Media Release for Monday, May 14, 2012

Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; steve@hopcraft.comTwitter: @shopcraft
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org; @RestoretheDelta

Los Angeles, CA – Southern California consumer and environmental advocates today announced a news conference for Thursday, May 17, to challenge the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) to support an independent cost-benefit analysis of the proposed multibillion Peripheral Canal or Tunnel project. “Who would get the water and who would pay the bill, which is now estimated to be $20 billion to upwards of $50 billion?” asked Conner Everts, Executive Director for the Southern California Watershed Alliance. “MWD opposes an independent cost benefit analysis. But it’s MWD customers and other water district ratepayers in the southland who would pay the bill.” The bill’s fate now rests with Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes and Speaker John Perez, who will largely determine whether AB 2421 to require such an analysis advances or dies by May 25.

WHO: Conner Everts, Executive Director, Southern California
Watershed Alliance; Garrick Ruiz, Water Campaign Manager,
Green LA; Adam Scow, California Campaigns Director, Food &
Water Watch

WHEN: Thursday, May 17, 2012; 10:30 am

WHERE: Outside Metropolitan Water District (MWD)
700 North Alameda Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012-2944

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Contact:  Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546  steve@hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft;

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta

In case you missed it…

Viewpoints: It’s time to compromise on Delta water projects

By M. David Stirling

Special to The Bee

Published: Sunday, May. 13, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 5E

Click here to read online.

Driving home along the Sacramento River one recent afternoon, I was vividly reminded why the Delta is among Northern California’s most scenic resources. As the levee road twisted and turned along the river, the golden glow of the setting sun cast the river, levees and agricultural fields as a living scene from an early California painting.

For a few minutes I was again caught up in the beauty and value of the Delta. Yet, I couldn’t help thinking of the monstrous plans under way that will greatly change, if not destroy, this unique region of the state.

Like his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown wants to build a world record-sized tunnel to divert fresh water out of the Sacramento River in the Delta, and convey it 40 miles south to the federal and state pumping stations near Tracy. For several decades, these pumping facilities have propelled fresh Delta water to Central and Southern California, home to two-thirds of the state’s population and to some of the most fertile and productive agricultural land in the country. While some call for these pumps to be abandoned and Southern California returned to its original arid geography, this is not a realistic option. But Brown’s tunnel plan to send Sacramento River water around the Delta is also unrealistic.

The tunnel plan calls for constructing five intake pumping plants between Clarksburg and just below Courtland. Each of these pumping plants would be built on 20 acres along the river and housed in structures four to six stories tall. Together, they would have the capacity to suck 15,000 cubic feet of water per second out of the river, and transport it over to a humongous tunnel. The plan also includes a new 1,200-acre forebay near Courtland.

The tunnel itself would consist of a 40-mile series of two side-by-side concrete pipes, each having an inside diameter of 33 feet. These giant pipes would be laid 150 feet underground. For perspective, the two pipes that form the Chunnel running beneath the English Channel between England and France are only 25 feet in diameter and accommodate both passenger trains and car-and-truck-carrying shuttle trains.

State Department of Water Resources officials estimate the tunnel project will cost a minimum of $14 billion and take at least 10 years to build. But seldom have government infrastructure projects – much less one of this dimension and duration – been completed without substantial costs overruns. Some government consultants have estimated the project’s cost, start to finish, at closer to $50 billion. And due to the certainty of lawsuits and construction-related obstacles along the way, 20 years to completion is more realistic. The chief engineer for the Department of Water Resources even questioned the practicability of the outsized project, opining at a tunneling conference that “constructability challenges” will “(push) the state of the art of tunneling projects in North America.”

For people living, farming and doing business in the Delta, not to mention the thousands of tourists and visitors who fish, boat, hunt, bird-watch and camp here, just envisioning the project’s horrendous footprint – both during and after construction – causes major heartburn. They see the tunnel project as utterly destructive of a way of life that has endured for more than a century. Many homes – some beautiful old Victorians shrouded in Delta history – and thousands of acres of private land will be taken by eminent domain. Most homes and property will be grossly devalued by the damage the project will impose throughout the Delta.

