Op-Ed

by Dan Bacher

The last thing that the California Delta needs is a new bureaucrat to further Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plans to build a peripheral canal and new dams, but that’s exactly what we now have.

The five members of the State Water Resources Control Board recently chose attorney Craig M. Wilson to serve in the newly created Delta Watermaster position – and representives of environmental groups and California Indian Tribes weren’t impressed.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009, part of the legislative path to the peripheral canal that was rammed through the Legislature by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last November, requires the State Water Board to appoint a “Delta Watermaster.” The Delta Watermaster has the authority to monitor, report and take enforcement actions on the Delta. More