Bittersweet moments in delta paradise

TOM STIENSTRA

A warm breeze was in our face as we cruised down the San Joaquin River in the delta. As the sun lowered in the sky, refracted silvers were cast across the water. Straight ahead, Mount Diablo carved a dark silhouette on the horizon.

To the right, inside a windprotected slough, a flock of swans floated in a small flotilla on the curved edge of a line of tules. A great blue heron lifted off alongside us and sailed overhead. Nearby, a fisherman cast for bass, and in the open water, a ski boat pulled a youngster on a tube.

As we parked the boat Friday evening for an onboard barbecue, it felt like we were in paradise.

Yet earlier Friday, the State Department of Water Resources had given the official go-ahead for the delta tunnels, the twin tunnels that would run right through where we ran our boat to take more water out of the delta and export it to points south.

The tunnels would be 40 feet in diameter and 30 miles long and engineered to take water from the Sacramento River and route it to the delta pumps. At present, according to DWR, the pumps take 70,000 gallons of water per second out of the San Joaquin and its many tributaries.

In the summer, when high volumes of freshwater are diverted south, saltwater intrusion can reach back into the delta and threaten the survival of all plants, birds and fish that require freshwater to survive.

On Friday evening, we anchored at Mildred Island. Just a mile from there, I grew up fishing for catfish and striped bass with my dad. The delta pumps at Clifton Court on the south San Joaquin took care of that. The striped bass, salmon and sturgeon that are left are now mostly on the Sacramento River side of the Delta.

The delta still provides a great escape portal, just over the hill from the Bay Area and Sacramento and their collective total of 10 million people. On the water, you get miles of wide-open spaces for boating, water sports, fishing (best for largemouth bass) and bird watching.

At least for a while Friday evening, we had a small stake in the paradise that remains.