Opinion: Drain the swamp, not the Sierra
By John Kingsbury, Union Democrat
The president of the United States wants to “drain the swamp.” Of course he is using this saying as a metaphor for mismanagement and government waste. It seems to me that California, however, is hell bent to drain the Sierra Nevada – in the literal sense – as if this action was without consequence.
While I support “draining the swamp” of excess bureaucracy, I am opposed to California’s “draining the Sierra” or taking water from one ecological region to meet the environmental needs of another.
The Delta depends on the Sierra as the largest reservoir of banked water in all of California. Draining the Sierra will defeat the Delta Stewardship Council’s objective to coequally achieve water supply reliability and restore the Delta’s ecosystem.
