[env-trinity] Oakland Tribune Editorial: Brown’s plan just a huge water grab

[Tom Stokely]

http://oaklandtribune.ca.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=103b4b3de
  Oakland Tribune | Page A09Tuesday, 5 May 2015Brown’s plan just a huge water grab Gov. Jerry Brown has abandoned any pretense that his massive Delta twin-tunnel project could benefit the environment, leaving it simply as one of the biggest water grabs instate history.Having failed to convincefederal agencies thathis plan would improve the Delta’s health, Brown dropped the $8 billion, 50-year environmental component of the tunnel project. Salvaging the ecology of the largest estuary west of the Mississippi is officially off the table.Making matters worse, what’s now touted as a $17 billion project could move forward without the approval of the Legislature or California voters by simply increasing property taxes and water rates by fiat. It’sjust wrong. The Zone 7 and Alameda County water districts in the East Bay and the Santa Clara Valley Water District have all helped finance the studies and could help fund the project itself. They should ask voters before considering putting ratepayers and property owners on the hook for part of the cost.These districts shouldn’t be parties to the Delta’s destruction. Brown dropped the environmental component of the project because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies told him they wouldn’t grant California the 50-year permits for Delta restoration work.The state couldn’t prove that the plan would benefit endangered fish andwildlife. We’re not surprised.The only way to improvethe health of the Delta is by pouring more — not less — water through. The feds essentially repeated what Brown had already heard in 2011 from a comprehensive report by the National Academy of Sciences.To understand what the Delta plan is really about, keep your eye on Stewart Resnick, the billionaire ag king who runs one of the largest farming operations in the nation. While Brown is forcing Californians to reduce water use by 25 percent during the drought, Resnick recently announced plans for a huge expansion of his almond and pistachio acreage, among the most profitable but also thirstiestcrops.Ten percent of thestate’s available water already goes to almond orchards, roughly half the amount used by California’s entire urban population. It takes a gallon of water to grow every almond harvested in California’s Central Valley. The twin-tunnel project would enable Resnick and other almond and pistachio mega-growers to further profit at the expense of urban ratepayers.Brown should instead focus on increasing recycling and reuse, and helping districts that are eager to purify wastewater for drinking. He should help farmers install more efficient irrigation and work to restore groundwater supplies to stop the land from subsiding. These strategies aim for sustaining a society, economy and environment without sacrificing one for the other.

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