The recirculated environmental documents for the Delta tunnels project are widely expected to be released tomorrow, Friday, July 10th, for a 45-day comment period.
The documents will analyze three additional alternatives: 3,000 cfs, 9,000 cfs and 15,000 cfs facilities, with the 9,000 cfs being the preferred alternative. These new alternatives would be pursued not as part of a habitat conservation plan, but instead split into two projects: The new water infrastructure, now called Cal Water Fix, would seek permitting under Section 7 of the federal Endangered Species Act and Section 2081 under state endangered species regulations; the restoration would be pursued under a separate program called Cal Eco Restore.
(For more details on the changes in the approach, click here.)
In anticipation of the release of the recirculated documents, opponents to the project held a media call yesterday. On the call were Osha Meserve, a Delta water rights attorney; Bob Wright, Friends of the River; Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance; Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, Restore the Delta, and Connor Everts, Environmental Water Caucus.
Here’s what they had to say.
First, moderator Brian Smith set the stage with some background information:
“We expect the revised Delta tunnels EIR to drop as early as this Friday, July 10. There was a huge public response to the draft EIR and more than 8000 comments were submitted on the plan, but no scoping meetings have been held, and no responses have been published so far.
What we do know is that the habitat conservation has been dramatically reduced, which transforms the project mainly into a water transfer project, thus the dropping of the name Bay Delta Conservation Plan. We also know that during the drought, the State Water Resources Control Board has bypassed numerous water quality standards for the Delta, and this should make everyone ask, how would the Delta be managed any better with the tunnels?
In addition, a new bill was just introduced into the House of Representatives that aims to take more water from the Delta and reduce environmental protections. All three of these processes currently underway are threatening to destroy the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.”
OSHA MESERVE, Water rights attorney
“The BDCP has now come full circle back to where it started in a dark room on the 11th floor of the Natural Resources Agency. In 2006, several water agencies that receive water supplies from the state and federal water projects that pump water from the Delta gathered to re-birth the failed peripheral canal of 1982. Those agencies were committed to a 800-foot wide canal diverting Sacramento river water around the east side of the Delta, which later became the twin tunnels, large enough to carry more than half of the average flow of the Sacramento river.
As we first heard in April, what was the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) has now been divided into two pieces: The tunnel plan and habitat plan called Water Fix and EcoRestore.
Under the old plan – the BDCP, the project would meet the higher standard of contributing to the recovery as a conservation plan under state and federal law. But the National Academy of Sciences, EPA, and other scientific reviews concluded that the BDCP approach of creating experimental habitat could not make up for the damage from reduced freshwater inflows into the Delta, wouldn’t meet minimum endangered species and clean water standards, and would jeopardize rather than help recover, key fish species.
Now that the BDCP has changed from a large-scale habitat plan into a straight infrastructure project for which “take” authority – which is the ability to kill or harm – is being sought under state and federal provisions. A new draft EIR/EIS will be released Friday July 10th. This 8,000 page document will include additional analysis of three variations of Tunnels-only alternatives, looking at 3,000 cfs, 9000 cfs and 15000 cfs, with 9,000 cfs still being the target project.
Unlike the prior conservation plan, this doesn’t help try to recover species and will only “mitigate to the extent practicable” the massive impacts of constructing and operating the tunnels on endangered fish and other species. This new project configuration includes far less habitat, with only 180 acres of tidal marsh restoration total, down from 65,000 acres that was planned for BDCP. Overall, only 2100 acres of restoration included in the Water Fix, and that’s just to mitigate for the damage of the tunnels only.
Separate from the Water Fix tunnel project, the state has rolled out the Eco-Restore effort, which aims to create 30,000 acres of restored habitat in the Delta, and is a completely separate process from Cal Water Fix. But about 28,000 acres of tidal marsh and seasonal floodplain habitat is already required under the 2008 and 2009 Biological Opinions, which were necessary to try to mitigate for the impacts of the existing south delta diversions on fish. So Ecorestore really does nothing additional for endangered fish in the Delta than what was already required.
Though the tunnels in the north Delta under Water Fix are presented as somehow better for the environment, it actually is no better for fish and no better for water quality than the BDCP was or then the existing system is. Modeling for the Water Fix indicates that removing 45% of the fresh water out of the system in the northern part of the Delta worsens salinity conditions and creates a drought-like condition like we are experiencing this year permanently. Freshwater flows are the most important factor for survival of fish, and those screens on the new north Delta diversions could help a little; the south diversions still operate without screens under this project. The only difference is that the new diversions in the north would kill more of the fall and winter run salmon than the Delta smelt. And there’s also the problem that the experimental and massive fish screens for the north delta will supposedly be operated from 35 miles away which we don’t believe will work at all and we will be reviewing the documents more carefully to provide detail on that issue.
