Restore the Delta Release Charts: Urban Ratepayers Get the Higher Bill, Huge Agribusiness Gets More Water

For Immediate Release: Friday, December 6, 2013
Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; steve@hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft; @MrSandHillCrane; Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta

Water Tunnels Opponents Release Charts:
Urban Ratepayers Get the Higher Bill,

Huge Agribusiness Gets More Water

Call on Gov. Brown not to Force Families,
Businesses to Pay for Billionaire Growers

STOCKTON, CA – Restore the Delta (RTD) today released water export tracking tables showing that urban users get just 31% of the water, while huge agribusiness in the Westlands, Kern and other districts get 35% of water exports. The tables show a ten-year-average of the amount of water exported from the Delta to water agencies south of the Delta pumps.

“Urban water rate payers in the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Metropolitan Water District are being asked to pay for a significant portion of the proposed peripheral tunnels, as part of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, without receiving any additional water,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, RTD executive director. “Yet, these urban agencies receive a smaller percentage of Delta exports (30.8%) than the big agribusiness growers found in the Westland Water District and the Kern County Water Agency (34.5%). It’s time to stop forcing the rest of us to subsidize unsustainable agriculture.

“Billionaire Beverly Hills farmer Stewart Resnick has made enormous profits exporting around the world pistachios grown with this exported water, subsidized by California rate payers, and reselling subsidized water for new development. Westlands Water District growers, whose Bureau of Reclamation contract places them last in line to receive exported Delta water, continue planting permanent crops that cannot be sustained on drainage impaired lands. Dr. Jerry Meral, the Administration’s lead on the BDCP, states that the tunnels will cost households as much as a cell phone bill. He and the water agency leaders pushing this boondoggle project ignore that many families in urban communities can’t afford a second monthly cell phone bill – while receiving no additional benefit.”

The tables can be viewed at the links below:

Average Annual South-of-Delta Deliveries by State and Federal Water Projects, 2000-2009

Deliveries to Major State and Federal Water Contractors as a Percent of Total South-of-Delta Deliveries, 2000-2009

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