"Dr Robert Pyke has a wealth of geotechnical and water resources engineering experience from all over the world, including the Delta, and he has some sensible suggestions for addressing our water management problems. Among them
1. Restoration of floodplains on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries, which provides three significant benefits: stretching out floods to allow export pumping over a longer time; reducing peak flows as floods pass by the major urban areas and through the Delta; and restoring complexity and nutrients to the ecosystem.
2. New pumping facilities somewhere in the west Delta to allow flows to pass through the Delta in a natural way before surplus flows are extracted; these facilities might include some temporary storage.
3. One or more tunnels that can move the extracted water to a large temporary storage facility until the existing pumps can move it south; this storage facility would likely be adjacent to and might incorporate the existing Clifton Court Forebay.
4. Additional south-of-Delta storage, much of it likely as groundwater but also including new west-side surface storage.
Said Dr. Pyke in a Stockton Record op-ed last month, "Any well-thought-out plan for getting out of this stalemate has to start by recognizing both the need for more natural flows through the Delta and that precipitation in California is extremely variable.
Thus, natural flows through the Delta should be restored to the maximum practical extent; and much more water should be extracted at periods of high flow and much less at periods of low flow."
Other suggestions from Dr. Pyke: go here to read the entire article
http://restorethedelta.org/?p=733
1. Restoration of floodplains on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries, which provides three significant benefits: stretching out floods to allow export pumping over a longer time; reducing peak flows as floods pass by the major urban areas and through the Delta; and restoring complexity and nutrients to the ecosystem.
2. New pumping facilities somewhere in the west Delta to allow flows to pass through the Delta in a natural way before surplus flows are extracted; these facilities might include some temporary storage.
3. One or more tunnels that can move the extracted water to a large temporary storage facility until the existing pumps can move it south; this storage facility would likely be adjacent to and might incorporate the existing Clifton Court Forebay.
4. Additional south-of-Delta storage, much of it likely as groundwater but also including new west-side surface storage.
Said Dr. Pyke in a Stockton Record op-ed last month, "Any well-thought-out plan for getting out of this stalemate has to start by recognizing both the need for more natural flows through the Delta and that precipitation in California is extremely variable.
Thus, natural flows through the Delta should be restored to the maximum practical extent; and much more water should be extracted at periods of high flow and much less at periods of low flow."
Other suggestions from Dr. Pyke: go here to read the entire article
http://restorethedelta.org/?p=733