The tunnel intakes will also destroy over one contiguous mile of area containing some of the best remaining channel margin riparian habitat on the Sacramento River, and this amount of riparian habitat destruction is probably more than has ever occurred under one project before.
Additionally, fully protected species greater sandhill crane, black rail and the white tailed kite will be killed by the powerlines that will serve tunnel construction for ten years at least. There is no legal way to actually permit take for killing of these majestic and fully protected species. However, the Department of Fish and Wildlife will apparently require bird diverters, which a 4” apparatus that hang on the wires, to supposedly prevent take, and they ignore the fact that the prior BDCP documents predicted that at least 48 supposedly fully protected greater sandhill cranes would die per year on those same transmission lines. The state’s lack of commitment to the most endangered species is truly disturbing.
To conclude, from a statewide environmental perspective, the tunnels project is a disaster because it further imperils the largest estuary in all of North and South America. Now without any restoration, the opportunity for the project to be viewed as anything other than an environmentally destructive water grab is gone. Wherever large quantities of water are diverted from the estuary, there will be major environmental damage as we have seen from the south Delta diversions. In this drought year, it is obvious there is not enough water in the system to meet species needs and satisfy existing or future water demands. The tunnels, unlike water conservation and other measures that our speakers will be discussing, would not create any new water and would substantially degrade water quality, making it less fishable, swimmable and drinkable. The plan was always a massive water grab, and the silver lining to the new “water Fix” approach is they are at least coming clean. We will see on Friday that the Fix is in for the Sacramento River and the Delta and the state’s environment.
BOB WRIGHT, Friends of the River
“Good morning. I want to talk about three undeniable facts.
First, it is undeniable that the BDCP, now the California Water Fix Drafts failed to include even one alternative increasing SF Bay Delta flows as called for by the EPA last August and the Environmental Water Caucus (EWC) for several years. That’s undeniable. The way to increase flows is to take less water out. That means reduce, not increase, exports.
More than four years ago the National Academy of Sciences saw what the BDCP agencies were up to and declared in reviewing the draft BDCP that: “choosing the alternative project before evaluating alternative ways to reach a preferred outcome would be post hoc rationalization— in other words, putting the cart before the horse. Scientific reasons for not considering alternative actions are not presented in the plan.” Absolutely nothing has changed. All their so-called alternatives are just the same project dressed in different outfits.
This bad faith suppression of alternatives reducing exports has always been calculated to stack the deck in favor of the water tunnels and against reducing exports since no other alternatives are presented to the public for consideration.
Now, the governor has told people who don’t want the tunnels to shut up. The only people he wants talking are himself, his appointees, and the consultants raking in enormous sums of money to spin the tunnels to a wary public. That’s why we’re here this morning, to get that other side of the story out there.
Second, after the Drafts were released in December of 2013 for public review, the BDCP website was closed to the posting of comments. That also is an undeniable fact, you can see that just by going to the BDCP website and the California Water Fix website. The BDCP agencies have tried to keep the public in the dark about alternatives and contrary information.
We at Friends of the River have obtained copies of the BDCP comments by organizations and public agencies under the Freedom of Information Act and posted them at www.friendsoftheriver.org/bdcpcomments and that’s regardless of whether the particular comments oppose or favor the Water Tunnels and that is the American way. That’s what the government should have done. They didn’t; we had to do it for them.
The deliberate suppression of alternatives reducing exports, coupled with the suppression of independent comments from the BDCP and now the California Water Fix websites, is calculated to deceive the public about the adverse environmental effects and enormous costs of the water tunnels.
Third, now the BDCP agencies have taken a full year to prepare 8,000 more Water Fix pages to add to the 40,000 pages of tunnels advocacy they issued back in December of 2013. They are only giving the public 45 days to comment on all those pages that they have done. When you add together their failure to ever put forth even one alternative increasing Delta flows, their hiding comments giving the other side of the story from the public, and now their ridiculous short comment period, you can get the picture. They are engaged in a bad faith rush to cram a costly awful project down the throats of California taxpayers and ratepayers.
We hope the folks out there will apply their common sense and life experience. The special interests trying to take the water and their political minions are not stupid. They have reasons to hide alternatives and contrary information. They are afraid of the truth—that is why all tricksters in all scams try to hide the truth and rush their target victims. The Water Fix tunnels are a huge, expensive, damaging boondoggle and they always have been.
