Fixing the Delta

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 18, 2008 at 3:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Just how much water can San Diego expect from Northern California in the future? That's one of the questions a task force aims to answer at a meeting here this afternoon. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has de

Fixing the Delta

Just how much water can San Diego expect from Northern California in the future? That's one of the questions a task force aims to answer at a meeting here this afternoon. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has details.

The Delta Vision Task Force is charged with finding solutions to the state's water supply issues. It focuses on ways to fix the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

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The Delta is a 600-mile series of dams, reservoirs, pumps and pipelines which is the heart of the State Water Project. It sends water to at least 25 million Californians and provides more than 30 percent of San Diego's water.

Threats to the Delta include aged and deteriorating levees susceptible to collapse from an earthquake.

John Kirlin is the executive director of Delta Vision. He says the task force will explain San Diego's role in conserving water and finding ways to develop more local supplies.

Kirlin: San Diego won't be singled out. Everyone's going to have to contribute to crafting a better future. California as everyone knows is going to grow to roughly 50 million people by 2050. Current water consumption levels there's no way we can accommodate that growth in population.

He says that means everyone needs to learn how to be more efficient with the water supply.

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Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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