Click here to view letter.

Click here to read the letter.

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Contact: Steve Hopcraft (916) 457-5546 steve@hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft;
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla barbara@restorethedelta.org; (209) 479-2053; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta

Consumer, Environmental Advocates Succeed in Passing Cost-Benefit Analysis of Peripheral Canal/Tunnel out of Committee: How Much Would Water Rates Rise? Who Benefits?

Sacramento, CA – Consumer and environmental advocates today succeeded in winning Assembly Water, Parks & Wildlife Comm. approval for an independent cost-benefit analysis before committing the public to pay tens of billions of dollars to build a Peripheral Canal or Tunnel to take Delta water. The committee voted 10 to 2 to pass out AB 2421 (Berryhill). “Urban water users would pay billions of dollars for a massive Peripheral Canal or Tunnel. Those who’ll pay deserve to know how much they’d pay and how much benefit would go to those ratepayers,” Conner Everts, Executive Director of Southern California Watershed Alliance, told the committee. “There are numerous references to studies, but not one would require a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis.” Restore the Delta, Sierra Club California, the Planning & Conservation League, Clean Water Action, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Delta Coalition and Ducks Unlimited joined in the call for an independent cost-benefit analysis.

Kristin Lynch, Pacific Region Director of Food & Water Watch, told the committee, “It’s essential to have an independent analysis of who pays and who benefits before embarking on the largest public works project in the history of California. The BDCP could create a large potential financial exposure for the people of California. The people deserve to know the true cost they are taking on.”

These are photos of a dual-tunnel conveyance system now being built at the Yangtze River in China. This is the format being considered for the Delta. Note the environmental footprint and damage.

*Photo Credit: Burt Wilson

Special to The Bee
By Huey D. Johnson
Published Sunday, Apr. 01, 2012
Click here to read online.

Once upon a time, when I was Gov. Jerry Brown’s Resources secretary, his office was all about the moon; now it’s narrow economics that have taken over. While the governor deserves being seen as a good leader with a tough fiscal burden, it is no excuse to let the environment go down the drain. Our precious resource assets include forests, parks, air and soil, to name a few factors that make California a world-class place to live. No issue is as important as water for the future of our state.

The governor’s failure to make appointments robs the public of progressive management of our resources. There is not even a director of Water Resources and there are far too many vacancies across numerous departments to list here. If Brown had a strong, informed environment adviser in his office he could catch up and complete all the appointments in two hours.

There are a number of issues showing decline. The Department of Parks is especially off kilter. The director, a Schwarzenegger appointment, is trying to turn over some public parkland to double the size of a golf course at Lake Tahoe. Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs is the likely developer.

What’s the huge issue threatening California’s future quality of life and survival? Water, of course, the basis of life. For a state that has been so progressive, the antiquated, corrupt water matters are unbelievable.

An environmental governor would keep these tenets close:

• You can’t manage what you don’t know.

• Don’t give things away before you know how much you own.

• When you know what you have, make sensible decisions.

So before we send more water south or any place, the governor’s first step is to get the information that’s needed – statewide.

Californians should be concerned by history’s examples of the collapse of desert nations over a lack of water planning. The end of the ancient Roman Empire is a start.

Tracking forward to today, the recent events in Egypt and other Arab Spring nations show that political leaders who ignore the limits of water and the impact of doubling populations lose. In Egypt, the revolution is too glibly seen as a youthful surge toward democracy, when water shortages led to grain shortages – which led to hunger and thirst.

Could the same thing happen to California? Yes. In addition to dire climate change predictions, there are already uncomfortable indicators of an unsteady future.

The former environmental Gov. Brown is following the same path. As with Egypt, California’s population has doubled since Brown was last governor, from 18 million in 1975 to 37 million now. Sacramento ignores population growth at our peril.

Here at home, rivers are drying out. But the politically powerful continue to get valuable public water for free. While that version of water management worked in his father’s time when we had lots of water, now is different. The new millions use water and millions more are coming. I believe we are out of water and desperately need to be able to manage what we have well.

Which brings me to the peripheral pipe. Some say “peripheral canal” and “conveyance,” but I prefer “pipe.” California’s governor should be aware that any leader who is behind the new peripheral pipe and its likely $30 billion cost – without knowing how much water can safely be involved or where it is – will in time be open to accusations of corruption. Here’s something to ponder: two of George W. Bush’s former top water experts are highly paid executives in the state’s largest water district, which is the primary backer of the peripheral pipe.