BILL JENNINGS, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
“Good morning, all. This 4th of July I noticed that 30% more water was flowing under the Pohono Bridge in Yosemite Valley than was flowing down the San Joaquin River as it entered the Delta. When one of California’s great rivers can be reduced to a rivulet, it speaks volumes about state priorities.
As Santayana observed, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and the past actions of tunnel proponents are likely indicators of their future actions.
More than 4 decades after passage of the federal and state clean water and endangered species acts, more than 40,000 miles of California waterways are so polluted they cannot support identified beneficial uses, and 83% of California’s freshwater fishes are either extinct or at risk of becoming so.
More than a century following codification of our present water rights system, California is in the midst of a water supply crisis. And all of these things could have been largely prevented or greatly minimized had we but complied with the laws and regulations we enacted. We pass laws and then ignore and mock them. And subsequently complain about the consequences.
Between 1967 and last winter, the Delta’s pelagic species; striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin, American shad, splittail and threadfin declined by 99.7, 97.8, 99.9, 91.9, 98.5 and 97.8 percent, respectively. So far this year, all of the surveys and trawls reveal further catastrophic declines. For some species like Delta smelt, we can name the survivors rather than count them. In fact, the recently released Townet Survey Index for Delta smelt was the lowest in history: 0.0. And the latest 20-‐mm Survey found only a single smelt in 135 trawls at 45 locations throughout the Delta.
Since 1967, in-‐river natural production of Sacramento River winter-‐run, spring-‐run and fall-‐run Chinook salmon have decline by 98.2, 99.3 and 92.1 percent, respectively, far below the doubling levels mandated by state and federal law.
Last year, relaxation of temperature compliance in the upper Sacramento led to the loss of 95% of winter-‐run, 98% of fall-‐run and virtually all of the spring-‐run year classes.
Examining the data, comparable losses can be expected this year.
The present Bay-‐Delta standards were developed 20 years ago following a severe 5-‐year drought. Explicit standards were established for critical years – recognizing that fish would suffer.
In the initial years of the present, like previous droughts, the Projects delivered near normal water supplies thereby drawing down reservoirs to dangerously low levels. In 2013, a dry year, the State Water Board allowed the Projects to operate to critical year standards. In both 2014 and 2015, the Board simply tossed the critical year standards in the trash bin.
According to the Board’s statistics, this year it reduced water to protect Delta fisheries and agriculture by 78%, while increasing water for exports by 46%.
Nothing has occurred during this present drought that hasn’t been repeated ad nauseam during previous droughts. The exception being that fisheries are not simply facing declines: they’re now facing extinction. Fallowed fields can be replanted after the drought: extinct fisheries are forever lost.
Suffice it to say that fisheries, public trust resources and Delta farmers have grievously through the habitual refusal to enforce and comply with minimal water quality standards – drought or not. And reductions of millions of acre-‐feet of water diverted under the Delta will dramatically exacerbate existing conditions.
Given the history of the last four decades, any promises or assurances that the Governor or California Water Fix can provide aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Thank you.”
BARBARA BARRIGAN-PARILLA, Restore the Delta
“Much in the same way that bad decisions are being made by the State Water Resources Control Board regarding water quality and quantity protections for the Delta during this extended drought, Federal bill H.R. 2898, the Western Water and American Food Security Act proposes to maximize water exports from the San Francisco Bay-‐Delta Estuary and Northern California watersheds, in addition to further weakening regulations for endangered fish species. In effect, what we have presently is a State and Federal end-‐run around water quality standards during drought. This truly foreshadows what will happen to the Delta if the tunnels are built.
Just to name a few of the problems with HR 2898 for the Delta, this legislation does nothing to provide drought relief for our region or for 55 of California’s counties. It makes water winners, the big agricultural water districts on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, and losers by sacrificing water quality for Delta farmers, farms which worth $5.2 billion annually to the state’s economy. It also sacrifices the 4 million people living in Delta communities where invasive plant species and algal blooms are exploding in our waterways, and for Bay Area and coastal fishing dependent economies.
HR 2898 will almost certainly result in the extinction of the endangered Delta smelt in its native habitat and accelerate the already precipitous decline of the Central Valley’s wild salmon and steelhead towards extinction. It will draw down limited water reserves needed in reservoirs throughout California during the upcoming fire season. And it will do nothing to create drought relief for the Sierras, for Northern California farms and communities, or for Northern California municipalities dependent on drinking water from Central Valley rim reservoirs.
HR 2898 is truly the product of Westlands and Metropolitan water districts’ deep pockets and extensive lobbying efforts. The bill unnecessarily expedites feasibility studies, environmental reviews, and permitting for projects that will likely result in decisions not in the interest of taxpayers and the general public, again benefitting special interest growers and water wholesalers while providing little water security for other regions of the state. It is nothing more than the shifting of public wealth and health to Westlands, Kern County Water Agency, and Metropolitan Water District in the form of water currency.
