Dr. Jonathan Stewart, Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor and Chair, discusses technical issues in the Delta specifically related to the seismic stability and seismic hazard of the levees as well as the broader seismic hazard in the region. He notes, “The overarching concerns that we’ve been tasked with investigating by the Department of Water Resources is when we have an earthquake in that region, we expect to lose a lot of levees, which will lead to flooding of the interior islands,” Dr. Stewart details. “That flooding will necessarily involve water from the bay coming into the Delta in an uncontrolled way. Once the saltwater from the bay comes in there, it compromises Clifton Court, which is the intake for the California water projects, and then you no longer are able to export water to all the places served by that project which includes Contra Costa County, most of the West Valley area, including Coalinga, and of course Southern California. That’s the big concern.”
Read the full article, “The Labyrinthine Task of Solving California’s Water Problem and the California Water Fix”.