The Water Train

Dear Jerry,

We’re sorry we ever doubted you. That Water Train idea of yours is fantastic. Who knew your bullet train, the Twin Tunnels, the manufactured drought, and all the silliness about that little fish were just part of a colossal scheme to get some dependable water to the most productive agricultural district in the world? After all, it’s about national security, we all know it. Who’s going to feed the world if we don’t?

Sure, some cynics out there might opine that you’re just trying to out do your dad in the legacy department, but we know better. When he invited President Kennedy to help start-up the San Luis Reservoir project back in 1962, it was the largest man-made hydrological project in history. But your Water Train? Bigger and better by far. Bragging rights, for sure.

What a plan! Sixty-four billion dollars for the High Speed Rail system.  Another $15.7-billion (or $20B or, some say, $50B) for the two tunnels under the Delta to move water without waking up the fish. Never mind the doubters, we’re pretty sure you can steamroll that bunch of drylanders. Sheer genius. Tunnels for trains — one going south, full of water. One chugging north, loaded with raisins and peaches and pistachios and all the other stuff our Valley grows for you. Never mind passengers, they can find their own rides. You run those tracks right up to Courtland, fill a bunch of Pullman cars to the ceiling lights with cool Shasta water and send ’em down here to the San Luis Reservoir. No need to dump three-and-a-half million acre feet of fresh water out in the ocean anymore, we’ll get that big bathtub tipped off in a hurry. Let’s see now, six passenger cars per train, about 4,422 gallons per car totals 26,532 gallons per train which is about 8% of an acre-foot, 325,857 gallons, so it will take 12.28 trains to get an acre-foot to the O’Neill Forebay to be pumped up to the reservoir. She holds 2,041,000 acre-feet, so, luckily, it should only take about 25,063,480 trips to fill what was always intended to be our insurance against drought. Your father promised all those farmers and those 25-million people down in the Southland that that’s what the San Luis Reservoir and the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project were all about. It’s our water, bought and paid for several times over.   If it takes an expensive train and a couple of big tubes in the ground, what the hell? We’ll pay again, just give us the damn water!

It’s a brilliant plan and we thank you for it. The Water Train! You get naming rights, of course, but here’s a suggestion: How ’bout The Delta Smelt?

Thanks,

The Little People