[env-trinity] Groups Expose The Big Lie: "There's No Plan B to Delta Tunnels"

[Dan Bacher]

  http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/29/1543745/-Groups-Expose-The-Big-Lie-There-s-No-Plan-B-to-Delta-Tunnels





Governor Jerry Brown greenwashes his image at a climate conference in  
Toronto as he promotes the Delta Tunnels, the most environmentally  
destructive public works projects in California history, along with  
pushing the expansion of fracking and overseeing water policies that  
are driving Delta smelt and salmon closer and closer to extinction,  
Photo Credit: Salvatore Sacco, Canadian Press Images .


Groups Expose The Big Lie: "There's No Plan B to Delta Tunnels"

by Dan Bacher

On June 27,  a coalition of conservation, fishing and environmental  
justice organizations submitted a letter to the Santa Clara Valley  
Water District exposing the “Big Lie” that there is no Plan B to  
Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels, now renamed the California  
WaterFix.

In their letter, Restore the Delta, AquAlliance, California  
Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Water Impact Network,   
Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Environmental Water Caucus,  
Friends of the River, Planning and Conservation League, and Sierra  
Club California revealed that there is indeed a Plan B — a  
comprehensive, well-researched alternative plan to fulfill the dual  
goals of ecosystem restoration and water supply reliability.

“Our public interest organizations write out of concern that once  
again, the Big Lie has been repeated that there is no Plan B to the  
California Water Fix Delta Water Tunnels,” the groups wrote. “In fact,  
there is an outstanding Plan B, and for that matter, other alternative  
plans as well to the Water Tunnels. The self-serving refusal of the  
proponents of the Water Tunnels to listen to or consider alternative  
plans does not mean there is no Plan B.”

“We presume that in many cases such as at your meeting on June 21,  
2016, when Mr. Matt Maltbie  of Californians for Water Security said  
there is no Plan B, the mistake is innocent and is caused by the  
continuing efforts of proponent government agencies to ignore and  
conceal alternatives to the Water Tunnels,” they said.

The groups describe Governor Brown's WaterFix as “the most damaging  
and controversial water project proposal in California history," as  
well as “the most expensive water project proposal in California  
history.”

They also pointed out that the 1970’s version of the Water Tunnels,  
then known as the peripheral canal, was voted down in a statewide  
referendum in June 1982 by a 2 to 1 margin.

“The Tunnels would divert enormous quantities of water from the  
Sacramento River upstream from the Delta near Clarksburg," the letter  
said. “As a result of this massive diversion, the freshwater that  
presently flows through the Sacramento River and sloughs to and  
through the Bay-Delta before being diverted for export at the south  
Delta, would no longer reach the Delta. The benefits of those  
freshwater flows for Delta water flows and water quality, agriculture,  
industry, residents, and fish and fish habitat would be lost, with the  
impacts to humans falling particularly heavily on low-income people of  
color and California Indian Tribes.”

“We presented  A Sustainable Water Plan for California (Environmental  
Water Caucus, May 2015) as a reasonable alternative to the Water  
Tunnels over a year ago. The plan is at: ewccalifornia.org/....  A  
copy of A Sustainable Water Plan for California  is also attached  
hereto," the groups said.

The actions called for by this alternative include:

• reducing exports to no more than 3,000,000 acre-feet in all years in  
keeping with State Water Board Delta flow criteria (for inflow as well  
as outflow);

• water efficiency and demand reduction programs including urban and  
agricultural water conservation, recycling, storm water recapture and  
reuse;

• reinforced levees above PL 84-99 standards;

• installation of improved fish screens at existing Delta pumps;

• elimination of irrigation water applied on up to 1.3 million acres  
of drainage-impaired farmlands south of the Bay-Delta;

• return the Kern Water Bank to State control;

• restore Article 18 urban preference;

• restore the original intent of Article 21 surplus water in SWP  
contracts;

• conduct feasibility study for Tulare Basin water storage;

• provide fish passage above and below Central Valley rim dams for  
species of concern; and

• retain cold water for fish in reservoirs.

“We also requested that the range of reasonable alternatives include  
reducing exports both more and less than the 3,000,000 acre feet limit  
called for by this alternative," the groups wrote. “A Sustainable  
Water Plan for California is a carefully conceived modern, 21st- 
century Plan B. It should be Plan A.”

You can read the entire letter here: restorethedelta.org/…

The letter was sent at a time when the Delta Tunnels Plan is a state  
of chaos, disarray and apparent collapse.

In a major defeat for the California WaterFix, Judge Michael Kenny of  
the Sacramento Superior Court on June 23 ruled that the Delta  
Stewardship Council's Delta Plan is "invalid" after a successful legal  
challenge by multiple Delta parties who argued that the controversial  
plan doesn't protect water quality or the many fish species that  
depend on fresh water flows for their survival.

“The decision throws a large monkey wrench into the administration’s  
‘California WaterFix,’ a massive water conveyance scheme that would  
shunt most of the water from the Sacramento River to Southern  
California via two gigantic subterranean tunnels,” according to a  
press release from the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN). (www.dailykos.com/...)

Background: Jerry Brown's Terrible Environmental Legacy

The Governor's Delta Tunnels/California WaterFix "legacy project"  
poses a huge threat to the ecosystems of the Sacramento, San Joaquin,  
Klamath and Trinity River systems, but it’s not the only  
environmentally devastating policy promoted by Governor Jerry Brown.  
Brown is promoting the expansion of fracking and extreme oil  
extraction methods in California and is overseeing water policies that  
are driving winter run-Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt and  
other species closer and closer to extinction.

Jerry Brown also oversaw the "completion" of so-called “marine  
protected areas” under the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act  
(MLPA) Initiative, overseen by a Big Oil lobbyist and other corporate  
interests, in December 2012. These faux “Yosemites of the Sea” fail to  
protect the ocean from oil drilling, fracking, pollution, corporate  
aquaculture and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable  
fishing and gathering.

As if those examples of Brown’s tainted environmental legacy weren’t  
enough, Brown has promoted carbon trading and REDD policies that pose  
an enormous threat to Indigenous Peoples around the globe; has done  
nothing to stop clearcutting of forests by Sierra-Pacific and other  
timber companies; presided over record water exports from the Delta in  
2011; and oversaw massive fish kills of Sacramento splittail and other  
species in 2011.

Brown spouts "green" rhetoric when he flies off to climate conferences  
and issues proclamations about John Muir Day and Earth Day, but his  
actions and policies regarding fish, water and the environment are  
among the worst of any Governor in recent California history.

For more information about the real environmental record of Governor  
JerryBrown, go to:  www.dailykos.com/…


  
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