Conservation groups ask for more time to file objections to Delta Tunnels plan

Conservation groups ask for more time to file objections to Delta Tunnels plan

by Dan Bacher

Following the submission of documents on May 31 by the state and federal governments pleading their case for the Delta Tunnels plan, environmental and fishing groups and San Joaquin County asked the State Water Resources Control Board for more time for them to file their objections to the documents.

Three separate request letters were filed, including one by AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Alliance and other groups; the second by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and the Institute for Fishery Resources (IFR); and the third by San Joaquin County and Mokelumne River WPA.

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Bureau of Reclamation last Thursday submitted their testimony and evidence as required for upcoming public Water Board hearings regarding their request to add three new points of diversion on the Sacramento River for the California WaterFix. That’s the new name for the plan to build two tunnels under the Delta to export water to agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California water agencies.

The AquaAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Environmental Water Caucus, Friends of the River, Planning and Conservation League, Restore the Delta and Sierra Club California requested a 27-day extension of time for all protestants in the Hearing on the California Waterfix Change Petition to file and serve any written procedural/evidentiary objections concerning petitioners’ case in chief. (https://mavensnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/6-1-16-ltr-req-ext-final.pdf)

If granted, this request would change the present time and date for receipt of any written procedural/evidentiary objections from 12:00 noon, June 15, 2016 to12:00 noon, July 12, 2016.

“Since the State Water Board gave notice of the petition on October 30, 2015, petitioners have made changes in documents including modeling that they have claimed to be relying on and have sought and been granted continuances in starting the Hearing totaling 90 days so far,” the groups argued. “The Hearing does not commence until July 26, 2016. Granting the extension we request will ensure the filing and service of objections a full two weeks before the start of the Hearing.

“That is ample time for petitioners to learn what the objections are and yet allows protestants a reasonable period of time to attempt to read and evaluate the May 31 submissions and the new modeling analysis for the purpose of identifying and writing appropriate objections. In court proceedings, parties do not learn of opposing parties’ objections until the witness is actually testifying,” they explained.

The County of San Joaquin, San Joaquin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District and Mokelumne River Water and Power Authority also requested a 27-day extension of time to file and serve any written objections concerning the petitioners’ cases. (https://mavensnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/L-Hearing-Chair-06.02.16.pdf.)

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and Institute for Fisheries Resources requested a 61-day extension.

The groups argue, “This extension is necessitated by the sheer volume (5,159 pages of documents, 186 MB of video and audio files, and 19.3 GB of modeling files) and arcane and confusing nature of petitioners’ evidentiary submissions.” (https://mavensnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/PCFFA-and-IFR-Request-for-61-Day-Extension-re-Objections-to-Ptrs-Evidence-6-2-16-1.pdf.)

Meanwhile, the Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation sent a letter to the Water Board objecting to any further extension of time, claiming it is ‘unwarranted.”

“Very little of what has been submitted by Petitioners as part of their case-in-chief, whether in their concise testimony (133 pages total for 8 lead witnesses) or in their submitted exhibits, represents ‘new’information. Rather, much of the information contained in Petitioners’ case-in-chief, including submitted exhibits, is public information previously available to all protestants,” the agencies wrote.

The State Water Board has indicated they will issue a decision on the extension requests some time this week.

In a statement issued on June 1, DWR claimed it will present evidence to show that the proposed change in points of diversion “will neither initiate a new water right nor injure any other legal user of water.”

Restore the Delta, a coalition opposed to the project, described the testimony as “largely a rehash of unsubstantiated claims about the Delta Tunnels project that have not been proven, despite more than 40,000 pages of environmental review that the US Environmental Protection Agency has declared is still inadequate (a failing grade.)”

California WaterFix will only hasten extinction of Delta smelt, salmon

Governor Jerry Brown is promoting his California WaterFix at a catastrophic time for salmon and Delta fish populations. In this spring’s California Department of Fish and Wildlife smelt survey released last week, the numbers of the endangered fish, once the most abundant fish in the estuary, have plummeted to a new low.

The 2016 Spring Kodiak Trawl (SKT) index, a relative measure of abundance, is only 1.8, a decrease from the 2015 index (13.8) and is the lowest index on record. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/06/09/1536342/-Latest-survey-reveals-Delta-smelt-is-nearly-extinct)

Only thirteen adult Delta Smelt were collected at 8 stations contributing to the index in 2016. “This is the lowest catch in SKT history, and a steep decline from the 2015 then-record-low catch of 88,” said Scott Wilson, Regional Manager of the CDFW Bay Delta Region in a memo.

”We are entering uncharted waters with the delta smelt now because populations have never been so low,” said Dr. Peter Moyle, UC Davis fishery scientist, professor and author. “My guess is that populations are so small now that random events, such as predation by a swarm of silversides on eggs and larvae in an isolated spawning event, can keep driving the population down.”

The Delta smelt collapse is part of an overall ecosystem decline driven by water diversions by the federal and state water projects. The CDFW’s 2015 Fall Midwater Trawl demonstrates that, since 1967, populations of striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, splittail and threadfin shad have declined by 99.7, 98.3, 99.9, 97.7, 98.5 and 93.7 percent, respectively, according to Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA).

Jennings emphasized that “Mother Nature did not cause the estuary’s biological collapse,” in spite of claims by state and federal officials that the drought is the cause of the collapse.

“It is the result of illegal political decisions by state and federal regulatory agencies that have become captive to powerful special interests,” he stated.

Yet the Delta Tunnels plan will only hasten the extinction of Delta smelt, along with longfin smelt, winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and other fish species, according to Delta advocates and scientific experts. The California Water Fix will also imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers.