Can California's Delta Plan Balance Infrastructure Investment with Environmental Protections?

Jerry Meral was recruited by California Governor Jerry Brown to head the California Department of Natural Resources' efforts to improve, update, and manage water infrastructure in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. The Planning Report spoke with Deputy Secretary Meral about his role in the Bay Delta conservation planning process, the challenges associated with creating a plan for the Delta, and what the future of water in California will look like.

Meral holds that decades after the environmental battles over the Delta in the early 1980s, when he was Deputy Director of the Department of Water Resources, the stakeholders have changed, and opposition and support have grown more nuanced. No longer can one sweepingly characterize the positions of different environmental groups or farming advocates. Meral's work tests whether states can still unite stakeholders in efforts to make bold investments in infrastructure and natural space.

Thanks to Kevin Madden