Professor Challenges PPIC Report Backing Peripheral Canal

Dr. Jeffrey A. Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center and Associate Professor of the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, on October 23 published a superb study challenging the controversial PPIC report calling for the construction of a peripheral canal to "solve" the problems of the California Delta.

The report, "The Economics of Ending Delta Water Exports Versus the Peripheral Canal: Checking the Data of the PPIC," harshly criticizes the report for using "fabricated" and "exagerrated" data to push for the construction of a peripheral canal. The data has been used by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Delta Vision Task Force to provide the "scientific" justification for building the canal.

"The issue of the peripheral canal has returned to the center of the debate about the future of the Delta," said Michael in his summary. "The case for building the peripheral canal has recently received a major boost from a report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) that endorses the peripheral canal as the best long-run solution for the Delta. The PPIC report considers alternative strategies, most notably ending Delta water exports. They find that ending Delta water exports is significantly better for the environment than a peripheral canal, but reject the strategy because it is too costly."

However, Michael contends that the PPIC’s cost estimates are "exaggerated." "They depend on inaccurate assumptions that utilize outdated, undocumented, or fabricated sources. When adjustments are made to their population growth and desalination cost assumptions to reflect the best, documented sources, the cost of ending Delta exports are likely to be similar to a peripheral canal. With similar costs, ending Delta exports is the best strategy due to its superior environmental benefits," he concluded.

He also questioned the inaccurate way in which the report was portrayed by the media and its authors. "The headline news about the PPIC report is that a group of independent academics concluded after an extensive study that the peripheral canal is the best strategy for the Delta," Michael stated. "This is unfortunate, because there is no objective way of reaching this conclusion with their data."

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla of Restore the Delta applauded the publication of the UOP report. "Since the release of the PPIC report this summer, Restore the Delta has questioned the report's incomplete economic analysis and the lack of value that it ascribes to Delta agriculture, fisheries, and communities, while promoting the economic value of another region in California," she said.

"What is particularly disturbing is that the PPIC reports promoting the peripheral canal have been considered an important source for decision making by the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, leadership at the Department of Water Resources, and those promoting the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. What we find in Dr. Michael's analysis is that the second PPIC report is truly an incomplete and inaccurate source for making such important water policy decisions."

Restore the Delta and the California Sporfishing Protection Alliance Wintu Tribe not only criticized the PPIC's use of flawed data to make untenable conclusions when the PPIC report came out, but questioned the partial funding of the report by Steven Bechtel, Jr., the co-owner of the Bechtel Corporation.

Bechtel Corporation, the world's largest construction firm, has become notorious for the environmental devastation it has caused across the globe. It has been involved in destructive water privatization schemes, including the privatization of the public water supply of the people of Cochibamba, Bolivia. Fortunately, the indigenous people of the region rose in revolt against Bechtel and kicked the corporation out of their community.

The authors of the report, including U.C. Davis Professors Jeffrey Mount and Peter Moyle, have contended that the funding source exerted no influence upon their study. However, it is highly suspicious that these scientists used "fabricated" and "exagerrated" data in their report, as Michael contends, to justify the construction of a project that the funding source could possibly benefit from. At the very least, you would think that the authors and the PPIC would have considered other funding sources, without possible problems of conflict of interest, than Bechtel.

A broad coalition of Delta farmers, recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, environmentalists and Delta residents is opposing the construction of the peripheral canal because they fear it would result in the destruction of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the West Coast's largest and most significant estuary. Central Valley chinook salmon and Delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, juvenile striped bass, threadfin shad and other species are in an unprecedented state of collapse, due to massive increases of water exports by the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations in recent years.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger and Senator Diane Feinstein continue to push for a peripheral canal and more dams in a controversial $9.3 billion water bond proposal.

You can read the full report at: http://www.calsport.org/11-7-08.pdf. For analysis of the report by Restore the Delta, go to http://www.restorethedelta.org/news38.php.