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Indybay Feature

Time is running out for the public to comment on the Delta Plan

by Pat Snelling
This is the first time the public can voice their opinion on this $67 Billion project that was slammed through the state legislature without any committee hearings or public input. We only have 30 days left to make our comments.
Finally the taxpayers will have a chance to go on record about the state’s plan. A plan to build two-story high twin tunnels, so they can capture fresh water just below the city of Sacramento to be piped it away from the San Francisco Bay-Delta and shipped down to the 40 or 50 Corporate farmers, who happen to receive more than 70% of delta water.

The plan is presented by the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) and the public comment period ends June 13, 2014.

Most people in Northern California do not know what to think about these tunnels because they don’t know enough about the project to feel qualified to make a comment.

The public already said no to a similar plan, the Peripheral Canal, back in the 70s.

Now with the same plan and path as the Peripheral Canal, the tunnels project will separate the water consumer from any environmental responsibility for taking too much water and leave the taxpayer to clean up the mess.

What kind of impact would this project have on the communities around the delta?

No one really knows because there are no other projects to compare it with. This is the largest tunnel project in the whole world.

Unlike the Peripheral Canal, the Delta Tunnel plan was ‘never’ brought before the voters.

California legislators submitted the Delta Reformation Act, the beginning of the Delta Tunnels project, after the 2009 election in a lame duck session and within 10 days the Governor signed it. It had no committee hearings, no floor discussions, no public discussions, just a quick floor vote on one to the biggest and most expensive projects in the state.

The legislation says it has co-equal goals: reliable water for farmers who get “surplus water” and protection the delta’s community and businesses.

On the reliable water side, the tunnels, at a starting cost of $25 Billion, will be for and paid by the contractors. Now they won’t start paying that bill for possibly 40 to 50 years, so the taxpayer will pay the upfront money to get the project built.

The second part of the co-equal goal, the Delta’s health, will be paid by the “Water Bond,” which won’t be voted on until long after the tunnels have started. Every citizen from the Imperial Valley to Crescent City will be saddled with that bill.

On top of that, the BDCP Draft EIR/EIS document uses the most confusing science, leaving the experts confused. The paper says the state will buy land and use flood plains (fill with water the Yolo bypass which was built to reduce flooding,) That way the Delta can hold water for the fish and wildlife that will be affected by the missing fresh water in the delta.

Back in 1930, the state setup a “State Water Plan” after a disastrous drought and restricted river flow that allowed ocean water to move deep into the Suisun Bay.

The delta communities and businesses, back then, saw their water pipes destroyed by the salt intrusion. Boring worms that live in ocean water moved deep into the delta, destroying equipment piers and pilings along the river. Plants and animals were dying.

To prevent this from happening again, the State Water Plan called for the construction of the Shasta Dam, to keep fresh water flowing past Suisun Bay in lean times. The state at that time could not afford to have hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses impacted by the destruction of the delta, nor can it afford to have that happen today.

With this year’s drought, the ocean water has already pushed past the safe zone established in 1930. Our Delta communities and Delta farmers, who produce fruit, wine, and vegetables, are already seeing salt water in their water supplies.

The BDCP Draft EIR/EIS document admits that the tunnels sucking up fresh water before it reaches the delta will only aggravate this ocean water problem, but they believe the problem will be resolved as soon as California voters approve the “Water Bond.” With that money, the state can fix the environmental mess left behind by the tunnels.

State officials are banking on the fact that the general public is too confused or not interested to voice any comment on this boondoggle until it’s too late. The public cannot sit quietly and watch this happen without at least voicing our concerns.

To make a comment:
http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/PublicReview/HowtoComment.aspx

Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Gene Beley
Video journalist
by Gene Beley
Tue May 6 20:05:44 2014
The reference to two story high tunnels should really probably be three stories high. Both will be 40 feet in diameter. The three intake plants will also be three stories high, creating a huge blight on the Sacramento River in what is now one of the most pristine, scenic areas of the river for boaters, as well as those traveling on the Scenic Highway 160 that straddles both sides of the river. The twin tunnels' diversion from Hood over to Staten Island, home of the Sandhill Cranes, is just another travesty we should all bow our heads in shame over what our government chooses to do to those sacred birds. It's one thing to gamble that we will chase thousands of boaters out of the Delta and a crime to chance scaring away the Sandhill Cranes, but no government employee or high priced consultant will lose a dime over it or go to jail, unfortunately. What we're seeing is the most obscene power of our state and federal government at work. Their arrogance and ability to lie to the public is simply stunning.