If Brown continues to avoid managing water, he should openly concede to special interests and name the peripheral pipe after a major donor from whom he and Sen. Dianne Feinstein have gotten a lot of money. Stewart Resnick is a good choice. I suggest naming it with their initials, FRB, or better, the For Rent By Owner peripheral pipe. It’s reported that Resnick gave more than $350,000 to Gray Davis, a lot to Feinstein and thousands to Brown. Such contributions may be a reason to keep the taxpayers out of the debate.

I hope the governor stops cutting ribbons and catches up on the environment by getting the information we need to manage our resources. Otherwise the governor is reduced to being a waiter, ready for the boys in the back room to order another round. They run government, after all.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is a sham and a complete farce. It was written by the water exporters for the benefit of the water exporters. There is virtually no support from the real science community for this patiently absurd document. The BDCP process has been a total manipulation by the water exporters from the start. If we allow this fraud to go forward, we can kiss all of our anadromous fisheries that use the San Joaquin, Sacramento River systems good bye.

The worst part of this scam is that there will be NO CONSEQUENCES to the exporters for destroying our fisheries, Nada, None! They will have 50 years to make sure every last salmon run, steelhead run and all of the non-native game fish are all gone! Your grand-children will never know the Delta and its river tributaries nor the fisheries that once thrived in them.

The first indicator that this was the intended result, was the 3:00 AM passage of the water bills by our legislature several years ago. The second indicator was that two diametrically opposed out-comes were called “co-equal” goals. By what twisted logic could one conclude that “restoring habitat” and “exporting evermore” water from an aquatic Ecosystem that’s been devastated by too much water already being exported, could or would be “co-equal” goals. Kill the Bay Delta “Conservation” Plan now!

Posted by Mike McKenzie on 2012-03-28 14:29:37 in reply to Bay
Delta Plan funds Striper Removal posted by Ben Fishin on 2012-
03-28 02:47:10 Click here to read online.

Viewpoints: Levee upgrades offer protection at far lower cost

Special to The Bee, click here to read online.

By Jeffrey Michael and Robert Pyke
Published Sunday, Mar. 25, 2012

Several new reports on the condition of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta levee system, the economic value protected by the levees and the consequences of levee failures create an opportunity to rethink what it means to “fix” the Delta.

Seismic upgrades to most lowland Delta levees would protect water supplies for a fraction of the cost of a tunnel or canal to transfer water to the Central Valley and Southern California.

Upgraded, wide levees would also improve habitat by supporting appropriate vegetation. These improved levees, combined with expanded flood bypasses, would create a cost-effective, eco-friendly flood control system in the Delta.

In addition, fat seismic-resistant levees would help save lives in an emergency and protect other critical transportation and energy infrastructure that is overlooked in many discussions regarding the Delta.

The Delta Protection Commission recently completed an economic sustainability plan, as required by the 2009 Delta Reform Act. The plan found that Delta levees need significant new investment, but also found that the levee system is in far better condition than typically portrayed.

Several hundred million dollars have been invested by the state and local reclamation districts in improving Delta levees, and the performance of the system has significantly improved as a result. New maps and a new technical report from the state Department of Water Resources confirm the improved condition and performance of the levees.

This is in stark contrast to most news reports about the levees, which describe them as fragile, aging and deteriorating, and say their inevitable collapse will lead to a catastrophic loss in water supplies to Central Valley farms and Southern California.

According to this narrative, the best approach is to secure water supplies by building a peripheral canal or tunnel through the Delta, and that many levees should be allowed to fail or be removed as part of restoring the Delta ecosystem. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan follows this reasoning.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan’s direct costs exceed $23 billion, not including interest and the cost to the Delta community. Despite its enormous cost, the plan does nothing to improve public safety and protect human lives, or guard against the most important economic consequences of a much feared earthquake-induced levee collapse.

The Delta Risk Management Strategy Phase 2 report was released by the Department of Water Resources in 2011 and found that disruption of water exports was only 20 percent of the economic loss from a large Delta earthquake, less than 2 percent of the loss from smaller, more common flood events, and zero percent of the loss of life from all Delta flood hazards.

Far greater economic losses would come from the loss of highways and railroads, homes and businesses, flood damage to energy infrastructure such as gas wells, pipelines and inter-regional electricity transmission lines, in-Delta crop losses and wastewater treatment plants and regional water supplies. Many of these economic disruptions would continue long after salt water was flushed out of the Delta and water exports to Southern California restored.

