Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA)

(Updated 1/27/2020)
I know you are saying, “Once again? More meetings and comments?”

But this is going to be the final round! The “knock-out punch.”

And we’ve made such progress by stopping the Twin Tunnels last year. And many of our winning arguments against that plan are still valid today.

We plan to attack the Single Tunnel Plan on three prongs:

1. One – The location of the Intakes in the North Bay are atrocious. They will cause blight on the legacy communities to the North. We don’t have details yet on this new plan, but the basic location hasn’t changed and is right on top of the towns of Hood, Courtland, and Clarksburg.
2. Two – We fought valiantly that the Through-Tunnel Construction Project was a show-stopper. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has now come back with two alternate routes – the old ridiculous through-tunnel route (now re-labeled the “Central Corridor.”)

   (The DWR are experts at marketing/re-labeling attempts. “Muck” was re-labeled “Reusable Tunnel Material (RTM).” Doesn’t that sound nice. And the “Through-Delta Alignment” now becomes the “Central Corridor.” Not to mention the original plan was named the BDCP “Bay-Delta ‘Conservation’ Plan.” And then because the EPA said it wasn’t a “Conservation” plan, it was relabeled “WaterFix.” Sounded better than a “Tunnel Plan.”)

   We proved that their Through-Delta route would cause significant impacts to boating and recreation throughout the Delta, and to Delta communities’ roads and services. The DSC Staff reported that route was inconsistent with the Delta Plan, which should have been a show-stopper. But yet it is still one of the routes being considered.

   Now they are offering an “Eastern Corridor” as a “maybe” option.

   This is where we need your help.

   We have a great amount of detail about the impacts of the Central Corridor. You can review that information on our new Tunnel Maps page. Those maps highlight favorite South Delta boating & recreation channels and show how the Central Corridor construction plan wipes them all out.

   So now we need to analyze the Eastern Corridor to see what the issues are there.

   We need your help to identify if the Eastern route has issues and what they are. To that end, we have their new 2020 map and added labels for what boating sites are in the Eastern route path. Below that is their old Eastern Route which has more detail about the actual tunnel path and tunnel shaft locations. These may have changed, but it’s the best we have to-date. If you have traveled those waterways, please email me with any info you have. jmcccleery@duckpondsoftware.com.

   NOTE: The map below is an image and the labels are hard to make out. For a more readable version of the map click here.



WaterFix Eastern Alignment. I think this map is outdated – but may help visualize where a tunnel and tunnel shafts would go.


3. Three – Resulting water quality. We do not believe that either alignment proposed will improve the real issues that affect the water quality which impacts the environment, the fish, and results in invasive plant species including toxic blue-green algae. We have our arguments ready there.

We will be asking for your help with attending the scoping meetings (yes, sorry, we need to show up again. Thank you in advance.) The list of meetings is here: https://nodeltagates.com/event-tracker/

They think we’re tired and won’t show up again.

The best message would be for as many as possible to show up for the first meeting in Sacramento:

• Monday, February 3, 2020, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. California Environmental Protection Agency Building, 1001 I Street, Sacramento

We’d like folks to support the communities in the North Delta that will be inundated with the intakes and pumping facilities. Those meetings are here:

• Monday, February 10, 2020, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Jean Harvie Community Center, 14273 River Road, Walnut Grove
• Wednesday, February 19, 2020, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Clarksburg Middle School Auditorium, 52870 Netherlands Road, Clarksburg

Those of you who are in San Jose or LA – here’s the meetings there:

• Wednesday, February 5, 2020, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Junipero Serra State Building, 320 West Fourth Street, Los Angeles
• Wednesday, February 12, 2020, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Santa Clara Valley Water District Board Room, 5750 Almaden Expressway, San Jose

There’s one in Stockton:

• Thursday, February 13, 2020, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. San Joaquin Council of Governments Board Room, 555 Weber Avenue, Stockton

Show them Discovery Bay and the South Delta Communities are still committed!

We want all of our South Delta members to also attend the meeting nearest to Discovery Bay. Remember how we flooded the DSC meeting a couple of years go and they had to expand the conference room and ran out of sign-up sheets? We want to do that again:

• Thursday, February 20, 2020, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Brentwood Community Center Conference Room, 35 Oak Street, Brentwood

Support us and show up for as many meetings as you can. Particularly the first and last.