The Delta’s agriculture-based economy, including some of the finest wine grape vineyards and wineries in the state, as well as a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, will suffer extensively. Instead of restoring the Delta ecosystem, the quality and health of the river and its ecosystem will be worsened by diverting massive amounts of fresh water out of the Delta at its northern beginning. California’s scenic Delta, its rich heritage of agriculture and tourism, and its people will be irreparably degraded.

Here’s a common sense idea: compromise. Instead of building five monster pumping plants and a humongous tunnel, with all of the destructive impacts, why not save the river and surrounding lands – ensuring the continued flow of water to the Central Valley and Southern California – by upgrading the public levees so that neither an earthquake nor a 200-year flood will break or top them? Recognizing that we cannot realistically return the Delta to its 19th century condition, take reasonable steps to clean up the river, enhance its species habitat, and reduce invasive species where practicable. This may not be an ideal fix, but it would be a far more effective, much less expensive, and a faster solution to the Delta’s deficiencies than the tunnel plan.

Otherwise, by the time the tunnel might become operational – let’s say, 2030 – the Delta smelt and other struggling fish species will be only a distant memory.

In case you missed it…

Editorial: Water contractors need to get real

Published: Sunday, May. 13, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 6E

Click here to read online.

Managing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta means managing expectations. So far, Gov. Jerry Brown and his water team are struggling spectacularly in that task.

Since taking office, Brown has re-doubled the state’s efforts to complete the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. This proposal, launched and financed by water contractors south of the Delta, seeks to give them a 50-year “no surprises” permit to continue diverting water from the estuary.

To get this permit, the water contractors will have to lay out scientifically defensible steps for improving populations of imperiled fish in the Delta. Some of these steps include restoring wetlands. Even more ambitious is a plan to build a canal or tunnel to divert water 45 miles around or under the estuary. In concept, such a canal or tunnel would relieve the need to operate the big pumps that now pull water out of the Delta near Tracy, killing fish directly and disturbing natural water flows.

Despite considerable pressure to oppose it, this editorial board has kept an open mind on the Brown-led BDCP, partly because the alternatives look so much worse. The status quo has led to declining fish populations, disruptions of water supply and efforts by water exporters to roll back federal environmental laws and stake a claim to even more water from Northern California.

Yet if BDCP is going to succeed, it has to be based on reality, not fantasy.

To date, the contractors driving the process – Westlands Water District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Kern County Water Agency – are living in a dream world. They seem to have an expectation that BDCP can provide them with even more Delta water – more than the record high pumping of the previous decade – and that federal and state agencies will sign off on such a plan as “fish friendly.”

That was apparently the expectation when the contractors and the Brown administration completed an “effects analysis” in February that was then reviewed by regulators.

The reviews were not encouraging. Federal wildlife agencies issued “red flag” warnings that the proposed project could further endanger certain fish. Because of those warnings, state Natural Resources Secretary John Laird told his federal counterparts on May 3 that a draft environmental impact statement on the project will need to be delayed for as long as two months, to mid-to-late July.

How did the contractors respond? Some were apoplectic. Kern County Water Agency threatened to drop its funding for BDCP if Mark Cowin, the newly confirmed director of the Department of Water Resources, didn’t unilaterally use his authority to adopt Kern’s “preferred project.” To his credit, Cowin has declined to do so, aware of the need to operate within legal and scientific bounds.

It is time for Kern and other water contractors to start living in the real world. That means they can’t keep drawing ever more water out of an estuary in collapse and claiming that flows don’t matter much for the life cycle of fish. The National Research Council, among other scientific bodies, has made clear that minimum flows are essential for fish recovery, especially during dry years.

What these contractors should be seeking is what state law calls for – better reliability of water deliveries, not more total supply. Properly designed and operated, a canal or tunnel could be a better environmental alternative than the current Delta pumps and would likely save water exporters from the huge dips in deliveries they currently experience.

But if exporters see BDCP as a conduit for hoarding more water than ever, the project will face overwhelming opposition, get tripped up in the courts and be a waste of six years and $150 million in planning.

