Opinion: State water planning should begin in the Sierra
By Joseph Day and Richard McIntyre, Sacramento Bee
The Sierra Nevada is the foundation of California’s water system and needs attention. The Sierra supplies 65 percent of all water used by the people of the state, from the clean, safe water that comes from your faucets to the water used to grow crops.
Without its broad granite presence looming over the Central Valley, what most of us take for granted as “the way things are” would not be.
Looking at the Sierra as California's water solution.
Without the Sierra, irrespective of what laws were passed, the state, federal and regional water projects that supply San Francisco, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California simply would not exist – and neither would the San Francisco Bay Delta.