Like not bringing supply and demand into balance. Several fundamental misconceptions underlie the Delta Conveyance, Barrigan Parilla said. New management may have something to do with this shift. She called the Delta Conveyance “important but, “… (W)e are trying to shift our reliance on imported water as quickly as possible with new local supplies and greater local conservation.”Īlmost as if the Met has realized it’s not the best solution and they can’t count on it anyway and they are moving on. Gray, chairwoman of Metropolitan’s Board of Directors, issued another less-than-rapturous statement. “Now is a learning moment to review this proposal,” hemmed and hawed Adel Hagekhalil, the agency’s general manager. Interestingly, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a Goliath with 19 million water users, was uncharacteristically tepid. “The proposed Delta Conveyance Project is a key climate adaptation strategy that would ensure the SWP can capture, move and store water when it is available for the 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland that depend on it,” the State Water Contractors said in a statement. Habitat restoration can have a lot of benefits, but it cannot substitute for adequate flows for longfin smelt or salmon.”įish need water. “DWR tries to wave that all away with magical thinking with tidal marsh restoration. Piping water under the Delta would fix things, proponents say.īackers also claim the harmful effects of taking even more water can be mitigated by restoring habitat. Farmers and cities can’t get all the water they want. Now, as extinctions loom, courts and regulators have slapped restrictions on pumping. The pumps are so strong they reverse the flow of rivers and confuse or “entrain” (grind up) migrating fish. The problem the Delta Conveyance purports to solve involves two giant pumping stations in the south Delta near Tracy. “Bill” Jones Pumping Plant, located nine miles northwest of Tracy. Restore the Delta estimates the tunnel will take 300,000 to 500,000 acre feet more a year than presently.īesides, for decades, California governors have used emergency authority given them by the state constitution to ignore environmental restrictions and allow the pumps to keep sucking water. “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. Feature Photo: The Sacramento River near Freeport, site of the intakes for the proposed Delta Conveyance.
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