Groups Demand Delta Water Plan Before Permits for Jerry Brown's Tunnels

Groups Demand Delta Water Plan Before Permits for Jerry Brown's Tunnels

by Dan Bachery

A coalition of fishing and environmental groups sent a letter to the State Water Resources Control Board on November 24 exposing the Brown administration's environmental hypocrisy in applying for a permit to build the environmentally destructive Delta Tunnels before a long-delayed Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan is completed.

Ironically, on the following day, Governor Jerry Brown, a promoter of the Delta Tunnels, fracking and other environmentally devastating polices, portrayed himself as the "green governor" by "blasting" West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for “crass obstructionism” following their latest attempt to "undermine the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan" and the U.S. role in the upcoming Paris climate negotiations. I'm definitely no fan of Morrisey or Paxton, but Brown's hypocrisy on this and other environmental issues is amazing.

In his letter, Brown claimed, "Here in California, where we face the dual threat of a prolonged drought and severe winter storms – exacerbated by a rapidly changing climate – we don’t have the luxury of playing politics on this important issue. The costs of inaction are too high."

"Political expediency and legal obfuscation won't cut it. Crass obstructionism is not a solution," said Brown, with no sense of irony, even though his Delta Tunnels Plan, support for the expansion of fracking in California, and many other tainted environmental policies are largely based on "playing politics," political expediency" and "legal obfuscation."

In their letter to the State Water Resources Control Board, Restore the Delta, Friends of the River, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and the Environmental Water Caucus slammed the "Petition for Change in Points of Diversion and Re-Diversion along the lower Sacramento River" required to build Governor Brown's proposed legacy project, the Delta Tunnels, for an array of flaws that reek of the very same "playing politics," "political expediency" and "legal obfuscation" that the Governor criticizes others for.

“There is no adequate informational basis at this time on which to commence an evidentiary hearing," the letter said. "No adequate Draft EIR/EIS has been prepared and circulated for public review and comment. The State Water Board distances itself from its own Delta flow criteria developed in 2010 but seeks to commence evidentiary hearing on the Petition before completing its Bay-Delta Plan update."

"The California Water Fix has no force of either federal or State law behind it. There is no legitimate planning reason to proceed in a rush to approve the Petition and then update the Bay-Delta Plan to fit the fix. Finally, there is no lawful basis to proceed with a project that will worsen already existing water quality violations in the Delta or consider a water quality certification in the absence of an adequate Draft EIR/EIS and in the absence of public trust analysis," the letter concluded.

Restore the Delta’s policy analyst, Tim Stroshane, spoke on the context of this letter, criticizing the Governor for pushing the salmon-killing tunnels as his "legacy" project before he leaves office in Sacramento in spite of an "inadequate" EIR that violates state and federal law.

“The State wants to process water rights permits for the Tunnels intakes without an adequate EIR because Governor Jerry Brown wants this as a legacy project by the time he leaves office in 2019, and water exporters see this as a crucial opportunity with a supportive governor to ram this thing through state regulatory agencies like the Water Board," said Stroshane. "But the document lacks important information about the tunnels’ impacts, and lacks reasonable and meaningful alternatives that also would solve Delta problems and increase the state's water supply reliability."

“Meanwhile, the Board has delayed and ignored its responsibility to update its Bay-Delta water quality control plan for nearly 20 years while the Delta ecosystem has deteriorated from heavy exports and poor water quality, which the Board's 20-year-old plan has failed to protect," stated Stroshane.

He pointed out the contradiction between Jerry Brown's rush to build the tunnels and his delay of a required Delta water quality plan.

“On one hand, you have the Governor’s tunnels project being rushed through, while on the other, the water quality plan has been long delayed. We face a situation in which already-failed policies would govern the tunnels, rather than new policies and water quality objectives that would use best available science to help protect and enhance the Delta while balancing with greater water supply reliability (i.e., the “coequal goals”) as mandated by the Delta Reform Act," said Stroshane.

“Policy should govern plumbing, not the other way around. The new Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan should incorporate policies of the 2009 Delta Reform Act, not be governed by the tunnels project," he concluded.

Bob Wright, senior counsel at Friends of the River, revealed the deep, terminal flaws in the Delta Tunnels environmental review.

“The EPA gave the Delta Tunnels RDEIR/SDEIS a failing grade. The ball is in the State Water Board’s court. They can either do a legitimate environmental review or tell Reclamation & DWR they must do so. The inadequate environmental review for the Delta Tunnels is a defect that can only be cured by doing an adequate review," said Wright.

Of course, the Brown administration is not the only one at fault for pushing the construction of the Delta Tunnels, since the Obama administration has teamed up with the state to build the project, estimated to cost up to $68 billion.

Brown's steadfast promotion of the Delta Tunnels and the expansion of the fracking in California are just two of the many abysmal policies of the faux "green governor" and so-called "climate leader.'

Brown presided over record water exports out of the Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta and a record Sacramento splittail kill in 2011; has overseen the systematic draining and mismanagement of Central Valley reservoirs and Trinity Lake during a record drought; has helped bring winter-run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species to the precipice of extinction; has backed the clearcutting of forests in the Sierra Nevada and elsewhere; and backs neo-liberal carbon trading policies that imperil the environment and Indigenous Peoples in Mexico and across the globe.

In addition to these and other odious environmental policies, the "green" governor oversaw the "completion" of questionable "marine protected areas" in Southern California, overseen by a Big Oil lobbyist, under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. These so-called "Yosemites of the Sea" fail to protect the ocean from fracking, pollution, oil spills, military testing, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.

For more information on the toxic environmental legacy of "Big Oil Brown," as the Governor is called by many fracking opponents, go to:http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/30452-the-extinction-governor-rips-the-green-mask-off-his-tunnels-plan

You can also read the my online debate with Tom Hayden over whether Jerry Brown is a "climate hero" or "greenwashing villain" at:http://sandiegofreepress.org/2014/06/tom-hayden-greenwashes-governor-browns-abysmal-environmental-record/14