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of the Delta Vision Process. "I am convinced we are walking the path together," he said. "We have the same goals and targets." Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in March released a draft report to Congress that identifies and prioritizes potential levee stability projects in the Delta to be carried out through 2010 using as much as $90 million authorized by Congress for the federal share of project costs. According to the report, "the short - term strategy is to move quickly to construction on high priority levee reconstruction projects," using the $90 million and accompanying cost share funds. The resulting work will be "an important first step to address Delta -wide levee system needs," the report says. The Corps received 54 project proposals totaling more than $1 billion from Delta reclamation districts and flood management agencies. The hefty price tag of submitted proposals is indicative of the "great need for levee improvements in the Delta," said Jeff Hawk, Corps spokesman. Long -term, the Corps' "Sacramento -San Joaquin Delta Islands and Levees Feasibility Study," which will draw upon and proceed in tandem with the DRMS, will assess existing and future flood risks in the Delta area. "Unlike other levee systems that protect against high water events, the Delta's levees maze of mostly non- federal levees must work all day, every day, to keep water from inundating people living below sea level," said Col. Ronald Light, district engineer at the Corps' Sacramento district. Finding and Maintaining Consensus The last year or so has seen an extraor- dinary amount of activity and atten- tion focused on the Delta, which has never strayed too far from the collec- tive consciousness of its many interest groups. As the task of building a Delta Vision unfolds, some say it would be wise to look at the CALFED process as a tutorial for the positives and nega- tives of conducting a collaborative process. " CALFED was a `how not to' process," Quinn said. "It lost its focus. This process can't lose its focus." Quinn said while the ROD established a short -term course of action, it turned a "deaf ear" to the long -term questions about sustainability. "There was a sincere effort to make [near -term actions] work, but Mother Nature is telling us it's not working," he said. As such, the time has come for the all- encompass- ing view offered by the Delta Vision Process. "This is not just about pumping water south, this is about a much bigger set of things," he said. "It can't be just about water, because it's not just water that's at risk in the Delta. It's highways, it's information technology, telephone wires, it's energy distribution and storage systems, natural gas and power lines — all those infrastructure uses have to be on the table." Toward that end, MWD's board of directors in April adopted a mission statement and 13 policy principles that emphasize actions which promote an environmentally sustainable Delta and "adequate and reliable" supplies of high - quality water. Jeff Kightlinger, MWD general manager, said the policy principles are a "dramatic shift" away from the philosophy of using increased Delta exports to meet growing de- mands. "It reflects the strategy in our integrated resource planning efforts, under which growing demands are met through water conservation, recycling and the development of local and regional supplies, as well as water transfers from willing sellers," he said. Northern California water inter- ests and voters, who clashed with their southern counterparts more than two decades ago over the proposed Periph- eral Canal, may re -visit that debate as the idea of moving water around the Delta has been discussed as a possible