For Immediate Release: August 7, 2020
Contact:
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, 209-479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org
Sacramento, CA – Yesterday, the California Department of Water Resources filed a validation complaint to be positioned to sell bonds for the design, planning, and construction of the Delta Conveyance Project (Delta Tunnel), even though no project plan or environmental impact report has been released to the public for review.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta made the following statement:
“Following in the footsteps of Westlands Water District, which is attempting to move forward with a contract validation for a permanent water contract without environmental review, Governor Gavin Newsom’s Department of Water Resources is using the same move from the Trump playbook — rush the project, ignore the public and proper environmental review processes. Every promise made to the Delta by the Governor’s office, Natural Resource Secretary Wade Crowfoot, and the Department of Water Resources has been broken in regard to the Delta with this move.
“We doubt it is a coincidence that DWR filed this validation suit at the same time the Trump Administration released a draft EIS for the raising of Shasta Dam even though it would violate state law by drowning a segment of the state-protected McCloud River, completing the genocide inflicted on the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. The Delta tunnel will decimate fisheries and water quality for environmental justice and farming communities in the Delta.
“Taking such action during the pandemic to jam the public is unforgivable. It is Trumpian. The Newsom-Trump water plan will be fought, and we will win.”