Can the Bay Delta Conservation Plan get anything right?

Can the Bay Delta Conservation Plan get anything right?

by Dan Bacher

Governor Jerry Brown's Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels is only matched by the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in the conflicts of interest, junk science, green washing and outright incompetence that infest the process.

In the latest screw-up by BDCP officials, the BDCP website on September 20 touted their new and improved website that was to include the opportunity for the public to email questions to then be answered on the website.

The website proclaimed:

"In anticipation of the upcoming Public Review period, which begins November 2013 and lasts until March 2014, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) has redesigned and streamlined its website to be more user-friendly so that information and documents are easier to find. Redundant pages have been consolidated to enhance simplicity. New features include added menu items and revised content such as:

• About the Delta - An overview of the Delta and the problems BDCP aims to address

• About BDCP - An overview of the plan

• "Your Questions Answered" or YQA* - a weekly compendium to address common questions and concerns regarding the Plan."

You can see the announcement at http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/News/News/13-09-20/BDCP_Website_Redesign_Comes_with_New_Features.aspx. At the bottom, you can view the email address that you are supposed to send your questions to: questions [at] bdcpmail.com

Yet Jerry Cadagan, long time water activist, informed me today, "I tried the email address out a few days ago and got a reject notice. Today I figured they had probably solved the problem after a week, so I sent in another email. It got bounced back."

Curious to see what would happened if I contacted the email listed on the more "user-friendly" web page, this is what I received in response:

"This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
questions [at] bdcpmail.com

The mail server could not deliver mail to questions [at] bdcpmail.com. The account or domain may not exist, they may be blacklisted, or missing the proper dns entries."

What the heck? This is supposed to be a more "user friendly" system - and the email address listed doesn't work?

Cadagan said, "The point is if, in a week's time, they can't get a simple email system working, how can even the most understanding member of the public be expected to believe that they can complete the largest ever water infrastructure project on time, on budget, and without fatal design and construction defects that may jeopardize life, property and the environment."

I completely agree with Cadagan. How can the officials and staff overseeing the Orwellian-named Bay Delta "Conservation" Plan possibly build two massive tunnels to meet the "hallowed" co-equal goals of "water supply reliability" and "ecosystem restoration" if they can't even list an email on their "more user friendly" website that actually works?

In this case, the Emperor (Governor Jerry Brown) not only has no clothes, but he is parading down a parallel universe where logic, science, common sense and the rule of law don't exist - and even a simple task like listing a correct email on the official Bay Delta Conservation Plan website appears impossible to accomplish.

And we are supposed to trust BDCP officials and staff to build the tunnels, restore "habitat" on the Delta, and "save" Central Valley Chinook salmon and Delta fish by diverting massive quantities of water from the Sacramento River? I'm not aware of single project in human history where a river system has been restored by draining its water!