California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced a $9 billion water infrastructure proposal to be introduced in the legislative special session that he called in response to California’s water crisis. The plan adds about $3 billion above and beyond the water plan the governor introduced in the spring. Schwarzenegger says $600 million is needed to immediately relieve pressure on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from environmental challenges and to respond to an August 31 federal court ruling that will reduce water deliveries from the Delta to Southern California. The water is being withheld to save the small silvery Delta smelt that has been declining year by year due to low water levels in its habitat and now is on the brink of extinction. Twenty five million Californians rely on the Delta for drinking water. It also irrigates hundreds of thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland and it is the backbone of California’s $32 billion agricultural industry.

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