Schwarzenegger Administration Plans to Begin Drilling for Peripheral Canal

Schwarzenegger Administration Plans to Begin Drilling for Peripheral Canal

by Dan Bacher

The State Department of Water Resources is planning to begin drilling into river bottoms of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta next month to obtain information for proposed intake structures and tunnels for the peripheral canal.

Although state officials claim the drilling is necessary for the state to evaluate different conveyance options under the controversial Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), fishermen, farmers and environmentalists see the plan to drill as laying the groundwork for the peripheral canal even though the project hasn’t been authorized or funded yet.

“We’re not building a canal intake now,” said Matt Notley, spokesman for the Department of Water Resources. “This is part of a survey process we’ve done for several months on land as part of the environmental review under the BDCP.”

Notley said the Department would be studying in-water soil samples at 16 proposed intake locations under consideration on the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Mokelumne Rivers. A lot of the drilling will occur on the Sacramento between Freeport and Walnut Grove, the approximate area where the canal would begin.

“None of the impact analysis itself has begun,” he stated. “All of this preliminary data gathering will be used to do the impact analysis when it begins.”

He claimed that to conduct an appropriate impact analysis for the series of conveyance options proposed under the BDCP, they need to obtain the correct and updated geotechnical data.

However, Bill Jennings, chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said it was “subterfuge” for DWR to start the drilling process for proposed intakes before it has been decided whether or not the canal will be built.

“It seems DWR is saying to hell with the legislators, Delta farmers and fishermen by proceeding with this drilling project,” he stated. “DWR has decided to do the engineering work for the canal before the Legislature has even decided to authorize or fund the project.”

Delta farmers and landowners are also blasting DWR's drilling project. Barbara Daly, North Delta resident and landowner and a member of North Delta CARES, says beginning the drilling is another "fatal step toward completing a bad plan to build a peripheral canal."

"The rich farming land in the Delta is going to be confiscated and our water is being traded to large Central Valley corporate agribusiness interests," said Daly. "The Delta farmers want to cooperate and find a better way to work with our state water supply, but they are being overlooked, and cooperative solutions aren’t an option to the Governor’s plan."

“There is no question that DWR is out to destroy the Bay-Delta Estuary by proceeding with this project,” said Dante Nomellini, the attorney for the Central Delta Water Agency. “They have made the decision to build the canal and are trying to portray a semblance of compliance with the law.”

He criticized the agency for taking a “piecemeal” approach to avoid compliance with the different permits required from local, state and federal agencies to conduct such a project. For example, they are not getting permits from levee districts, even though there are undoubtedly impacts to levees that will result from boring holes to explore possible intakes for the canal.

Nomellini and John Herrick, lawyer for the South Delta Water Agency, in April filed a groundbreaking lawsuit charging everyone involved with the BDCP in violating numerous environmental laws protecting fish and wildlife and requiring adequate public input.

The lawsuit by Delta farmers contends that state and federal government agency officials, water agency representatives and non-governmental organizations have violated numerous provisions of the Natural Community Conservation Planning Act (NCPA), California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), NEPA, and the Bagley Keene Open Meeting Act by participating in the BDCP.

DWR claims that the purpose of Bay Delta Conservation Plan is to “provide for the conservation of at-risk species in the Delta and improve its reliability as the hub of the state's water supply system.”

However, the growing coalition of Delta farmers, commercial fishing groups, recreational angling organizations, Indian Tribes and environmentalists see the canal as a water grab by corporate agribusiness in the San Joaquin to increase water exports from the Delta to corporate agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. They fear that the canal will only worsen the collapse of Central Valley Chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, striped bass and other species.

The peripheral canal will approximate the Panama Canal in size and length, amounting to a "Panama Canal North." A canal designed to carry 15,000 cfs of water would be between 500 and 700 feet wide, requiring a 1300 foot right-of-way, based on an engineering report completed in August 2006 by Washington Group International for the State Water Contractors. The length of the conveyance would be between 47 and 48 miles. By comparison, the Panama Canal is between 500 and 1000 feet wide and 50 miles long.

The peripheral canal package proposed by the Governor and Legislators would cost an estimated $10 to $40 billion at a time when the state is in unprecedented economic crisis with a $26.3 billion budget deficit.

Opponents of the canal should protest this process during the public comment period now underway through July 26, 2009. DWR, the lead state agency for the “Bay Delta Conservation Plan In-water Geotechnical Drilling Project” under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), has prepared a draft initial study and mitigated negative declaration, http://www.water.ca.gov/deltainit/docs/MitigatedNegativeDeclaration-DraftInitial.pdf. Comments can be emailed to mbeachle [at] water.ca.gov. For more information, go to: http://www.water.ca.gov/deltainit/bdcp.cfm.