water exports

News from Restore the Delta: 5/19/14

“Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt; how they deny themselves nothing . . . .” — William Makepeace Thackeray Calling the water shots Behind the scenes planning by the water contractors who want the twin tunnels is bearing fruit with the formation of two new Offices in the Department of Water Resources (DWR). One of them, a new Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Office in the Executive Division of DWR, will be responsible for that third of the plan that is actually supposed to help the ecosystem – Conservation Measures 2-22. It will be headed initially by Chief Deputy Director Laura King Moon, known to us for her [...]

News from Restore the Delta: 4/18/2014

We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence. – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species Articles Hunger and thirst Speaking of BDCP …. 2014 State of Our Rivers Symposium Hunger and thirst By Jane Wagner-Tyack UOP economist Dr. Jeffrey Michael reports in an April 7 blog post that between 2007 and 2012, despite the drought in 2009, San Joaquin Valley agriculture made a clear shift toward permanent crops. Over that period, acreage of field crops (like cotton, hay, grain, and alfalfa) increased by 2 percent. Acreage of fruit and nut crops (like almonds, pistachios and grapes, crops that can’t be fallowed in a dry year) increased by 21 percent. Meanwhile, acreage of vegetable crops decreased [...]

Water Export Tunnel Proponents in “Pay to Play” Scandal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; [email protected]; Twitter: @shopcraft; @MrSandHillCrane; Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 [email protected]; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta Water Export Tunnel Proponents in “Pay to Play” Scandal Sacramento, CA – In an opinion piece by Robert Gannon, co-editor of the East Bay Express, Mr. Gannon reveals that in the current Sloat, Higgins lobbying scandal, one of Sloat’s clients has been the Metropolitan Water District (MWD). MWD has been lobbying in recent years for construction of the Delta tunnels. “…Another of Sloat’s clients is the powerful Metropolitan Water District, which supplies water to much of Southern California. In the past decade, Metropolitan has paid Sloat’s firm $1.89 million, and in the past few years, his primary job on [...]

California Can’t Tunnel its Way Out of Drought Conditions Highlighting Need for Sustainable Solution

For Immediate Release: Monday, January 13, 2014 Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; [email protected]; Twitter: @shopcraft; @MrSandHillCrane; Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 [email protected]; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta California Can’t Tunnel its Way Out of Drought Conditions Highlighting Need for Sustainable Solution Tunnels of no use in dry years; California should use $70 billion for sustainable water solutions, not build tunnels that won’t add one drop Sacramento, CA- Restore the Delta (RTD), and opponents of Gov. Brown’s rush to build Peripheral Tunnels that would drain the Delta and doom salmon and other Pacific fisheries, today called the tunnels a flawed solution for a drought-plagued state. The experts criticized the tunnels as an outdated, inappropriate solution to California’s water challenges, one that would create no new water, be [...]