A BDCP Finance Working Group meeting scheduled for July 10 to review the Statewide Economic Impact Study has been rescheduled for August 8. We hope they realized that this study will not take the place of the cost/benefit analysis that BDCP promised at the beginning of the year and that we still haven’t seen.
We can ask for a cost/benefit analysis AGAIN at the BDCP public meeting on July 17, when project staff will provide an update on BDCP Administrative Draft Chapters 8-12, discuss comments, and answer questions.
The July 17 meeting would also be a good time to raise the issue of financial feasibility. BDCP hasn’t met the criteria for financial feasibility set forth in DWR’s own “Economic Analysis Guidebook”: “The test of financial feasibility is passed if (a) beneficiaries are willing and able to pay their allocated costs for project outputs over the life of the project” (page 46). BDCP can’t evaluate financial feasibility without a cost allocation, and they don’t have a final cost allocation. So far, they haven’t shown benefits/costs for agricultural beneficiaries under proportional cost allocation.