One of the nation's largest environmental groups has decided to support building a controversial new water canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.....

But the conservancy wants a new and independent governing agency formed first, to ensure that the canal is operated both to enhance the environment and protect water supplies. Resolving such thorny issues is why the group chose to express conditional support for the canal now....

BUT GET THIS, also from the article:
The Nature Conservancy is unique compared with other environmental groups, because it also owns huge tracts of land in the Delta: 9,000-acre Staten Island and 1,600-acre McCormack-Williamson Tract.
Both are managed for farming and wildlife habitat, and both were purchased, in part, with state grants.

Saracino also was once partners in a consulting business with Lester Snow, now director of the state Department of Water Resources. And his wife was once DWR's general counsel and chief deputy director.
He said none of these relationships influenced the Nature Conservancy's Delta policies.
The conservancy's land could be dramatically altered by the state's "dual conveyance" canal plan.......
This could take hundreds of acres of farmland out of production and eliminate habitat that exists now.
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