All of these impacts, including water export disruptions, would be substantially reduced by seismic levee upgrades in the Delta. That is why the risk management strategy Phase 2 report found levee upgrades had the highest benefit-cost ratio of Delta risk-reduction scenarios, including a peripheral canal that was assumed to cost one-third of the current estimate of $14 billion.

Rather than directing tens of billions of dollars to protecting against one part of the economic loss from a low-probability Delta disaster, it makes far more economic sense to invest an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion on improved levees that provide multiple economic and environmental benefits, and would save lives in a disaster.

Although the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is evaluating other alternatives, it is not currently examining seismic-levee upgrades as a component of an overall solution that would achieve the co-equal goals of ecosystem restoration and reliable water supply that are called for in the 2009 legislation.

Some critics label further levee investments as a “preservation of the status quo” approach. But the type of levees recommended in the economic sustainability plan would transform the Delta into a place with robust flood protection and dramatic environmental improvements along scenic tree-lined channels that provide improved habitat while boosting recreation and tourism in the Delta for all Californians.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Salmon Water Now: Myth or Fact? Westlands & Reality
Pinocchio at the BDCP hearing?
by Dan Bacher

Bruce Tokars of Salmon Water Now has released the latest video, “Myth or Fact? Westlands & Reality” (3:01), covering the bizarre reality of the California Water Wars – and the deceptive campaign by corporate agribusiness, southern California water agencies and the Brown and Obama administrations to build the peripheral canal.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgWFyhPtJTs&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/38798199

Delta pipe’s impact on water bills could sink plan

Wyatt Buchanan
Monday, March 19, 2012
SF Chronicle

Click here to view release.

Sacramento –

Of all the unanswered questions about a plan that could result in a giant pipeline to move water out of the Sacramento River, and under the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, perhaps the biggest is how high Californians’ water bills will rise.

The answer to that question could doom the project, though no one knows for sure when that answer will come.

Such uncertainty has some water experts concerned about the fate of the years-long process that is expected to result in a final proposal later this year. Others say ratepayers may revolt once the costs are revealed.

“If you were going to hire an architect to design a house for you … that architect would ask you a very fundamental question before he got out that pencil and ruler: How much can you afford?” said Dennis Cushman, assistant general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, the urban water agency that receives the most delta water.

“That is the fundamental question that has not been asked in the process: How much can ratepayers afford?” he said.

According to initial documents released for the water proposal known as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, building two large tunnels under the delta to move water at up to 15,000 cubic feet per second would cost nearly $17 billion.

That cost includes both the construction of the project and the cost to operate and maintain it for 50 years. Including interest on the bonds for the project, the total construction cost would near $40 billion.

Farmers, residents to pay

The bill would be paid entirely by urban residents and farmers who use the water – residents and farmers in the Central Valley and Southern California and parts of Alameda and Santa Clara counties.

Determining just how much that expense would push up the price of water depends on a host of factors that have yet to be decided. Those include not only which project is chosen, but also how much water can actually be taken from the delta. The state has not yet decided on how or if it will bypass the delta, but Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration will declare a “preferred alternative” this summer that many believe will be the large tunnels.

If there is a massive construction project that results in less water than estimated, the price of the water will rise even more.

Costs differ by agency

Costs will also differ by individual water agencies. For instance, some agencies have to spend significant amounts of money to treat water that comes from the north. The tunnel proposal would take water from the Sacramento River before it flows through the delta, which is expected to result in better quality water and lessen treatment expenses.

Officials at the Department of Water Resources said that their rough estimate of increased costs would amount to between $100 and $150 per acre foot of water. An acre foot is the amount of water covering 1 acre to a depth of 1 foot.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which includes 26 cities and agencies that supply water to 19 million people including in San Diego, is using a preliminary estimate that the price paid for water would increase by $150 per acre foot. Ratepayers would be looking at a 15 percent increase in water rates, said Roger Patterson, assistant general manager of Metropolitan.

The association of 29 water agencies, including Metropolitan, that receive water from the State Water Project – which provides water to half of all Californians – should be able to afford the cost of the project, even if the price tag increases, said Terry Erlewine, general manager of the association.

Those agencies will likely split the cost based on how much water they receive, and then it would be up to the boards of the agencies to decide how the cost would be passed on to ratepayers in different cities.

