[env-trinity] Conservation groups ask for more time to file objections to Delta Tunnels plan

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/7/1535572/-Conservation-groups-ask-for-more-time-to-file-objections-to-Delta-Tunnels-plan




Conservation groups ask for more time to file objections to Delta  
Tunnels plan

by Dan Bacher

Following the submission of documents on May 31 by the state and  
federal governments pleading their case for the Delta Tunnels plan,  
environmental and fishing groups and San Joaquin County asked the  
State Water Resources Control Board for more time for them to file  
their objections to the documents.


Three separate request letters were filed, including one by  
AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Alliance and other groups; the  
second by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations  
(PCFFA)  and the Institute for Fishery Resources (IFR); and the third  
by  San Joaquin County and Mokelumne River WPA.

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Bureau of Reclamation last  
Thursday submitted their testimony and evidence as required for  
upcoming public Water Board hearings regarding their request to add  
three new points of diversion on the Sacramento River for the  
California WaterFix. That’s the new name for the plan to build two  
tunnels under the Delta to export water to agribusiness interests on  
the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California water  
agencies.

The AquaAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance,  
Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Environmental Water Caucus,  
Friends of the River, Planning and Conservation League, Restore the  
Delta and Sierra Club California requested a 27-day extension of time  
for all protestants in the Hearing on the California Waterfix Change  
Petition to file and serve any written procedural/evidentiary  
objections concerning petitioners’ case in chief.  
(mavensnotebook.com/...)

If granted, this request would change the present time and date for  
receipt of any written procedural/evidentiary objections from 12:00  
noon, June 15, 2016 to 12:00 noon, July 12, 2016.

“Since the State Water Board gave notice of the petition on October  
30, 2015, petitioners have made changes in documents including  
modeling that they have claimed to be relying on and have sought and  
been granted continuances in starting the Hearing totaling 90 days so  
far,” the groups argued. “The Hearing does not commence until July 26,  
2016. Granting the extension we request will ensure the filing and  
service of objections a full two weeks before the start of the Hearing.

“That is ample time for petitioners to learn what the objections are  
and yet allows protestants a reasonable period of time to attempt to  
read and evaluate the May 31 submissions and the new modeling analysis  
for the purpose of identifying and writing appropriate objections. In  
court proceedings, parties do not learn of opposing parties’  
objections until the witness is actually testifying,” they explained.

The County of San Joaquin, San Joaquin County Flood Control and Water  
Conservation District and Mokelumne River Water and Power Authority  
also requested a 27-day extension of time to file and serve any  
written objections concerning the petitioners’ cases.  
(mavensnotebook.com/...)

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and Institute  
for Fisheries Resources requested 61-day extension. The groups argue,  
“This extension is necessitated by the sheer volume (5,159 pages of  
documents, 186 MB of video and audio files, and 19.3 GB of modeling  
files) and arcane and confusing nature of petitioners' evidentiary  
submissions.” (mavensnotebook.com/...)

Meanwhile, the Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation  
sent a letter to the Water Board objecting to any further extension of  
time, claiming  it is ‘unwarranted.”

“Very little of what has been submitted by Petitioners as part of  
their case-in-chief, whether in their concise testimony (133 pages  
total for 8 lead witnesses) or in their submitted exhibits, represents  
‘new’information. Rather, much of the information contained in  
Petitioners' case-in-chief, including submitted exhibits, is public  
information previously available to all protestants,” the agencies  
wrote.

DRW and Reclamation also wrote, “Because the majority of information  
provided with Petitioners' case-in-chief has been available to  
protestants long before the submission of testimony and exhibits on  
May 31, 2016, the current hearing schedule provides ample opportunity  
for protestants to file written procedural/evidentiary objections by  
the current deadline of June 15, 2016.”

The State Water Board has indicated they will issue a decision on the  
extension requests some time this week.

In a statement issued on June 1, DWR claimed it will present evidence  
to show that the proposed change in points of diversion “will neither  
initiate a new water right nor injure any other legal user of water.”

Restore the Delta, a coalition opposed to the project, described the  
testimony as “largely a rehash of unsubstantiated claims about the  
Delta Tunnels project that have not been proven, despite more than  
40,000 pages of environmental review that the US Environmental  
Protection Agency has declared is still  inadequate (a failing grade.)”

California WaterFix will only hasten extinction of Delta smelt, salmon

Governor Jerry Brown is promoting his California WaterFix at a  
catastrophic time for salmon and Delta fish populations. In this  
spring’s California Department of Fish and Wildlife smelt survey  
released last week, the numbers of the endangered fish, once the most  
abundant fish in the estuary, have plummeted to a new low.

“There’s nothing between them and extinction, as far as I can tell,”  
Peter Moyle, a UC Davis biologist, professor and author who has  
studied Delta smelt and other  Delta fish species for nearly four  
decades, told the Sacramento Bee: www.sacbee.com/…

”We are entering uncharted waters with the delta smelt now because  
populations have never been so low,” Dr. Moyle told me this March. "My  
guess is that populations are so small now that random events, such as  
predation by a swarm of silversides on eggs and larvae in an isolated  
spawning event, can keep driving the population down." (www.indybay.org/...)

Yet the Delta Tunnels plan will only hasten the extinction of Delta  
smelt, along with longfin smelt, winter-run Chinook salmon, Central  
Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and other fish species, according to  
Delta advocates and scientific experts. The California Water Fix will  
also imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and  
Klamath rivers.

For more information, go to: redgreenandblue.org/...



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