to build more surface water storage in California. California desperately needs more rational water policy to address the challenges of water supply reliability, Delta ecosystem health, and climate change. More cost effective and water productive alternatives to costly and unproductive reservoirs are well described in your own Department of Water Resources California Water Plan Update. How do you justify this effort, especially in the face of a looming fiscal deficit?

California can invest much greater resources in water conservation, efficiency, recycling, groundwater clean-up, groundwater storage, and conjunctive use for the long term needs of the states citizens and for the natural systems we all depend on. In addition to being more cost-effective, these alternatives would reduce reliance on Delta diversions and reduce risk from levee failures. More groundwater storage in southern California would go a long way to providing needed water supply reliability for California's booming economic activity.

Preliminary information provided by state agencies indicates that the actual water yield of the three dam projects proposed for funding (Sites, Temperance Flat, Enlarged Los Vaqueros) produce only about a third of the water at about 13 times the cost that could be produced by increased investments in water conservation.

I urge you to invest wisely for our future, and for our children's. Disagreements about the utility of surface storage should not stand in the way of available, effective water conservation and efficiency measures, and restoration of the Delta.

Sincerely,

Your name & address here