Bay Area Wildlife Blog sent me a tip regarding “Peripheral Canal” legislation currently being considered for California’s Bay-Delta Region.

The budget-busting “big ditch” would approximate the Panama Canal in size and allow diversion of even more freshwater from the already imperiled Delta estuary.

The legislation would weaken existing environmental laws and provides no enforceable standards for fishery restoration. This dangerous law would indebt Californians for decades to come and exacerbate the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon and steelhead, delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail, and other Delta fish populations. The impacts could reverberate beyond the Bay-Delta ecosystem and affect other species that depend on these fish, such as southern orcas and seabirds.

Center for Biological Diversity

Time is of the essence so your take action for wildlife by sending a letter to your California legislators by September 11.

Center for Biological Diversity press release

Addititonal information and links to articles can be found at Bay Area Wildlife Blog

Tags: Bay-Delta, Big Ditch, California Bay-Delta, Delta smelt, Peripheral Canal

This entry was posted by Scott on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Commentary, Endangered species, Human Threats, conservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.