Here are just a few of the egregious technical provisions for HR 2898. It includes complex technical direction for Delta water flows, upstream dam project operations, and Delta smelt incidental take calculations for which Congress has neither the expertise nor authority to undertake. Second, it’s going to result in the mandating of impossibly short deadlines for endangered species consultation, emergency environmental review and permitting, and it’s going to expedite water transfers that will result in poor decisions, unacceptable environmental impacts, and increased litigation.
Three, HR 2898 would allow all the fresh water inflow from the San Joaquin River to be exported in April-‐May, which will further degrade Delta water quality, and expand water transfers well into the spring and fall, when threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead are most sensitive to modified flows.
Fourth, overturning a significant public investment in the legally and legislatively mandated goal of restoring salmon in the San Joaquin River in favor of an undefined “warm water fishery.” To learn more you can find a broad sign-on opposition letter posted at Friends of the River’s website.
To conclude: As with Governor Brown’s charge for the Delta tunnels plan, and the gutting of Delta water quality standards by the State Water Resources Control, Congressional Representatives put into Congress by the big ag special interest water districts at the south end of the San Joaquin Valley are leading the effort to sacrifice the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas and California’s largest watershed for an industrial ag economy that contributes 0.3% to the state’s GDP.
Clearly, SJ Valley Congressional leadership working with Senator Feinstein to push this bill through to protect almond exports to China and other unsustainable crops shows that they champion the notion of wringing every last drop of water out of the Delta. In other words, when it comes to California water such leadership shows by its actions that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Thank you.
CONNOR EVERTS, Environmental Water Caucus
“Historic drought has proved again that people save water, not agencies. There’s been an unprecedented demand in Southern California, which by the way only gets 30% of its water from the State Water Project, for conservation programs. Metropolitan Water District, the large wholesaler, backfilled the demand for both turf and conservation programs three weeks ago; all of that money has already been allocated. This is unheard of. In the past, they barely used their $19 million budget, but in both 2009 and this year, demand has exceeded available money. They are now going to have to make a tough decision. Do we invest more and serve our constituents and customers with conservation programs that are working and an immediate response for the drought, or do we invest in a far away project that is speculative at best, and proves that there’s no water to come from it in the future.
So when people hear these decisions, they are quite clear. They are taking it into their own hands now to deal with the drought, and make permanent changes. So water demand has remained flat across California with increased population and in LA specifically, 1.4 million more people since 1978, and water demand has now gone down 25%. Statewide, we are required by SB 7×7, the bill that came out in 2009 as part of a whole package, reduce 20% by 2020. Now the Governor has called for another 25%. We’re going to reduce demand to levels on an urban level, than we don’t need these huge centralized solutions from the last century. We need decentralized, local solutions like Australia and others have where they’ve dropped their demand to a fraction of what we use now statewide, and that’s happening. It’s already happening. We’re seeing it in the numbers that are coming out from the state on a monthly basis because it’s the first time we’re really recording.
The other thing we’re seeing on an urban level is that people are not satisfied with water just going to one sector, large ag and not to even local agriculture. We are surviving with local agriculture using urban rates and recycled water, so the things we really need to invest in, the things we need to invest in first are the these local cost-effective environmentally beneficial solutions, and we’re doing that.
The LADWP today has announced a huge multibillion dollar rate increase really in face of infrastructure problems they’ve been having and it’s gotten a lot of notoriety, especially when it was in the Bel Air neighborhood, a nice neighborhood above UCLA. Other mains and trunk mains are the focus now on what to fix. So statewide, that’s about 10% we have in system losses; in many areas it’s much higher. Why put the energy in, embed the energy, pump the water over the Tehachapi Mountains, which is the single largest use of energy in the West, only to lose it in the old pipes, so those are the things we need to do first, those are the jobs we can provide locally. We still depend on other sources of water, but there are places in Southern California, including Mesa Consolidated in Orange County by using their groundwater, Santa Monica where I live that’s becoming independent of imported water by 2020 are examples of the direction that we’re going.
So those are the things people want, not necessarily agencies, not necessarily the big agencies that don’t carry the capital costs because they wholesale it on to the local retail cities and counties and small agencies, often where people don’t even have a vote or a voice in it, so we want to give people a voice, and people are speaking.
Thank you very much.
For more information …
Click here for Restore the Delta’s press release.
Prepared statements:
- Osha Meserve Statement
- Bob Wright statement
- Bill Jennings Statement
- Barbara Statement
- Conner Everts statement
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