“This backup plan to get freshwater to urban areas in the unlikely event of levee failure should relieve the minds of the Latino Water Coalition, which has teamed up with the California Conference of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to write to Interior Secretary Salazar and Natural Resources Secretary John Laird, urging them to finalize the BDCP. (See letter here.) [Link available on click-through.]
They argue that “it is the large urban population centers that will suffer the greatest social, economic, and environmental harm if an earthquake or other natural disaster disrupts Delta water supplies, and the residents of those communities are more likely to belong to an ethnic minority group than residents in other parts of the state.”
“According to recent census data,” says the letter, “more than 70 percent of Californians who identify themselves as Black or African American, two-thirds who identify themselves as Latino or Hispanic, and 70 percent who identify themselves as Asian, live in urban counties1 reliant on water exported from the South Delta.” … “
