Anxiety is building in Delta communities over proposals to build a canal to divert Sacramento River water around the estuary.

Such a canal has not been approved or funded, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in February directed the state Department of Water Resources to begin environmental review of options in response to the state's water crisis.

Last month, DWR sent letters to 1,000 property owners announcing it may need to access their land for preliminary surveys. This week it started a series of community meetings about those surveys.

Activist pastors have even held prayer vigils and community meetings, and new community groups have formed to protest the canal. Some property owners have vowed to keep state surveyors off their land.

"Some of the plans they are making will have a major impact on the lives of thousands of people who live in the area," said the Rev. Larry Emery of Walnut Grove Community Presbyterian Church. "I'm involved because as one of the churches here in the Delta, we're very concerned about our members and the whole community."

Residents of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fear land-use and economic disruptions from a massive canal. They also worry related proposals to transform farming islands into restored marshland could jeopardize businesses and the region's tax base.

Emery's church is scheduled to host a meeting at 6 p.m. today, sponsored by a new group, Save Our Delta's Future.

One of the group's leaders is David Stirling, a former assemblyman, judge and deputy attorney general. Stirling is now vice president of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative, Sacramento-based law firm known for fighting endangered species and habitat protections.

Clarksburg Community Church is also active. Its Web site includes a link on Delta planning information, and on July 26 the church hosted a 12-hour prayer vigil on the future of the region.

The church is working with another new group, North Delta Community Area Residents for Environmental Sustainability. The church's pastor, Dennis Montzingo, couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.

Many critics view canal proposals as water grabs by Southern California akin to the peripheral canal that rejected by state voters in 1982.

"I think the peripheral canal will be a disaster for the Delta long term, and I'm going to fight them," said Dino Cortopassi, a lifelong Delta farmer in San Joaquin County. He purchased full-page advertisements in the Bee this week to stir opposition to a canal. "I'm presenting that as the view that I think other people should hold."

The primary Delta planning efforts are the governor's Delta Vision committee and the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan. Some observers say much of the anxiety has been overblown, based on little more than sketches of ideas from planners.

"They're trying to put out a rational plan that doesn't hurt agriculture and restores some of the fish habitat we've lost. I don't see anything wrong in that," said Peggy Bohl, spokeswoman for Concerned Citizens of Clarksburg.

However, she added, "We've got people in the Delta who farm, they fish, they play, and they need to be included."

About 25 million Californians depend on the Delta for a portion of their drinking water. In addition, it is the primary source of irrigation water for nearly 1 million acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley.

Business and political interests from the Silicon Valley to San Diego are pressing for better plumbing in the Delta to improve water supply reliability. This has been driven by a drought, and by a federal court order last year that curtailed Delta water exports in order to protect fish.

Residents fear the consequences, including salinity that could jeopardize Delta farming. Some of the Delta's 500,000 residents have said they feel left out of the debate.

"It's rather presumptuous that this thing is moving as rapidly as it is," said Robert Ferguson, a Union Island farmer and member of the Delta Protection Commission.

The meeting at Emery's church is one of three scheduled for tonight on the Delta's future.

The Delta Protection Commission, a state agency, meets at 5:30 p.m. in Walnut Grove to discuss how it will comment on a draft strategic plan by the Delta Vision panel.

And at 6 p.m. in Antioch, DWR hosts the third of six meetings on its desire to access private land for canal surveys. Relations already are so strained that some property owners intend to deny the state access to their land.

"I hope people don't accept it and don't allow them on their property," Ferguson said.

Call The Bee's Matt Weiser, (916) 321-1264.