And we will be asking you to send in comments. We’ll send out more info about that soon.

Photo by the Department of Water Resources

Here’s a very good, strong letter written by the Sierra Club opposing the tunnel and reprimanding Newsom for his water policy directions. Here are some excerpts but it’s worth reading the entire email here.

First, the governor is on a track that seems driven by adherence to some of Governor Jerry Brown’s worst water policies. And, second, he’s not getting good advice.

As they did with Brown, the bad water policies related to the San Francisco Bay Delta and a tunnel are overshadowing the good water policies the administration is advancing.

Newsom’s water problems started on election day in 2018, even before votes had been counted in the governor’s race. That day, as lieutenant governor, he signed onto a letter with then-Governor Brown, instructing the State Water Board chair to postpone a public hearing set for the very next day about new water rules affecting rivers that flow into the Delta.

Furthermore, about those Delta flow rules recommended by the Water Board that were backed by environmentalists and supported by science, Newsom’s approach is to let the big water contractors opt out by agreeing to a “voluntary agreement” approach. I liked their analogy:

To put that in perspective, when a big water contractor asks for a voluntary agreement, it’s kind of like a kid asking for free run of a candy shop. Forever.

And here’s their critique of Newsom’s water policies in general:

On the one hand, he signed an executive order that promises to make regions more water resilient and develop a portfolio of needed projects.

On the other hand, his administration produced a draft portfolio that relies on—wait for it—the Delta tunnel, the epitome of non-regional non-resilience.

It’s a good read.

Click here to read their entire email.

Good News! Everyone is chiming in on the new Single Tunnel Plan.

Here’s Recreational Boaters of California’s response. RBOC represent all of California. North and South.

Stated RBOC President Daniel J. Hodge: “RBOC and the boating community must continue to speak strongly during this new phase. Even as reconfigured, the single tunnel would significantly impair the ability of boaters to access the 1,000 miles of waterways in the Delta – especially during the 13 or more years of construction.”

Read the entire response: Click here

For the RBOC Press Release: Click here

Earlier this month, a Water Resilience Portfolio was prepared by the state agencies. In April 2019, Governor Newsom directed state agencies through Executive Order N-10-19 to develop a “water resilience portfolio,” described as a set of actions to meet California’s water needs through the 21st century.

The response from Save the California Delta Alliance’s President, Karen Mann, to the Water Resilience Portfolio was:

It was quite a surprise to see their Portfolio list more than 100 projects; some quite costly – a very ambitious plan! Some of the projects are good ideas, but there was no information about the priority of the projects nor the time line. It was great to see the recycle of storm water and study of desalination as part of this Portfolio. Residents of Discovery bay will be pleased that the 2019 legislation requires the Water Board to establish and maintain program to reduce and/or eliminate Toxic Algae in our waterways.

We note the push to mitigate the needed increase of water flows with Volunteer Settlement Agreements (VSAs). The report states they plan to “harness the best of science, engineering and innovation”; however there has been no scientific evidence that fish can survive the improved habitat without adequate water flows – Fish still need adequate water to live!

Finally, it was a disappointment to see the Tunnel Project was still included – we had hoped we could explore alternative solutions. Even though Governor Newsom declared on 04/29/2019 that the tunnel project would be reconsidered and the project would be redesigned – the only change noted so far (as provided at the DCA’s Stakeholder Engagement Committee (SEC) Meetings) has been essentially the same as prior information as the prior project which had two tunnels now configured for the single tunnel (which may have a 4-6 story diameter, same input location in the Town of Hood, etc.). It was our hope that this Portfolio would also consider alternative solutions which would not require the “invasive” tunnel construction which traverses though the center of the Delta which would result in adverse environmental impacts during the 10+ years of construction, and unknown destruction of the Delta fishery.

In addition, it is worth noting that the State Water Project is the largest user of electricity in California and a significant contributor to climate change. It uses all of the electricity generated by the state’s hydroelectric plants plus billions of kilowatts generated by gas fired power plants every year to pump billions of tons of water from the Delta to Southern California up and over the Tehachapi Mountains and as far south as San Diego. The first and obvious step in resilience is a planned retreat from the climate atrocity of pumping water over a mountain range and instead developing local supplies to replace all water exported south of the Tehachapis.