A large group of environmental and fishing organizations have sent a letter to Department of Water Resources, saying that the environmental impact review for the State Water Project Contract Extension should be revised due to substantial changes in circumstances since the original EIR was prepared in 2016.
Signatories to the letter include the Planning and Conservation League, AquAlliance, Center for Biological Diversity, California Water Impact Network, Restore the Delta, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and many others.
Specifically, the letter alleges:
- Numerous changes in project conditions and information, including the major costs incurred associated with the repairs to the Oroville Dam spillway; the Bureau of Reclamation instigating a renegotiation of the Coordinated Operation Agreement (COA) contract through which the State Water Project and Central Valley Project are operated; and numerous other allegations;
- All the costs, finance charges, terms, conditions, and debt are not disclosed;
- The potential effects of climate change on the viability of extended contracts;
- Lack of public participation in newly created SWP Contractors’ Finance Committee;
- The shifting of recreation and wildlife operations and maintenance costs to the General Fund jeopardizes required mitigation; and
- Pre-judging CEQA is not legal.
“Proceeding to certify the EIR and make a final project decision after reviewing only long-closed comments on the outmoded 2016 DEIR would violate the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Public Resources Code § 21000 et seq,” states the letter.
“All of these events will have significant impacts on the operations of the State Water Project, its contract revenues and associated construction and environmental mitigation. Further these events also have significant impacts on the existing mitigation of adverse impacts from the SWP operations and, hence, “will require major revisions in the environmental impact report.” (Pub. Resources Code, § 21166.) Because the DEIR fails to address any of these events and any of these impacts, the DEIR must be set aside and substantially redrafted and re-circulated to address them.”
Read the full letter here: PCL et. al. SWP Contract Extension Amds Additional Cmts 9-25-18-1
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