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e.pierce's avatar

The Delta is a political swamp (pun intended) due to long-standing environmental issues, such as "rare and endangered" fish, "salt water intrusion" and sensitive habitats at the edge of the historical marsh (Jepson Prairie).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jepson_Prairie

Expecting the bizarro political forces in California to be able to do the right thing to conserve fresh water is almost beyond comprehension.

I used to read this blog a lot, but farcebork stopped sending me notifications for unknown reasons.

https://mavensnotebook.com/2022/06/23/delta-independent-science-board-delta-conveyance-project-update-on-environmental-documents/

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e.pierce's avatar

I was in the Rio Vista area about a week ago, and ran across an employee at the Ryde Hotel who said he heard from old timers that the Delta region has been mostly undeveloped since Prohibition because some super rich old money family (Comstock silver, 1800s) had purchased a large oil/gas field there, that has mostly gone unexploited.

fwiw, the bakery in downtown Rio Vista has excellent Cambodian soup (similar to Vietnamese Pho).

The old China "town" area in Locke, just upstream from Walnut Grove, is rumored to be up for world heritage site designation soon.

There are two famous river crossing ferries still operating (by the State of California Transportation Dept.) upstream from Rio Vista that I keep trying to take, but they are intermittent and when I've gone lately, they had just closed for the day.

https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-4/d4-projects/d4-solano-delta-ferry

Many areas of the delta are surprising (very lush compared to most of California) and driving/cycling/boating in that area is like time travel due to the lack of modern development.

This is an excellent story about a small landowner and recreational business dude in the Delta beating the vast legal death machine of the State of California:

https://twitter.com/bucklerisland

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