The task now falls on Brown to manage expectations his team has so far failed to corral. If he can’t, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is doomed.

Click here to view online.

Some critics are once again blasting the proposed multi-billion dollar peripheral canal project.

Members of the group Restore the Delta say the canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is too costly and will only support big agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley.

Another group called Food and Water Watch says the bay delta conservation plan “is not necessary and would result in massive ratepayer hikes.”

The estimated cost of the project is upwards of $50 billion but backers say it’s a small price to pay for a quality water supply for much of the state.

Media Release for Monday, May 14, 2012

Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; steve@hopcraft.com  Twitter:  @shopcraft

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org; @RestoretheDelta

Restore the Delta Responds to Delta Stewardship Council’s Release of Plan: “The Fix is in for a New ‘Conveyance’”

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD) today responded to the release of the Delta Stewardship Council’s Draft Plan:

“Joe Grindstaff, with the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC), says the Delta Plan recommends new conveyance as a way to improve water quality.  Without a water quality analysis that examines how eliminating fresh water flows from entering the Delta will affect water quality, this draft of the Delta Plan is as incomplete as the last draft.  The Delta Stewardship Council must build its plan on a cost benefit analysis, a public trust analysis, a water quality analysis, and a flow analysis, and until it does so, its planning will remain incomplete.

“By indicating that new conveyance and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) will be favored by the Delta Stewardship Council, Joe Grindstaff has undermined the intent of the legislation that created the DSC. The DSC was given the charge to make its determination regarding the BDCP after members of the public appealed the merits of the plan to the DSC.  But apparently, such appeals will not carry much weight if the decision has already been made.  From a Delta perspective, the fix is in.”

“The Delta Plan fails to call for levee improvements at the highest standard as called for by the Delta Protection Commission, and last week by the Army Corps of Engineers.  They are adhering to a lower levee safety standard as put forth by the Department of Water Resources.  The Delta Stewardship Council is therefore failing in its mission to protect the Delta as a place.”

Media Advisory for Friday, May 11, 2012

Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; steve@hopcraft.com  Twitter:  @shopcraft

Experts to Provide Bay Delta Conservation Plan Briefing

Impacts on Water, Environment, Fish, Farming & Ratepayers

Get answers to questions: What does the delay in BDCP mean? Is BDCP on life support? Is there “surplus” water to take? Whom does the water-taking benefit? Is the “fix” in for a Peripheral Canal or Tunnel? What are the true costs of a Peripheral Canal or Tunnel? Who would pay? What is our solution to the water supply and Delta health conundrum? What is solution that works best for people and the environment?

Restore the Delta announced today that it would present a panel of experts to brief interested media on the impacts of the proposed Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), including a Peripheral Canal/Tunnel. The Friday, May 11, telephone briefing will include experts’ views on expected impacts on water, the environment, fish, farming and costs to water ratepayers.

“The BDCP contemplates the largest public works project in our history,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta. “We have gathered experts to briefly lay out concerns and answer media questions about every major aspect of the BDCP.”

What: Experts’ Concerns about Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP)

When: Friday, May 11, 2012 – 11 am – noon

Who: Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta; Dr. Jeffrey Michael, Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific; Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance; Kristin Lynch, Food & Water Watch; Conner Everts, Southern California Watershed Alliance; John Herrick, So. Delta Water Agency

Where: 218.844.8230     Access Code: 687978#

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, May 10, 2012

Contact:  Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546 steve@hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft;

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta

In case you missed it…

Delta water plan’s full impact needs close examination

By: SF Examiner Editorial | 05/03/12 10:35 Pm

Click here to read online.

The state is moving forward with a grand scheme to redirect vast amounts of fresh water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Southern California. The delta ecosystem has long been in danger of collapse, and critics claim this project might well worsen the situation.

But very few Californians know about this project. It’s time to slow it down and give the state’s residents and voters a chance to think about it.

