<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "> <font class="Apple-style-span" color="#1d1d1d"><a href="http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/03/29/groups-ask-water-board-to-dismiss-delta-tunnels-petition/">http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/03/29/groups-ask-water-board-to-dismiss-delta-tunnels-petition/</a> <br></font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#1d1d1d"><br></font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#1d1d1d"><br></font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'" size="6" color="#1d1d1d"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px; ">Groups Ask Water Board to Dismiss Delta Tunnels Petition</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" size="4" color="#1d1d1d"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" size="4" color="#1d1d1d"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">by Dan Bacher</span></font></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#1d1d1d"><br></font></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#1d1d1d"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" size="4">The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and U.S. Department of Interior yesterday called for a delay in a scheduled hearing on their petition to divert water under the California Water Fix - the second time they have asked that the proceedings be delayed because they aren't ready to present their case. </font><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">Today, representatives of 9 environmental, farming and fishing groups sent a letter to Tam Doduc and Felicia Marcus of the State Water Resources Control Board requesting them to dismiss the petition.</p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">Those signing the letter include Jonas Minton, Planning and Conservation League; Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance; Colin Bailey, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water; Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta; Conner Everts, Environmental Water Caucus; Osha Meserve, Local Agencies of the North Delta; Tim Stroshane, Restore the Delta; E. Robert Wright, Friends of the River; Carolee Krieger, California Water Impact Network; and Kyle Jones, Sierra Club California.</p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">"Each time the Hearing Officers accommodate the Petitioners delay requests with more time, more Board staff and protestant time and financial resources are taken, and hundreds of people’s schedules are impacted," the letter states. "We believe there are much better uses of everyone’s time, such as spending the necessary time to update the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan to adequately protect current beneficial uses."</p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; "><em style="font-style: italic; ">"Among other deficiencies, the Change Petition: (1) does not adequately describe the changes sought; (2) fails to attempt to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that the change will not injure any other legal user of water; and (3) fails to describe the extent of impacts to fish and wildlife. As a result of these and other deficiencies, the full nature and extent of injuries to legal users of water and significant adverse impacts to fish and wildlife uses have not been identified and analyzed," according to the letter.</em></p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">The group representatives concluded the letter by requesting that the Hearing Officers dismiss the Petition until a "complete petition" is submitted pursuant to Water Code section 1701.2 and Title 23 of the California Code of Regulations section 794, among other requirements.</p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">Governor Jerry Brown’s California Water Fix to Build the Delta Tunnels, a controversial plan to divert Sacramento River water to corporate agribusiness interests, Southern California water agencies, and oil companies conducting fracking and extreme oil extraction methods, is “broken” and in “chaos.”</p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">That’s the assessment of a coalition of fishing, environmental and farming groups, including Restore the Delta, the Planning and Conservation League, the Local Agencies of the North Delta and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), as pointed out in a joint news release on March 28. (<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/29/1507594/-Jerry-Brown-s-Delta-Tunnels-Plan-Is-Collapsing">http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/29/1507594/-Jerry-Brown-s-Delta-Tunnels-Plan-Is-Collapsing</a>)</p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">Besides the difficulty the petitioners face in obtaining their permit to divert water from the Sacramento River before reaching the Delta under the California Water Fix, the rapidly collapsing Delta Tunnels scheme faces another major hurdle when the terminally flawed “science” of the California Water Fix will face independent review by a scientific panel convened at the request of NOAA Fisheries on April 5-6.</p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">It is very likely that the independent review panel will give a failing grade to the “science” concocted to justify the Delta Tunnels Plan, just like US EPA scientists did last year — and just as every panel of state, federal and independent scientists has done previously. For more information, go to: <a href="http://deltastewardshipcouncil.cmail20.com/t/r-l-eilhktl-ffpjrf-d/">http://deltastewardshipcouncil.cmail20.com/t/r-l-eilhktl-ffpjrf-d/</a></p><p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; ">The California Water Fix is based on the untenable concept that diverting more water from the Sacramento River before it reaches the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta will “restore” the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'" size="4"><b>“The California WaterFix cannot be fixed,” summed up Bill Jennings, executive director of California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. “The idea that you can divert millions of acre feet of water under an estuary that is already suffering from lack of flow without grievously harming existing water users, communities and already degraded fisheries and water quality is fundamentally absurd.”</b></font></p></font></span></div></div></div></body></html>