[env-trinity] A Chaotic Mess: State Water Board Suspends Upcoming Delta Tunnels Deadlines

[Dan Bacher]

http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/03/30/a-chaotic-mess-state-water-board-suspends-upcoming-delta-tunnels-deadlines/

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/29/1507865/-Breaking-News-State-Water-Board-Suspends-Delta-Tunnels-Deadlines



Photo of Governor Jerry Brown by Dan Bacher.


A Chaotic Mess: State Water Board Suspends Upcoming Delta Tunnels  
Deadlines

by Dan Bacher

The State Water Resources Control Board announced on March 29 that  
they are suspending the upcoming deadlines for the California Water  
Fix/Delta Tunnels water rights change petition in response to a  
request by the state and federal water agencies to extend dates and  
deadlines for the scheduled hearing, along with a number of other  
requests either to dismiss or delay the petition.

On March 28, 2016, the Water Board hearing officers for the California  
WaterFix water right change petition hearing received a letter from  
the Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation  
requesting a 60-day continuance of all dates and deadlines associated  
with the hearing,

On the same day, the hearing officers also received a request from  
several parties to dismiss the petition. Then on March 29, the State  
Water Board received additional requests to delay and stay the  
hearing, pending resolution of several matters, according to a letter  
from Tam M. Doduc and Felicia Marcus, State Water Board WaterFix Co- 
Hearing Officers.

“In response to the various requests, the upcoming deadlines are  
suspended. A ruling will be issued in the near future formally  
addressing the requests and providing additional information about the  
hearing schedule,” said Doduc and Marcus.

The hearing officers said they “are cognizant of the inconvenience to  
the other parties of repeated delays to the hearing schedule.”

“Accordingly, to inform our consideration, Petitioners are directed to  
confirm by noon on Friday, April 1, 2016 that they will be prepared to  
proceed without further delay should the 60-day continuance be  
granted,” the Hearing Officers concluded.

All of these documents have been or will be posted on the State Water  
Board’s website at:  http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/california_waterfix/

Just hours before the Water Board announced its decision, the Contra  
Costa Water District (CCWD) announced a withdrawal of their protest  
petition with the State Water Resources Control Board regarding the  
“Change of Diversion Petition” filed by the lead state and federal  
agencies promoting Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels.

The CCWD reached a settlement with the California Department of Water  
Resources claiming that the state is going to pay for their new water  
diversion facility, rather than CCWD customers, to mitigate impacts to  
drinking water quality resulting from operation of the Delta Tunnels,  
according to a news release from Restore the Delta.

“The settlement is, in itself, an indictment of the Tunnels and  
represents Contra Costa Water District’s self-interested approach to  
the Delta as a whole,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive  
Director of Restore the Delta. (http://restorethedelta.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CCWD-DWR-Agreement-3-24-16.pdf 
)

“The new CCWD intake will have an impact on water quality and quantity  
in the Delta and is not covered in the EIR for the Delta Tunnels. The  
settlement says that DWR reserves the right to override environmental  
needs and concerns to build/operate the Delta tunnels. They are  
setting up the project as beyond the law, a project by Governor  
Brown’s fiat,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.

Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing  
Protection Alliance (CSPA), said the State Board “needs to jettison  
the petition until such time as we have a complete petition.”

“It's a discombobulated mess, with all of the things that have  
changed, including last week’s request by the San Luis and Delta- 
Mendota Water Authority for the recusal of hearing officers and the  
withdrawal of the Contra Costa Water District from the petition  
protests,” said Jennings. “The petition was not complete and the Water  
Board should have held off on the petition until it was completed, but  
they chose not to do so. Instead we will be picking up the pieces that  
weren’t submitted originally throughout the process.”

“The entire California Water Fix project just changed with the  
settlement reached with the Contra Costa Water District,” Jennings  
emphasized. “We don’t even have modeling for this new aspect to the  
California Water Fix that establishes a pipeline from the Sacramento  
River around the Delta or from the new segmented Clifton Court  
Forebay. This changes the hydrology of the Delta.”

“A hearing is premature until there is a defined project description  
and evaluation of potential impacts. Right now, we don’t have a  
complete environmental document and a fishery assessment under ESA and  
we have a changing project,” he concluded.

It is clear that Jerry Brown’s California Water Fix to build the Delta  
Tunnels is broken and in chaos as the economic, scientific and  
financial justifications for the project to build two giant tunnels  
under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta become increasingly  
untenable.

The Delta Tunnels Plan would hasten the extinction of Sacramento  
winter-run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and  
other fish species, along with imperiling the salmon and steelhead  
populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers. Yet the plan won’t  
create one single drop of new water for Californians.

The plan would divert water from the Sacramento River before it can  
reach the Delta in order to benefit corporate agribusiness interests  
on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, Southern California water  
agencies and oil companies conducting fracking and extreme oil  
extraction methods.



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