“I’m gonna do everything humanly possible to get it done.”
That was Governor Jerry Brown’s vow to the state’s water managers on Wednesday, asking for both their patience and their support.
He was referring, of course, to his ambitious proposal for tunnels to bypass the environmentally beleaguered Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, switching yard for the biggest portion of California’s water supply.
“We’re gonna have a reliable water supply. We’re gonna build a big project. We’ve got the federal government moving along with us,” declared the Governor. The last remark may have been partially a reference to the agreement his administration signed Wednesday with federal agencies to set a formal deadline of October 1, for release of a draft version of the long-awaited Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
Brown made the comments during a brief, surprise appearance at the spring conference of the Association of Californian Water Agencies (ACWA) in Sacramento, which continues through the week.
“I just came by to tell you, we’re working on it,” he told a large luncheon gathering at the Sheraton ballroom, about a block from the Capitol. Explicitly exempting his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brown added that, where the Delta’s concerned, “there was a little bit of a drought in leadership for several governors. By the quirks of history, I’ve come back after 28 years.”