[hellyeasa]

Before any Southern Californians object, remember that almost all your clean water comes from snowmelt diverted through hundreds of miles of aqueducts. Draining lakes such as Owen's Lake to a dusty dry alkali bed.

Who are we to condemn India's actions? Let's just hope the project minimizes ecological impact.

[whyenot]

> Who are we to condemn India's actions? Let's just hope the project minimizes ecological impact.

I think Californians have every right to condemn this project. Not only have we experienced the benefits of huge water projects like this, but also the costs. The disruption of the delta (take note Bangladesh), Owens Lake that has been turned into stinging alkali sands, a Colorado river that rarely makes it to the sea, Hetch Hetchy, a beautiful valley in Yosemite that a century ago was sacrificed in order for San Francisco to have clean water (not a judgement call, the water in SF is fantastic, but there is a price..) and so on. Now we are gearing up to tunnel around the delta so Southern California can suck even more water out of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers; there will be an environmental price for that as well.

My concern with this project is that Bangladesh will get the short end of the stick. They already are in a difficult spot with the sea level rising, and, if a reduction in water flow also reduces the amount of silt reaching the delta there will be more subsidence and an already difficult problem will be made even worse.

[Aelinsaar]

Speaking as a non-Southern Californian... at least your neck of the woods has an obvious and inescapable conclusion. You're going to have a tremendous earthquake on the San Andreas, which will barely touch Southern California physically. It will probably level LA and SF though, at the very least. I suspect that faced with the prospect of cleaning that mess, and rebuilding, suddenly we'll all find our copies of 'Cadillac Desert'.

[prawn]

Wouldn't Californians therefore be in a position to object and warn others of the consequences?