The Peripheral Canal Proposition 9 was voted down by 62.7% in 1982—not in the 1970s. Guess who was Governor then? Jerry Brown. That is why he engineered all this to jam it through without the voters being able to vote on it. This also makes it a candidate for a lot of influence peddlers to get involved and make big money contributions, just as the oil industry has done by donating millions to Brown and other politicians in the last few years, and getting their darling, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, chief of staff for the Western States Petroleum Association, appointed to the California State Fish and Game Commission to be Jerry's pit bull watchdog. The Fish & Game Commission has one of the only veto powers on the twin canals. However, they all work for Governor Brown, so it is doubtful the top dogs there will veto it if they want to continue their fat paychecks and government benefits.

In your article, I think the delta region deserves a capital D.

You ask what kind of impact would this project have on the communities around the Delta? That's easy. It will be like an atom bomb dropped on them. Government "temporary" construction equals 10 years. Citizens living in the path of the tunnels won't be able to live in their homes with pile drivers slamming down every seven seconds, not to mention the vibration, or the "dewatering" of the area, which means all these homes on well water won't have water for drinking, bathing, or other necessities. At least one school in Byron has been marked in the EIR-EIS as a potential for more cancer cases because of all the diesel fumes and heavy pollution this project will create. The co-equal goals seek to take 145,000 acres of Delta farmers' lands by eminent domain, if necessary. Is this the America we want to live in where the government is so powerful it can take 145,000 acres of any segment of the population's land to benefit a group of other farmers who are farming in the desert on land that is already polluted so much that the billions of dollars should be buying up their property and turning it into solar farms?

It is a crime that the high priced consultants to the BDCP and DWR have recommended to use the cap and trade system to trade off the pollution to other cities such as San Francisco or maybe even other countries to "zero out the pollution in the Delta." Of course, as my buddy, writer Burt Wilson, has been warning everyone, the pollution doesn't LEAVE the Delta. It is just a paper shuffling government invention to pay some other government body to buy their clean air credits. If a regular citizen came up with a scheme like that, the government would put them in jail for fraud. (Incidentally, Burt was at the forefront of the first big successful battle in the 1980s against a younger Governor Brown's Peripheral Canal, so this isn't Burt's first rodeo.)

Many of us think the co-equal goals are just a government-speak Orwellian propaganda tool on a level with Hitler's propaganda machine during WW II. The same BDCP propaganda machine has also tried to scare people that there will be huge earthquakes in the Delta and ruin all the levees when we haven't seen any major earthquake in the past 100 years and the Delta even survived the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. If they are really serious about earthquake protection, they should start focusing on the California aqueduct and where it goes over the Tehachapi Mountains to Los Angeles.

What you must look for is what the BDCP and DWR is not telling you. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District, the largest in the nation, told Bill Berryhill, a former California Assemblyman, that they want the cleaner, less polluted water from the twin tunnels mainly because it will save them billions of dollars in processing costs. That is probably the best answer I've heard yet since I began covering this issue in 2008 at one of the early meetings at the Ryde Hotel in the Delta. Of course, it's rather obvious that the oil industry badly needs fresh, clean, "reliable" water for their FRACKING needs for the Monterey shale oil fields that stretches from Monterey to Bakersfield. Look at the timing of President Obama's declaration to get the U.S. oil independent in relation to the announcement of the twin tunnels, plus how Governor Brown has tried to fast track favorable fracking laws. All these actions speak volumes.

Not enough is written about the mismanagement of California water and how they practically gave away the Kern Water Bank. It is now in the hands of private individuals like Stewart and Linda Resnick, billionaires who live in the largest mansion in Beverly Hills. They have mega-wealthy partners in that enterprise like Silicon Valley real estate developer, John Vidovich, who sold some of his water several years ago for a cool $77 million. Another partner is the Tejon Ranch Corp., who needs water to build a new city in the desert. These people don't like you to know their names and Resnicks are famous for not giving interviews. This fact, coupled with the reservoirs are mostly nearly full in Southern California, is part of this non-fiction story being written into California history. Some predict if the twin tunnels get built, we'll eventually see a dry Sacramento River. BDCP's reports do say it will lower it at least by three feet. That impact alone would have dire consequences throughout the Delta. As many try to warn, you can't fix the Delta by taking away fresh water from it.

Other than that, I loved your article!
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