[env-trinity] Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnels Plan Is Collapsing

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/29/1507594/-Jerry-Brown-s-Delta-Tunnels-Plan-Is-Collapsing

Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnels Plan Is Collapsing

by Dan Bacher

Governor Jerry Brown’s California Water Fix to Build the Delta  
Tunnels, a plan to divert Sacramento River water to corporate  
agribusiness interests, Southern California water agencies, and oil  
companies conducting fracking and extreme oil extraction methods, is  
“broken” and in “chaos.”


That’s the assessment of a coalition of fishing, environmental and  
farming groups, including Restore the Delta, the Planning and  
Conservation League, the Local Agencies of the North Delta and the  
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA.)

On Monday, the petitioners for a “Change in the Point of Diversion”  
permit before the California State Water Resources Control Board have  
requested a second delay in the process, this time for an additional  
60 days.

“The petitioners, the California Department of Water Resources and the  
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation were to present, on Wednesday, March 30,  
2016 evidence that the Delta Tunnels plan would impose no significant  
harms to Delta water users or to protected fish and wildlife,”   
according to a statement from the four groups.

“After previously receiving a 30-day extension, the petitioners can’t  
produce the evidence that the project won’t cause serious harm,” the  
groups said. “Besides pushing endangered fish species into extinction,  
harming Bay-Delta communities and agricultural water users, the Delta  
Tunnels do not comply with the Delta Reform Act of 2009. The  
California State Legislature mandated 'coequal goals' of providing a  
more reliable water supply for California AND protecting, restoring  
and enhancing the Delta ecosystem. However, the tunnels cannot produce  
the amount of water that the exporters want, especially with climate  
change.”

The California Water Fix is based on the untenable concept that  
diverting more water from the Sacramento River before it reaches the  
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta will “restore” the San Francisco  
Bay-Delta Estuary.

“The California WaterFix cannot be fixed,” said Bill Jennings,  
executive director of California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.  
“The idea that you can divert millions of acre feet of water under an  
estuary that is already suffering from lack of flow without grievously  
harming existing water users, communities and already degraded  
fisheries and water quality is fundamentally absurd.”

“We’ve been saying for a long time that there is not a workable  
project,” said Jonas Minton of the Planning and Conservation League.  
“The petitioners have spent 10 years, a quarter of a billion dollars,  
and still cannot produce a plan that meets environmental or economic  
muster, or comply with tax law. They should admit the project is not  
defensible and get on with plan B.”

“They have tried every way possible to get permits before a long- 
overdue water quality control plan update for the Delta is finished.  
The Delta Tunnels are in complete disarray today,” said Barbara  
Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta.

“The Delta Tunnels proponents already got a 30-day extension, now they  
want another 60-day extension,” said Osha Meserve, an attorney with  
Local Agencies of the North Delta. “The Petition was incomplete when  
they submitted it last August and they are no closer to having a  
complete Petition today.  That is because the Tunnels are  
unpermittable under existing laws that protect the Delta, the  
environment and endangered species.  After the federal contractors  
failed to disqualify the hearing officers last week, their only option  
was to request yet another delay.”

The collapsing Delta Tunnels scheme faces another major hurdle when  
the terminally flawed “science” of the California Water Fix will face  
independent review by a scientific panel convened at the request of  
NOAA Fisheries on April 5-6.

“At the request of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  
(NOAA), select staff from the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta  
Science Program will convene an independent scientific peer review for  
the joint Biological Opinion and 208 1(b) Incidental Take Permit  
analyses of the California WaterFix aquatic science,” the notice from  
the Delta Stewardship Council states.

It is very likely that the independent review panel will give a  
failing grade to the “science” concocted to justify the Delta Tunnels  
Plan, just like US EPA scientists did last year — and just as every  
panel of state, federal and independent scientists has done  
previously. For more information, go to:  
deltastewardshipcouncil.cmail20.com/… 
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