Delta Flows - Weekly Highlights from Restore the Delta for the Week of November 3rd, 2008
" "Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole. " "
----Vaclav Havel
Thank You Restore the Delta Supporters
Even during election week, Restore the Delta supporters came through in voicing their support for S27, the Federal Legislation to fund restoration of the San Joaquin River. With supporters in the hundreds signing on, we have made our support clear to U.S. Representative Cardoza and Senator Diane Feinstein for returning fresh water flows to the San Joaquin River.
Thank you for taking the time to support our action alert.
A Gradual Ending Of Delta Water Exports - A Potentially Cost Effective Solution to the Delta's Water Woes
In a new report, Dr. Jeffrey A. Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center and Associate Professor in the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific, calls into question the findings of this summer's Public Policy Institute Report endorsing the peripheral canal as the best long-run solution for the Delta. Dr. Michael notes that the PPIC report finds that "ending Delta water exports is significantly better for the environment than the peripheral canal, but reject the strategy because it is too costly. " Dr. Michael then elaborates that cost estimates in the PPIC report are exaggerated because they depend on "inaccurate assumptions that utilize outdated, undocumented, or fabricated sources" in relation to future population growth and desalination costs.
In his findings, Dr Michael also asserts that:
The headline news about the PPIC report is that a group of independent academics concluded after an extensive study that the peripheral canal is the best strategy for the Delta. This is unfortunate, because there is no objective way of reaching this conclusion with their data. The PPIC report finds that ending Delta exports has higher environmental benefits (including direct economic benefits to fisheries and recreation they do not calculate) that they do not attempt to value in economic terms, whereas the peripheral canal has lower economic costs in terms of its water supply costs and benefits. To reach their conclusion, the authors most impose their own subjective value judgment that the environmental benefits of ending Delta exports is not worth the additional costs of the water supply system. However, it is quite plausible that these environmental benefits could have values in excess of $1 billion per year, and the burden is on the PPIC team to argue that the benefits are less -- It is astonishing that a group of reputable academics would make such a value-laden conclusion in a research report rather than simply identify the trade-offs.
Since the release of the PPIC report this summer, Restore the Delta has questioned the report's incomplete economic analysis and the lack of value that it ascribes to Delta agriculture, fisheries, and communities, while promoting the economic value of another region in California. What is particularly disturbing is that the PPIC reports promoting the peripheral canal have been considered an important source for decision making by the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, leadership at the Department of Water Resources, and those promoting the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. What we find in Dr. Michael's analysis is that the second PPIC report is truly an incomplete and inaccurate source for making such important water policy decisions.
Leadership in California, whether it be academic or political, will neither restore the Delta nor create systems that will meet the state's water needs if it continues to rely on incomplete and biased input that pits one region against another, north against south, farmer against farmer, and farmers against urban water users.
What California needs is 5 million acre feet of additional water each and every year to sustain its current culture and economy, and this 5 million acre feet of water cannot be diverted out of the Delta if the Delta is going to be saved. That is why the peripheral canal is not the long term solution to save the Delta from a complete environmental collapse - it cannot make more water, for the present or for future growth. It can only take water from further north in the state, reroute it to the southern part of the state, thereby changing the Pacific Coast's largest freshwater estuary into a saltwater lake.
When the Central Valley and State Water projects were implemented only extra water in surplus years was to be diverted from the Delta. Instead, an entire way of life in California was built around breaking that promise at the expense of Delta fisheries and the people of the Delta. Laws on the books to protect the Delta have not been enforced by the State Water Resources Control Board. And the only entity protecting the Delta's water needs is Judge Wanger. The Delta is collapsing, and the people of the Delta have to spend their time calling out inaccurate reports promoting the final deathblow to the region.
At the same time, as a second year of drought begins, our agricultural neighbors in California whose lives have been built around regular Delta water deliveries, albeit at the expense of Delta communities, are facing difficult economic decisions. So what do we do?
First, the Department of Water Resources, private NGO's, and academic institutions need to come up with the funding to do a full scientific analysis of Tom Zuckerman's program for Regional Water Self- Sufficiency. If, as Mr. Zuckerman proposes and Restore the Delta leadership believes, water can be stored underground during wet periods in our historic flood plains, this would go a long way toward providing water for the Central Valley agricultural community and significantly decreasing Delta water exports. Second, the farm land in the west side of the Central Valley that does not drain properly, thus causing environmental damage, may need to be retired from farming. But, we should look at ways of using this land to farm energy by compensating growers for producing solar and wind energy to meet the state's energy needs. Third, California needs a world-class water recycling, conservation, and groundwater desalinization program. Staff with the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that such programs could produce a virtual river of 5 million acre feet of additional water annually. This is where future money for solving California's water needs should be spent.
What the Delta needs and what the water users of the Central Valley need is the same - 5 million acre feet of additional water annually. The peripheral canal will not make this water, regardless of how much money is spent on its implementation and construction. The only way we will solve this problem is by creating new efficient, cost effective, and environmentally sound solutions. It's time for the academic and political leadership of California to create water policies and programs that will serve all of California's communities without bias.
To read Dr. Michael's The Economics of Ending Delta Water Exports Versus the Peripheral Canal: Checking the Data of the PPIC click here.
To read Tom Zuckerman's A Water Plan for the 21st Century: Regional Self-Sufficiency Scenario click here.
