The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a land of paradoxes. The Delta's fertile soil and pleasant climate provide for half a million acres of farmland and nearly half a million residents. Yet most of the Delta's lands lie below sea level. The Delta is also one of the most valuable sources of water for much of California. Yet it is nearly unknown to the vast majority of Californians.

However, the Delta's unique qualities are well known to one group of people – its residents. Fully involving those residents is a key to planning for and ensuring its future.

The people who live, work and play in the Delta know that it is the largest estuary on the continent's West Coast. They fish in what is the most important salmon-producing river system south of the Columbia River. They have farmed the Delta's land for a century and a half. The Delta has shaped their families, their jobs and their communities. They also know that the future of the Delta is in question as never before.

The Delta is in crisis. Its ecosystem and its fisheries have collapsed in the past decade, in part because of record levels of water diversions to the Central Valley and Southern California. Water quality has declined, impacting Delta farmers and cities that depend on water within the Delta. Academics have raised concerns about major potential flood risks to Delta farms, residents and water supplies from earthquakes and sea level rise.

This crisis is being seized by some as an opportunity to push, once again, for the construction of a multi-billion-dollar peripheral canal the size of the Panama Canal through prime Delta farmland and historic towns. They tout the canal, which would divert Sacramento River water before it reaches the Delta, as a means of quenching the thirst of the state while curing what ails the Delta. When in reality, it could just as easily make things worse.

Delta residents know that agencies and the Legislature are debating how best to solve the problem. They know the outcome of these discussions will determine their future. While many of the Delta communities are ready to assist in finding a solution, many feel that they are being excluded from these critical discussions.

For example, state agencies and water users south of the Delta have established a process called the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, which is creating an ecosystem restoration plan and investigating a proposal to build a peripheral canal. The implications for the Delta's ecosystem, farms and communities are profound.

Unfortunately, Delta interests who have asked to join this process have been told that they are not welcome. Rather than being designed to involve those who know the Delta best and those who have the greatest stake in its future, this process is controlled in large part by the very water projects and water users who are responsible for the Delta's decline.

California must develop an effective, long-term plan for the Delta, but that effort will only succeed if it is designed from the start to include the Delta community. Given the broad authority of local governments, the key role of reclamation districts, and the fact that most of the Delta is privately owned, a successful Delta plan must address local concerns and a Delta plan will only be implemented if it has their cooperation.

The Legislature is now considering "governance reform" legislation that would create a Delta management agency, a Delta Conservancy and require a comprehensive plan for the Delta. I'm working to ensure that these new agencies would include a strong role for Delta communities. However, this effort to increase inclusiveness must extend beyond the Legislature into the Bay-Delta effort.

Unfortunately, the state administration has chosen to exclude the Delta community as full participants from this critical planning process. As the Obama administration's new team at the Department of the Interior considers how to best engage in California on water issues, it should plan to show leadership in the development of the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan and ensure that it is no longer disproportionately controlled by water exporters and interest outside of the region. In particular, Interior must recognize that the involvement and cooperation of the many diverse voices in the Delta, from fishing and environmental groups to farmers, local governments and others, is essential to success.

Further, the plan should not be rushed forward separately and aside from the new governance proposals now being considered by the Legislature. To do so would invite water exporters to block true reforms in Delta governance, believing they can have their way through a process they now dominate.

In the scientific world, the Greek character for "Delta" means change. Today, the Delta is changing. All of California has a great deal at stake in shaping that change and planning for the Delta's future, but no one has more at stake than the Delta community itself.

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, represents the 5th District.