The issue is the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a sweeping, 50-year proposal to restore tidal wetland habitats that can support delta organisms. In return for the restoration, it is proposed that the state build two large tunnels beneath the delta and redirect water south at the rate of 15,000 cubic feet per second.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is part of a larger project to connect the delta water with canals to send water to the Central Valley and Southern California. Last week, state Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, R-Stockton, managed to advance through committee a bill that would require the supporters of the project to explain, in exacting detail, how much the project would cost and how it would be paid for.

This is a welcome development, since preliminary cost estimates peg the price tag of the conservation plan at $17 billion. When you factor in maintenance costs and interest payments on the bonds that must finance the tunnels, the price tag rises to $40 billion over the next 50 years.

This would make the conservation plan one of the most expensive public works projects in the state’s history. And those figures are the most cursory estimates.

In addition, environmentalists have begun to argue that, despite the project’s eco-friendly name, the conservation plan will render the delta’s ecosystem considerably worse. According to Tina Swanson, the director of the Science Center for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the project will pump an additional 20 percent of fresh water out of the delta. The delta is really an estuary, and its native species depend on a regular mix of fresh and saltwater. Siphoning off so much fresh water, Swanson argues, could threaten the fragile ecosystem.

In defense of the conservation plan, California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird has argued that keeping the current levels of fresh water in the delta has done nothing to stop the crash in the population of delta fish, and that something must be done to shore up the delta’s levees, which have been deteriorating for many years. In any case, he recently argued in The San Francisco Chronicle, we have to balance the water needs of delta fish with the needs of the state’s growing population.

This is a rather tepid argument, but at least he made one. We would like to see many more of these arguments before California commits to this plan or any alternatives. The state Legislature has yet to set a deadline to finalize the plan’s details, so there’s still time to properly engage the public and explain in detail just what this multibillion-dollar water diversion project would mean to residents of Southern California and the delta’s ecosystem. The people of California deserve such consideration, and it’s time for the state’s leaders to more forthrightly explain what they intend to do with our water.

Barbara Barrigan-Parilla on KALW’s “A Peripheral Canal for the Delta?” tonight at Monday May 7, 7:00 pm, KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco

During the show, call KALW with your questions and comments at (415) 841-4134.  You can email your questions in advance, or during the the show at feedback@cityvisionsradio.com, or post a comment at www.kalw.org or visit us on Facebook anytime.

“A Peripheral Canal for the Delta?” will air live Monday, May 7, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. on City Visions Radio, KALW 91.7 FM. To learn more about City Visions Radio, visit www.cityvisionsradio.com, and to listen live online, subscribe to our podcast or search our archives, visit www.kalw.org.

From KALW’s press release:

It’s been called the third rail of California politics — fraught with even more peril than Prop 13 — and the most controversial proposal in the contentious history of California water. We’re talking, of course, about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan and its proposed centerpiece: a massive conveyance system to move millions of acre feet of water annually south out of the Sacramento River and around the ecologically fragile San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Proponents say that the project is essential for addressing risks of levee failure, reducing conflicts over fish, and ensuring reliable water deliveries to 25 million consumers in the Bay Area, the Central Valley and Southern California. Opponents, on the other hand, say that the project is unaffordable, premised on unfair and unsustainable water allocations, and certain to do irreparable harm to fisheries, the Delta ecosystem and the communities that depend on them. 

Governor Brown has voiced support for the Delta conveyance and is expected to formalize his position in July, when he will publicly announce the key elements of the project. In the meantime, join us as we parse the pros and cons of the Delta debate. Do we need a peripheral canal, and at what cost? What would the environmental impacts of a water diversion of this scale be? What would the project mean for Bay Area ratepayers and taxpayers? And how can you get involved?

Joining host Joseph Pace are:

• Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Campaign Director for Restore the Delta, a nonprofit organization committed to promoting the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the well-being of Delta communities.
• Gary Bobker, Executive Director of the Bay Institute, a nonprofit organization committed to protecting and restoring the San Francisco Bay and its watershed.
• Joan Maher, Deputy Operating Officer for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which manages water resources for the 1.8 million residents of Santa Clara County.
• Jason Peltier, Chief Deputy General Manager of Westlands Water District, a 600,000-acre agricultural district on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley serving approximately 600 farms.