But while urban users may be able to afford the yet to be determined price increases, agricultural water users may not. The price of water could more than double for farmers, though it is too soon to know how high the increase would go, said Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District, which covers 600,000 acres serving about 600 farms.

‘Breaking point’

“There is a breaking point at which the project is no longer feasible,” Birmingham said. “It’s a significant concern,” though he said officials can’t evaluate the cost effectiveness until the outstanding questions are resolved.

“It’s a classic catch-22. The conundrum is you don’t know what project to implement until you know the cost, but you don’t know the cost until the project is implemented,” Birmingham said.

The unknowns also are drawing the attention of lawmakers. Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, R-Ceres (Stanislaus County), has introduced a bill to mandate a cost-benefit analysis that he hopes would state clearly how much water rates would increase by constructing the large project.

Berryhill, who also is a farmer, said he has heard estimates that the cost of water could increase by as much as $1,500 per acre foot and said he doesn’t trust figures from state departments or water agencies that want the project. He said he opposes the tunnel project and thinks an independent evaluation of costs would stop it from happening.

“We’re trying to push it over a cliff by shining a light,” Berryhill said. “We don’t want another bullet train fiasco where the costs go up and up and up and you can’t afford it.”

The calculation method for determining the cost of the project also is facing criticism.

Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, said a more accurate measure of the cost should be based on calculating how much more water would come from the large project versus what is pumped today.

Cost of water will increase

State officials estimate the increase would be about 1.2 million acre feet per year, which Michael said puts the cost at more than $1,000 per acre foot. Still, he said most urban users probably won’t see an unaffordable water bill, but he said the money would be better spent tapping into groundwater supplies and increasing water recycling and desalination.

“For a similar increase in their rates they could receive water from local sources,” he said. As for farmers, Michael said the tunnel plan does not make economic sense.

But state water officials and water agencies that receive the delta water argue that reliability is key and thus the increases in water costs should be determined using the full amount that would be delivered.

Also, they said, no matter what happens – whether the large project is built, nothing is built, or something in between is approved – the cost of water will increase. And, if the biggest project is approved, individual agencies will inform ratepayers of potential cost increases before agreeing to fund it, said Richard Stapler, spokesman for the California Resources Agency.

He said increased costs are not going to “slip through in the night.”

By Ann Johnston
Mayor of Stockton, Delta Coalition leader

Click here to view media release.

How is it possible to restore the Delta by taking millions of acre-feet of water out of it each year? That is exactly what the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) proposes to do.

The Delta Coalition, a group of private businesses, local governments, environmental advocates, farmers and fishermen, are united in opposing any plan that would take millions of acre-feet of water out of the Delta every year and send it directly to multinational corporate agribusiness by a peripheral canal or tunnel.  We have lost millions of acre-feet of water in recent decades, and that is why our Delta is so fragile now.

The Delta Coalition is working to provide balance and identify the best ways to preserve the environment and economy of the Delta while enhancing the habitat and providing a reliable water source. Our communities see the federal and state governments poised to repeat the mistakes and misappropriations of the past. The Delta has no ‘surplus’ water, and our fish and farms are already suffering. Our urban water districts are working hard to conserve water, and take just a small percentage of the Delta water.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan supports the top 1% of multinational corporate agribusiness, which has been draining the Delta to raise crops such as almonds and cotton for export to China and India, not to feed America as they claim. The BDCP seeks to trade the livelihoods of sixth-generation family farmers operating small businesses for those of corporate agriculture tycoons. The top 1% of agriculture is pushing a plan that robs everyone to enrich themselves.

All factors that will impact the Delta and our economy need to be evaluated before any decisions can be made. Our levees need to be restored instead of spending billions of water district ratepayer dollars on an alternative – a tunnel or canal. A reasonable levee restoration effort and a water-sharing plan should be developed to benefit all Californians, not just a few huge growers.

Ensure “reliable water supplies”

Agriculture is the life-blood of the Delta, with nearly 80% of all farmland classified as prime agricultural land. Water is the life-blood of agriculture. Preserving and enhancing the Delta’s agricultural industry is vital to the region, the state, and the nation. In calculating value-added manufacturing, the statewide impact of Delta agriculture is about 25,000 jobs, nearly $5.4 billion in economic output and over $2 billion in economic value.

The Delta Coalition opposes the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and the Delta Stewardship Council’s (DSC) implementation of the enabling legislation (2009 Delta Water Package) regarding the Delta Plan. It’s time to admit the mistakes of the past, not repeat them.