Dear Friends of Restore the Delta,
The Contra Costa Water District Board of Directors will soon be reviewing the settlement agreement that they recently signed with the Delta Tunnels plan effort. The settlement drops CCWD’s protest against the tunnels plan in exchange for a separate pipeline to deliver drinking water to its customers. We are urging all our area members to attend the meeting.
This may be your only opportunity to register a public comment on how you feel about CCWD's self-interested approach to secure a water supply at the expense of the community it serves.
What: CCWD Public Board Meeting
When: Wednesday, April 6, 2016, 6:30 to 9:00 pm. (Come at 6:00 pm if you would like to organize with us prior to the meeting)
Where: 1331 Concord Ave., Concord, CA.
The Contra Costa Water District, is choosing to exchange its present contract for Delta water deliveries for an intake above the Delta that will remove even more fresh water from the estuary. This not only puts all other Delta communities at risk for even worse water quality, but also leaves their own customers within their own district with degraded Delta water for other uses. Additionally, their decision leaves the San Francisco Bay Estuary with degraded water quality which will negatively impact that magnificent ecosystem.
Contra Costa County residents recreate in high numbers in the Delta, live around its water ways, and have regular contact with the water. Environmental justice communities and recreational anglers fish Delta waterways for sustenance and professional tournaments, and Contra Costa County farmers depend on quality Delta water for their businesses.
Furthermore, the impacts will be exacerbated for residents in Discovery Bay for all water uses — from toxic algal blooms to waterways polluted with salt, Selenium and human carcinogens. Reducing flow through the Delta will put the estuary in a state of “permanent drought.”
CCWD's willingness to settle is an indictment of how bad the Delta Tunnels plan really is. The Tunnels Project will have egregious water quality impacts in the Delta. CCWD should drop the settlement, and rejoin the unified opposition to the Tunnels plan launched by the entire Bay-Delta community, not cut a self-serving back room deal!
Lastly, Restore the Delta and collaborating environmental groups have in the past supported an expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir (and an intertie between Contra Costa Water District and Santa Clara Valley Water District) as ways to meet water needs for the greater Bay Area. However, we are reconsidering our support of such measures seeing that Contra Costa Water District would now become a party to depriving the Bay-Delta estuary of needed flows through the Delta tunnels project. CCWD is effectively transforming the expansion of Los Vaqueros from a solution to a tool of the Bay-Delta estuary water grab.
Read our opposition to this settlement here.
If you have questions, about this alert, please feel free to call our office at 209-475-9550. We will see you, our members, at 6 pm in order to organize before the meeting on April 6, 2016.
If you cannot make the meeting, submit a public comment here.
Thank you for your continued support.
Agreeing with the twin tunnels is like selling out to those who want to steal water from us to give to someone else. The money could be better spent on storing more water when we DO have it and recycling more water.
PLEASE drop the settlement, and rejoin the unified opposition to the Tunnels plan launched by the entire Bay-Delta community, not cut a self-serving back room deal!
Please Do not allow water to be taken from the Delta. A trip to the ‘Bay Model’ really educated me. I don’t want the Bay to continue to disappear… If lack of water limits human expansion into areas that should be protected for wildlife that is a good thing! Southern California is suppose to be a dessert and yet LA is full of lawns- water is to valuable to be wasted- it is time that Californians face this reality instead of years from now. Please preserve our delta wetlands as they are- the environmental impact of the tunnels will be so much worse than what is being estimated!
This is a bad deal all the way around and it needs to be stopped! Where are all the new water storage facilities for when we have excessive run offs? Unbelievable! I’m totally opposed if you can’t tell!