[env-trinity] No April Fooling: Group Names Brown's Tunnel Plan Project of the Year!

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/10/1343767/-Strategic-Leadership-Forum-Greenwashes-Brown-s-Tunnel-Plan

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/11/11/18764036.php


brown_water_plan.jpeg

No April Fooling: Group Names Brown's Tunnel Plan Project of the Year!

by Dan Bacher

No, this is not an April Fools' Day or Onion article. A group called  
"GG/LA Infrastructure" selected Governor Jerry Brown's Bay Delta  
Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build two massive tunnels under the Delta  
as the "Engineering Project of the Year" at the "North American  
Strategic Leadership Forum" in Washington D.C. on October 29, 2014.

Events where organizations bestow awards upon undeserving politicians,  
projects and organizations are nothing new. In recent years, big  
"environmental" NGOs have given environmental "leadership" awards to  
politicians such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, two of the  
worst Governors for fish, water and the environment in California  
history, to curry favor with them.

Among the groups to give Schwarzenegger awards for his "green"  
leadership, in spite of his war on salmon, the Delta and the oceans,  
included the Hudson Riverkeeper at their annual "Fishermen's Banquet"  
in New York City in April 2010. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/03/22/shame-on-the-riverkeeper/ 
)

Then the Monterey Bay Aquarium and an array of corporate  
"environmental" NGOs granted the very undeserving Governor Jerry Brown  
the "Ocean Champion" award in 2012. (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/05/18710843.php 
‎).

In October 2013, the Blue Green Alliance had planned to give Governor  
Jerry Brown the "Right Stuff" award in San Francisco, but he didn't  
show up because of the protest by environmental and Native American  
activists outside the hotel where the event was held. (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/10/18/18745051.php 
)

However, the North American Strategic Leadership Forum recently topped  
even these shamelessly pandering organizations in their attempt to  
greenwash anti-environmental politicians and projects by honoring the  
California Department of Water Resources' Bay Delta Conservation Plan  
to build the peripheral tunnels.

The Forum, which "draws more than 500 industry executives from all  
aspects of an infrastructure project lifecycle – including lenders  
and investors, law, design, engineering and construction firms, and  
owner operators – to focus on projects with business opportunities  
available within the next 3-18 months," chose the Bay Delta  
Conservation Plan as the "Engineering Project of the Year" in  
Washington D.C. (http://www.bus-ex.com/article/north-american-infrastructure-winners 
)

The group awards the "Engineering Project of the Year" to "that  
project which extends or demonstrates the region's technical  
engineering capacity, especially design and creative problem-solving.  
This includes designs that are either path-breaking in terms of basic  
engineering, or in terms of value for money, or some combination of  
the two."

It gets worse. The BDCP was also named a finalist for the categories  
of "Strategic Project of the Year” and “Green/New Project of the  
Year." (http://www.cg-la.com/media-enquiries/press-releases/59-press-releases/cg-la-announces-finalists-for-top-project-in-north-america-pr 
)

Water activist Jerry Cadagan commented, "To once again steal from  
humorist Dave Barry, 'We are not making this up!'"

It is interesting that the California Department of Water Resources  
applied for these awards, but did not publicize receiving them.

The forum features the following description for the BDCP:

Bay Delta Conservation Plan Tunnels
Subsector: Water Transmission
Location: California
Value: US $25 billion
Stage: Planned
Project Sponsor: California Department of Water Resources
Project Presenter: Jim Macrae, Senior Project Manager, California  
Department of Water Resources

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is a part of California's  
overall water management portfolio. It is being developed as a 50-year  
habitat conservation plan with the goals of restoring the Sacramento- 
San Joaquin Delta ecosystem and securing California water supplies.  
The BDCP would secure California's water supply by building new water  
delivery infrastructure and operating the system to improve the  
ecological health of the Delta. The BDCP also would restore or protect  
approximately 150,000 acres of habitat to address the Delta's  
environmental challenges. (http://www.cg-la.com/forums/nalf6/ 
projects#NI)

Lets get this right, folks - this forum selected Jerry Brown's  
Peripheral Tunnel Plan, one of the most environmentally destructive  
projects in California history, as "Engineering Project of the Year"  
for 2014 and listed the boondoggle as a finalist for the categories of  
"Strategic Project of the Year” and “Green/New Project of the Year?"

Apparently the leadership of the forum is not aware of the scathing  
criticisms of the project by an array of science panels, ranging from  
the National Academy of Sciences Sciences, to a panel of U.S. Fish and  
Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service scientists, to  
the Delta Independent Science Board.

Nor was the group apparently aware of the state and federal  
government’s decision to delay the $67 billion proposed project until  
sometime in 2015, following the strongly-worded 43-page comment letter  
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) slamming the Bay  
Delta Conservation Plan’s draft Environmental Impact Report/ 
Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS).

Now did the forum leadership apparently know that the scathing EPA  
comments came on top of some 4,500 pages of searing reviews by  
municipalities, counties and water agencies that would be adversely  
impacted by the project, almost 2,000 pages of highly critical  
comments by environmental and fishing organizations, hundreds of pages  
of harsh analyses by government agencies and stinging comments from  
many thousands of California citizens reveal that BDCP is suffering  
from a congenital terminal illness, according to Bill Jennings,  
Executive Director of the California

The EPA diagnosis pointed out that operating the proposed conveyance  
facilities “would contribute to increased and persistent violations  
of water quality standards in the Delta, set under the Clean Water  
Act,” and that the tunnels “would not protect beneficial uses for  
aquatic life, thereby violating the Clean Water Act."

The letter noted that the EIR/EIS “assumes a 100 percent success rate  
for habitat restoration, which is not consistent with our experience,  
or supported by restoration ecology and conservation biology academic  
literature and scientific investigation” and detailed the likelihood  
that proposed habitat restoration would exacerbate the production and  
transport of methylmercury.

EPA also criticized the failure to analyze upstream/downstream impacts  
and observed that there is broad scientific agreement that “existing  
freshwater flow conditions in the San Francisco Estuary are  
insufficient to protect the aquatic ecosystem and multiple fish  
species, and that both increased freshwater flows and aquatic habitat  
restoration are needed to restore ecosystem processes in the Bay Delta  
and protect native and migratory fish populations.”

The agency identified serious inadequacies in the level of analysis,  
the restoration and adaptive management programs, finance plan,  
selection of alternatives and found numerous major flaws in the  
specific effects determinations and impact analyses.

Does that sound like a project that deserves "Engineering Project of  
the Year" award and warrants being listed as a finalist for "Strategic  
Project of the Year” and “Green/New Project of the Year?"

Only folks who live a parallel universe devoid of logic, science and  
common sense would give grant ANY award to a $67 billion project that  
will hasten the extinction of Central Valley Chinook salmon, Delta and  
longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species, as well as  
imperil salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath  
rivers.

EPA’s comments on the BDCP EIR/EIS and more information about the  
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance can be found at: http://www.calsport.org 
.

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