[env-trinity] 2-Gates Project

[Byron Leydecker]

>From Planning and Conservation League:

 

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR ASKS WATER AGENCIES "WHERE'S THE SCIENCE?" FOR
2-GATES EXPERIMENT IN CALIFORNIA DELTA

Governmental scientific integrity made a comeback recently when the U.S.
Department of Interior put the breaks on a questionable experiment in the
ecologically-fragile California Bay-Delta Estuary.

The 2-Gates Fish Demonstration Project is being promoted by the San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority, an agricultural water user in the San Joaquin
Valley, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Their
project would attempt to lure endangered Delta Smelt away from the deadly
water pumping facilities in the southern Delta to continue the unsustainable
export levels.

In a December
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WqdiJ4lNMDDhmoRgxvbUi
Mh1y8qSNG7b>  22nd letter, Interior refused to approve the 2-Gates proposal
until the proponents address questions raised by federal agencies and
independent science entities about the underlying scientific premise for the
project. 

This decision disrupts the proponents' efforts to avoid scrutiny of their
project. The proponents had already obtained an exemption from the
California Environmental Quality Act through Governor Schwarzenegger's 2009
emergency
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BiR9vJEBh%2FiVJbtzddP
%2BMMh1y8qSNG7b>  drought proclamation and had prematurely secured federal
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=W4vMa1lyS%2FIptF8UYnF
GEsh1y8qSNG7b>  funding for project implementation through omnibus federal
budget bills.  

Interior's actions demonstrate the problems inherent in the Governor's
wide-reaching drought proclamation. Without vetting the scientific
assumptions of the 2-Gates proposal, which the proponents failed to do, it's
impossible to determine whether the project will help mitigate the
environmental impacts of the drought, a condition for qualifying for the
exemption. By complying with Interior's request, the proponents can help
determine if the project will actually protect the environment and therefore
warrant use of scarce taxpayer dollars.

 

Byron Leydecker, JcT, Chair

Friends of Trinity River

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 Land/Fax (Call first to Fax) 

415 519 4810 Mobile

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (Secondary)

www.fotr.org <http://www.fotr.org/>  

 

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