![]() ![]() “A huge facility can take a dribble of water,” and a small facility may take the proverbial Big Gulp. “For the health of the Delta, the size of the facility matters much less than how it’s operated,” said Doug Obegi, of the Natural Resource Defense Council. Remember, only one of the Twin Tunnels was supposed to operate at a time the Delta Conveyance tunnel is bigger. The true price is in the cost overruns.ĭespite stories calling the Delta Conveyance “scaled back,” it may suck as much water as the Twin Tunnels-or more. Time to paraphrase Wise Old Willie Brown: the stated price of a major public works project is just a down payment to get the public on board. Though the report doesn’t name a price, officials ballpark around $15.9 billion, which was the cost of the Twin Tunnels. The last proposed to deliver water to both state and federal systems this, only to the State Water Project (SWP) customers. The last called for two tunnels this, only one. This Godzilla differs from the last Godzilla in a couple ways. Salmon are wondrous and essential to certain California tribes the smelt is an essential strand in the Delta’s web of life. ![]() The DWR’s own models show that diverting 6,000 cubic feet a second of water from the Sacramento River through a 45-mile underground tunnel significantly reduces juvenile salmon survival throughout the Delta. It’s almost as if some political expert comes in and writes the conclusions.” “Then they write conclusions that do not match the data. “DWR does good research and good reports,” said Barbara Barrigan Parilla of Restore the Delta. The 3,000 page document is chock full of scientific data showing the tunnel will be bad for the Delta – and perversely concludes everything will be just fine. Not in the draft Environmental Impact Report released Wednesday by the Department of Water Resources. Where is the Science Patrol when you need them? Now, the monster is back, renamed the “Delta Conveyance.” Like Godzilla attacking Tokyo, the Delta tunnel periodically revives and menaces the Delta and Stockton with destruction. “Without the BDCP, exports could only total 3.5 million to 3.9 million acre feet,” Sunding says.Feature Photo: The Sacramento River near Freeport, site of the intakes for the proposed Delta Conveyance. “What the plan would do is greatly improve the stability of our water supply,” Sunding says, “and from a cost/benefit perspective, that’s worth a lot.”Īs part of the analysis, Sunding and his team calculated Delta water exports post-BDCP, and found that they would average about 5.2 million acre feet annually, given expected requirements from government water agencies on obtaining a 50-year operating permit for the Twin Tunnels. Sunding says his work considers possible impacts to Delta water supplies if a conveyance system is not built: such as future endangered species listings or seismic events that could collapse Delta levees, shutting down the huge pumps that currently send water to the San Joaquin Valley and southern cities. “, it may seem a bad investment if nothing happens – but if you don’t have it and something does happen that disrupts water deliveries, it could be disastrous.” “The BDCP is in many ways like an insurance policy,” he says. All Californians, he says are affected by water availability. Sunding agrees his research addressed contractor concerns, but says Delta water deliveries figure into the economies of the south state and the Bay Area as well as Central Valley agriculture. He responds to Bill Jennings, the executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and opponent of the project, who says the report on the project “comes from the perspective of the contractors,” and “is too limited and biased,” Graff Professor in the College of Natural Resources, co-director of the Berkeley Water Center, and a renowned expert on water policy. Sunding, who supports the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), is the Thomas J. We did get a call from the study’s author, Professor David Sunding, this afternoon. Critics say that it addresses only the concerns of contractors and agriculture, and doesn’t mention the rest of the California populace. As we reported earlier today, a forthcoming study, to be released on Monday, details the consequences-both good and bad-of the Twin Tunnels project that would divert water from the Sacramento River to farms and cities to the south. ![]()
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