Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA)

This is a good news report and good publicity, via Sacramento NBC affiliate, KCRA: Twin Tunnels Project Could Endanger Vital Levees.

The reporters have picked up on what tunnel and soils engineers have been saying regarding the potential (likely) damage to levees from tunneling under the Delta’s soft, alluvial soils. There is a huge risk to the twenty-two levees the tunnels will bore under that tunneling activity will cause levee failure. Similar testimony has been delivered to the State Water Resources Control Board and the Delta Stewardship Council.

Besides levees, there is equal risk to other infrastructure, like the Santa Fe Railroad which runs on on a raised trestle where the tunnel will be going under (very risky), the East Bay MUD’s Mokelumne Aqueduct (which provides all of Alameda Country including Oakland’s water supply), major highways that run on top of fragile levees (e.g., Highway 4 between Brentwood and Stockton), and other infrastructure.

Amtrak on the Sante Fe trestle – the tunnel is planned directly below it

Yet this is all being ignored as the various groups keep trying to move the project ahead, even though they have not secured the necessary permits and lawsuits are in progress.

The risk of tunneling is real. The Department of Water Resources’ own independent scientists warned of the risk years ago and recommended choosing the Eastern route, around the Delta, instead of the Through-Delta route which they continue to focus on. Yet here we are.