various crops including wheat, cotton, rice, citrus, and melons. The low-lying topography of the Sacramento Valley makes it vulnerable to flooding in the winter; conversely, irrigation is necessary during the summer due to the highly seasonal precipitation. Although the Sacramento River discharges nearly of water each year, most of the flow occurs during winter storms and spring snowmelt, with natural runoff reducing to a trickle during late summers and autumns of drought years. As farming increased, low river flows dropped even lower, leading to saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay into the Delta. This caused water shortages for Delta farms, and led to a teredo (saltwater worm) infestation between 1919 and 1924 that destroyed piers and ships in Suisun Bay. In a bid to solve the salinity problem, local residents proposed constructing a tidal barrage across the mouth of Suisun Bay, a project which was never realized. In 1919 a different solution came in the form of the Marshall Plan, created by Robert Marshall of the United States Geological Survey. It proposed a large dam across the Sacramento River just downstream of its confluence with the Pit River near the copper mining town of Kennett, several hundred miles to the north of the Delta. The dam would store water for release during the dry months when the Delta was most vulnerable to saltwater intrusion, with the added benefit of controlling floods in the winter. Water captured by the dam would increase the irrigation supply, for both the Sacramento Valley and the San Joaquin Valley further south, with which it would be linked by an extensive aqueduct and reservoir system. State Water Plan and the CVP The Marshall Plan was not widely supported due to its high cost (about $800 million in 2008 dollars); when proposed to Congress in 1921, it passed in the Senate but failed in the House of Representatives. However, the state of California continued to search for a solution. In 1931, State Engineer Edward Hyatt published a similar but less extensive proposal called the State Water Plan, with a projected cost of about $550 million. Including the dam at Kennett and aqueducts from the Delta southwards into the arid San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles Basin, Hyatt's scheme laid the foundations for both the present day Central Valley Project (CVP) and the California State Water Project (SWP). Initially, the state of California intended to finance the