[env-trinity] Article Submission - Delta Tunnels: Restoring An Estuary by Diverting Its Water?

[Dan Bacher]

  http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/27/1553375/-Delta-Tunnels-Restoring-An-Estuary-by-Diverting-Its-Water




Barbara Daly of North Delta Cares, marina owner and Clarksburg  
resident, tells the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento  
on July 27 how the Delta Tunnels will harm her business, family,  
community, and recreation on the Sacramento River. Photo by Dan Bacher.

Delta Tunnels: Restoring An Estuary by Diverting Its Water?

by Dan Bacher

After covering fish, water, and environmental justice issues in  
California and the West for over 30 years as an investigative  
journalist, I’ve concluded that the California Water Fix, the new name  
for the Delta Tunnels, is the most environmentally devastating public  
works project I've ever encountered.


I’ve published hundreds of articles about the Delta Tunnels, Governor  
Jerry Brown's plan to divert Sacramento River water 30 miles under the  
California Delta to facilitate its export to corporate agribusiness  
and Southern California water agencies,  in a wide array of  
publications.

In my reporting, I’ve covered many aspects of the controversial plan.  
These include:

• How the project won’t create one drop of new water while spending up  
to $67 billion of taxpayer and ratepayer’s money.

• How the project’s former point man Jerry Meral, in a moment of  
candor in 2013, claimed the Delta “cannot be saved,” after years of  
promoting the peripheral canal and tunnels as the solution to the co- 
equal goals of water supply reliability.

• How the reports of scientific panels, ranging from the Delta  
Independence Science Board to federal EPA scientists, that have given  
the alleged “science” of the tunnels project a failing grade.

• How the project won’t help Californians during the drought, fund  
innovative water conservation, storm water capture, or water recycling  
projects that are desperately needed.

• How the plan will push endangered fish species, such as Delta and  
longfin smelt, winter Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and  
green sturgeon, over the abyss of extinction, while failing to address  
the state's long-term water supply needs.

• How the project will devastate not only San Francisco Bay and Delta  
fisheries, but recreational, commercial and subsistence fisheries up  
and down the West Coast; the salmon fishery alone is worth $1.5  
billion annually.

• How the tunnels will also imperil the salmon, steelhead and other  
fish populations on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers that are an  
integral part of the culture and livelihoods of the Yurok, Karuk and  
Hoopa Valley tribes.

• How the tunnels would devastate the Delta’s $5.2 billion  
agricultural economy and $750 million recreation and tourism economy.

• How the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and other California Indian Tribes have  
been excluded or marginalized in the Delta Tunnels process.

• How documents for the tunnels projects, in an overt case of  
environmental injustice, have not been translated into Spanish and  
other languages, as required under an array of state and federal laws.

• How the current petition before the State Water Resources Control  
Board and all of the previous plans, EIRs and documents of the plan  
have failed to address other alternatives, such as the Environmental  
Water Caucus’ Sustainable Water Plan for California, for achieving the  
dual goals of ecosystem restoration and water supply.

I’ve  also covered the lack of scoping meetings for the new plan; lack  
of details regarding financing, addition of 8,000 new pages for public  
comment on top of the existing 40,000 pages that were previously  
submitted by the state and federal governments last year; and the lack  
of a cost-benefits analysis.

But in the many hours I’ve spent covering the California WaterFix and  
its predecessors, there’s one terminal flaw with the project that  
stands out among all others: the false assumption the project is based  
upon.

The Water Fix  is based on the absurd contention that taking up to  
9,000 cubic feet per second of water from the Sacramento River at the  
new points of diversion, as requested in the petition by the  
Department of Water Resources  (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of  
Reclamation to the State Water Resources Control Board, will somehow  
“restore” the Delta ecosystem.

I am not aware of a single project in US or world history where the  
construction of a project that takes more water out of a river or  
estuary has resulted in the restoration of that river or estuary.

Based on this untenable premise and all of the flaws that thousands of  
Californians have uncovered about the project, I am strongly urging  
the State Water Resources Control Board to reject the petition of DWR  
and Reclamation requesting permits for new water diversion intakes on  
the Sacramento River and water quality certification under the Clean  
Water Act. These are essential permits required before the Delta  
Tunnels could be constructed.

The California WaterFix is a massive water grab for corporate  
agribusiness interests and Southern California water agencies,  
subsidized by the taxpayers, that must not be allowed to go forward.
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