[env-trinity] Press Release: Legislators call for immediate halt to Delta tunnels plan

[Tom Stokely]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                           CONTACT:
April 26, 2012                                                                                                                                                               Melissa Jones
                                                                                                                                                                                         (916) 651-4003
 
Legislators call for immediate halt to Delta tunnels plan 
Top administrator admits tunnels won’t save the Delta
              
SACRAMENTO—Amid calls from California's Congressional delegation for the resignation of Governor Brown's leader of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build two massive tunnels beneath the Delta, state legislators today asked for an immediate halt to all efforts to implement the project to export more Northern California water south under the guise of saving the imperiled Delta.
 
While speaking with Tom Stokely of the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) at a meeting with Northern California's Native American Tribes on Monday, April 15, Natural Resources Agency Deputy Director Jerry Meral said, "BDCP is not about, and has never been about saving the Delta. The Delta cannot be saved."
 
In response, the following statement was signed by Senators Lois Wolk (D-Davis), Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett (D-East Bay), and Assembly Members Susan Bonilla (D-Concord), Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), Susan Eggman (D-Stockton), Jim Frazier (D-Oakley), Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), Mariko Yamada (D-Davis):
 
"Recent comments made by the top administrator of the proposed Delta tunnels plan only serve to confirm what many have known for some time, that the poorly named Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is not really designed to save the Delta, but is primarily focused on exporting more water from the North to the South, in clear defiance of the legally mandated co-equal goals that include water supply reliability and Delta restoration, as well as reduced reliance on the Delta.  Dr. Meral's comments, made in a rare moment of candor in a remote location, reveal why northern California communities have been locked out of the development of this plan, and why more thoughtful and affordable alternatives have been repeatedly brushed aside.  Dr. Meral told the truth, and while his resignation may be appropriate, the far bigger problem is the BDCP itself, and the rush to push it through without full public review, legislative approval, or oversight by anyone other than the water contractors behind it.  Accordingly, we state legislators call for an immediate halt and reassessment of the entire BDCP process. It's time to reassert the proper legislative role in the most significant water project proposal of the 21st century."
 
Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis), a vocal opponent of the twin-tunnel plan, added: “This feels like it could be the 47 percent moment for the BDCP, when an off-camera candid comment reveals more about what’s really going on than all the carefully crafted sales pitches before it.  The truth always seems to find a way of getting out.  And when it comes straight from the leader of the project it carries far more weight than when it comes from a critic like me.”
 
###
 
 
Melissa Jones-Ferguson
Senator Lois Wolk
California State Senate – 3rd District
(916)651-4003
(916)323-2304 (Fax)
 

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