[env-trinity] CV Business Times: Environmental group questions legality of twin tunnels

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=24627 



Environmental group questions legality of twin tunnels

SACRAMENTO 
November 18, 2013 9:00pm

•  Urges federal agencies to withhold their approval
•  “Commencing the public review period … will violate the Endangered Species Act”
The rush by the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown to get approval of an environmental impact report for the centerpiece of the controversial Bay Delta Conservation Plan could end up being illegal, says the group Friends of the River.
In a letter to state and federal agencies involved with the complex plan, Friends of the River says the planned December public review period for the plan’s EIR is illegal.
The BDCP’s centerpiece is building two massive twin tunnels, each 40 feet wide and stretching for about 35 miles beneath the heart of the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta. The tunnels would siphon off fresh water from the Sacramento River before it could flow naturally into and through the Delta and ship it instead to the state and federal irrigation systems south of the Delta.
“No biological assessment has been prepared and issued by the federal Bureau of Reclamation with respect to the BDCP water tunnels project,” the letter says.
Friends of the River adds that “no final or even draft biological opinion has been prepared” by the National Marine Fisheries Service or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “with respect to the impacts of the operation of the tunnels” on five threatened or endangered species of fish or their critical habitats.
“In a nutshell, commencing the public review period on a Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report in the absence of the biological assessments and biological opinions will violate the ESA [Endangered Species Act] requirement that each federal agency review its actions at the earliest possible time to determine whether any action may affect listed species or critical habitat, and enter into formal consultation if that is the case,” says the letter.
The December review would also “violate the National Environmental Policy Act,” the group says.
“Yet this premature and unlawful draft EIS/EIR public review process — confronting the public with biased advocacy documents depriving the public of the essential ESA required analyses prepared by the federal agencies — is exactly what is now intended with a planned release date for the draft EIS/EIR of December 13, 2013,” says Friends of the River.
The environmental group is asking the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others to withhold their endorsement of the plan.
If it’s ever built, the tunnel project could cost about $54 billion, including interest on the bonds that would need to be floated to pay for the big dig, without taking into consideration cost overruns. The recently opened span of the Bay Bridge has cost over $6 billion – six times its original estimates.
Friends of the River describes itself as “California's statewide river conservation organization providing political action, conservation information, river trips and action alerts.”
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