FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Restore the Delta
10100 Trinity Pkwy, Suite 120
Stockton, CA 95219
Email: Barbara@restorethedelta.org
Contact: Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla
Phone:209-479-2053
January 11, 2012
RESTORE THE DELTA CALLS OUT WEAKNESSES IN PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE’S REPORT ON THE DELTA’S ECONOMIC FUTURE
Stockton, California – Restore the Delta is challenging the accuracy and value of the Public Policy Institute’s recent report on the Delta: Transitions for the Delta Economy. Executive Director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla says, “It is disheartening that a report, now funded by a public university, fails to fully and properly analyze Delta water quality, current project proposals, and the real Delta economy.”
The PPIC report assumes that the new dual conveyance system, more commonly known to Californians at the peripheral canal/tunnel, will only divert 4.9 million acre feet of Delta water, despite the reality that water contractors will have difficulty justifying the sale of billions of dollars in new revenue bonds to finance the project if they are going to receive a significant smaller share of Delta water. Conner Everts with the Southern California Watershed Alliance says, “Southern California rate payers cannot afford to pay more and more to Metropolitan Water District for an unsustainable water supply. Regional self sufficiency, which can be achieved through conservation, storm water and reuse projects, is a much more affordable way to make more water for Southern California water users.”
Restore the Delta policy analyst Jane Wagner-Tyack explains, “The report is so out of touch with reality that it actually places the new Stockton water supply project under water because the authors have decided that the way to fix the Delta is to permanently flood it. By depriving Stockton of a water supply, it seems that someone has made a decision to relocate the Delta’s largest urban population of 300,000 residents somewhere else.”
Despite multiple attempts by Delta water agency representatives, Delta engineers, levee experts trained at other renowned universities, economists, and Delta advocates, the authors of the PPIC reports on the Delta have rebuffed attempts to incorporate local input into their research.
In closing, Barrigan-Parrilla adds, “The PPIC models regarding salinity changes in the Delta and how such changes would alter our economy are flawed. If people in California want to know the real value of the Delta economy presently and how exporting water could destroy it, they should read the Economic Sustainability Plan recently published by the Delta Protection Commission – a rigorously reviewed document produced by experts who know the Delta best.”
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