[env-trinity] Chronicle opinion: Away go our dollars down the delta drains

[Tom Stokely]

Away go our dollars down the delta drains
Richard Walker
Updated
6:11 pm, Friday, January 10, 2014 
	* Gov. Jerry Brown attends the Colusa Farm Show in 2013 to
pitch his multibillion-dollar plan to build tunnels to convey water under the
delta. Photo: Chris Kaufman, Associated Press
 Gov. Jerry
Brown wants to build two giant tunnels underneath the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta to siphon water from the Sacramento River to the pumps that
feed the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The California Aqueduct
and Delta-Mendota Canal already transport more than 5 million acre-feet a year
southward on average. The cost of the project is said to be $25 billion, but
the total bill, with interest, will be more like $60 billion.
That's a lot of money to waste on a bad idea.
California's waterworks are out of whack, ecologically,
physically and financially, but Brown's titanic tunnels are an expensive fix
that does not treat the real problems. I call them the Delta Drains because
they will drain the life out of the delta and the money out of our pockets
while chiefly benefiting big agribusiness.
The drains are just the notorious Peripheral Canal moved
underground. Thirty years ago, California voters rejected the canal and I wrote
a key study about its perverse financing that helped stop the project.
Unfortunately, Brown refuses to give up on a bad idea.
Despite years of study under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, no one has
been able to square the circle of water exports versus the environment. Someone
must lose: either exporters or the people of California.
Proponents make three arguments for the Delta Drains: they
will protect the environment, provide water for millions and be virtually
self-financing. Alas, none of these is true.
The first bogus argument is that moving water underground
will help the delta. Because the massive pumps confuse migrating fish and
massacre millions of fry every year, bypassing surface waterways will reduce
the carnage. But the drains reduce one environmental problem by making two
others worse.
One is that the bay-delta estuary already suffers from too
much water diversion, which reduces freshwater flows, nutrients to the
ecosystem and flushing effects on pollutants. But the purpose of the siphons is
to draw more, not less, water. Meanwhile, the delta is sinking and sea levels
are rising, so much of it will become open water when levees fail under the
strain, as they have done repeatedly. Yet the drains' real purpose is to assure
a steady supply of water southward, regardless - as Brown's point man on water Jerry Meralhas
admitted. The right way to save the delta is to pump less and only during high
spring flows, and to strengthen levees and restore marshlands.
The second false argument in favor of the Delta Drains is
that they will assure a steady supply of water to "25 million
Californians," mostly south of the Tehachapis. In fact, personal water use
is a drop in the bucket. Statewide, domestic consumption is only about 8
percent of the total versus 75 percent for agriculture and 17 percent for
business and landscaping. As for water pumped out of the delta, only about
one-quarter goes to Southern California, while three-quarters go to
agribusiness in the Central Valley.
The principal users of delta diversions are the Westlands
Water District on the west side of Fresno County and the Kern County Water Agencyat the
south end of the San Joaquin Valley. These water wholesalers buy it from the
state and federal governments, then sell it to gigantic growers. Water exports
are for profits, not people.
The third unwarranted claim for the drains is that the
"water users" will pony up most of the cost. Sounds fair, but it's
not. The users with the deepest pockets are city-dwellers, who pay 10 times
what growers pay for water. Agribusiness gets its water at a discount because
cities subsidize growers through electricity purchases, land taxes and the
release of "surplus" water by the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California.
Our 1982 study showed that Southern Californians were paying
for water going to San Joaquin growers, and it is still true. The people are
paying and the growers are still getting a bargain. With the drains, we'll be
paying more.
In all this, Westlands is the tail wagging the water dog. The
district has the lowest priority water rights and can't get enough water in dry
years. The district wants more water diverted from the Sacramento and the North
Coast, not less. They don't give a fig for the fish, having sued to stop water
releases for salmon in the San Joaquin and Trinity rivers.
I have a better solution. Instead of building the Delta
Drains, use the money to buy out Westlands, about $9 billion at current
land prices.
This would be cheaper and have the added benefit of saving 1
million acre-feet a year (average) now going to Westlands, leaving that water
for other farmers and urban users.
Farming Westlands is a bad bargain for California. The area
has too little groundwater and makes too little profit to pay for irrigation
water (hence the subsidies). Worse, it has a severe problem of toxic metals in
the drain water. Nor are its crops vital foodstuffs, being principally almonds
for snacks, flavorings and beauty products. The land should go back
to grazing.
In short, the Delta Drains will be Gov. Brown's gift to a few
hundred growers, paid for by millions of unsuspecting Californians.
Richard Walkeris
professor emeritus of geography at UC Berkeley and the author of "The
Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of California Agribusiness" (2004) and
"The Atlas of California" (2013), among his many writings on the
Golden State. To comment, go to www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1.
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Away-go-our-dollars-down-the-delta-drains-5132228.php
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