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Archive for the 'STCDA News' Category
Merry Christmas to the BDCP, the DSC and the NRA, et al.
Burt Wilson, Editor
bwilson5404@sbcglobal.net
12/22/14
Twas the night before Christmas at BDCP,
But their eggnogs were downed amidst much misery.
Their heads were hung low, their brows were all sweated,
‘Cause it looked like their tunnels wouldn’t be vetted.
Seven years or more they had worked through the night,
To make us believe the twin tunnels were right.
When pressed to explain things, they just hemmed and hawed,
Cause they knew all along what they planned was a fraud.
Then out on the Delta there arose such a clatter,
The people looked ’round to see what was the matter.
It was old Marc Cowin. He yelped like an otter:
“I promise we’ll never take any new water.”
The people yelled back, “We’ve heard that before.”
And the MWD says they want a lot more.
The co-equal goals will never pass muster.
And the fish screens have lost their original luster.
On December 19, the BDCP released an announcement of refinements to the BDCP plan. Also more information was provided on the revisions to expect in 2015 to the EIR/EIS.
The Sacramento Bee reported in their front-page article, Pumps dropped from Delta Water Tunnel Plan, that there was a new “switch to gravity intakes meant to ease local concerns” and went on to say that the major design change was made aimed at appeasing local residents: The three intakes planned on the Sacramento River will no longer require pumps. Instead of giant electric pumps, the plan now calls for water to enter the three huge intakes by gravity flow. This, in turn, means most tall buildings can be eliminated at each intake. Thus the multi-story buildings at the site of the intakes that were going to be a major eyesore for the quaint delta towns of Clarksburg and Walnut Grove, were now going to be single-story. And there will be no need for permanent new high-voltage power lines.
That sounds like progress – right?
Wrong!
All along the BDCP claimed that they needed the larger 40 foot wide tunnels because the plan was to use gravity feed. Gravity feed required, they said, a wider diameter pipe than pumps. Their plan was to use gravity feed and save money.
The concern raised by Delta proponents was that 40 foot wide tunnels can siphon off 15,000 cubic feet/second (CFS) (the entire Sacramento River) instead of the proposed maximum 9K CFS but the BDCP said no, we are using these oversized tunnels because we are planning gravity feed to reduce pumping costs and electricity. We were all still worried because it wouldn’t cost that much additional to add pumps and electricity later to expand the amount of water extracted.
Note: Even 9K CFS is much more than the SWRCB/Bay Institute reported was available according to their 2008 Delta Flows report. In addition, this year’s scathing review of the BDCP by the EPA stated that the BDCP plan includes extracting much more water than is viable for a healthy Delta.
Now the BDCP is announcing this “new” plan and are saying they are removing the pumps and are going with gravity.
Huh?
Did the plan previously “sneak” in sufficient pumps and power to enable them to extract more? I had understood that to do that they would need more money to add the pumps later (and figured that would be their next ploy).
Or am I missing why these big pumps and power lines were there originally??? Because this all sounds like switch and bait to me. There’s not enough money to pay for the pumps now so they’ll wait and add those later.
Regardless, bottom line, these changes to the BDCP do nothing to eliminate the major objections to the Delta Tunnels. In fact, they only raise more questions.
Delta Levees once again prove the “Earthquake Bogey” argument of the BDCP to be what it is – just a scare tactic.
| The scare tactic was thought up following the Katrina disaster and has been effectively used since to scare Southern California water users about risks to their water supply to try to get their buy in.
Immediately after the Napa shaker, the civil engineering firm Kjeldsen Sinnock and Neudeck (KSN), the Stockton civil engineering company that maintains about half the levees in the delta, went out to inspect the levees. |
 |
Just as during the Loma Prieta earthquake, the levees were unaffected. Neudeck insists delta levees are now even wider, taller and stronger. He also said inspections are done constantly by the engineers hired by reclamation districts.
Read more on ABC News10 at http://www.news10.net/story/news/local/stockton/2014/08/26/delta-levee-earthquake-napa/14652749/
Good job everyone!
| In case you haven’t heard, thanks to all the public comments that were submitted in protest to the Delta Tunnels, the plan has been delayed. “The comments revealed that certain areas of the plan need additional study, although she (Nancy Vogel, DWR spokesperson) could not yet say specifically what areas.” |  |
Officials said the revised document will be re-released for public comment “in early 2015.” They originally intended to approve the current plan near the start of the new year. It also reports they will be out of money and will need to go back to the water contractors for more. All good news.
Read the story:
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/08/27/6658505/delta-water-tunnel-studies-delayed.html
Farm Bill Trickery
Published January 27, 2014 News and Events , STCDA News , Tunnel(s) Leave a CommentThe House Bill for Farm aid (food stamps) has been revised to include provisions to to start the Delta pumps and stop the San Joaquin River Restoration flows – both of which reverse the little progress made to-date to save the salmon and protect the Delta from total demise.
We don’t want their surprises! The Central Valley farm representatives are urging everyone to contact Feinstein and Boxer and ask them to pass the “Farm Bill”. They are very “pleased” that they are sneaking in these trick provisions – see Pass the Farm Bill! It Has Some Surprises!
The House Bill is similar to the Senate Jobs Bill Sen. Feinstein sponsored in Feb 2010 where she slipped in a measure to remove restrictions for endangered salmon. She withdrew that part after public outcry. The Bill is now going to the Senate.
We need public outcry again. Contact the senators and complain that the right answer isn’t to send more water to Westlands for Almonds to Asia. As Bill Jennings with the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance explains, “We entered 2013 with Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs at 115 percent, 113 percent, and 121 percent of historical average storage. In April, they were still at 101 percent, 108 percent and 96 percent of average. With no rainfall and little snowpack, the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau (of Reclamation) notified their contractors that water deliveries would be reduced. But they didn’t reduce deliveries. Instead, they actually exported 835,000 acre-feet more water than they said they would be able to deliver.”
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/26/6097073/viewpoints-better-solutions-for.html#storylink=cpy.
Here’s what I entered in both of the Senator’s on-line comment forms (kind of rushed – not sure how good a job it was):
————
Revise the Farm Bill:
The House has added the emergency drought relief package to start the Delta pumps and stop the San Joaquin River Restoration flows to the Farm Bill which includes needed food stamps. This is a very bad trick. Those actions will put Northern California cities and farmers at even more risk due to the lack of water in the North.
We entered 2013 with Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs at 115 percent, 113 percent, and 121 percent of historical average storage. In April, they were still at 101 percent, 108 percent and 96 percent of average. With no rainfall and little snowpack, the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau (of Reclamation) notified their contractors that water deliveries would be reduced. But they didn’t reduce deliveries. Instead, they actually exported 835,000 acre-feet more water than they said they would be able to deliver.”
– Reservoirs serving the Metropolitan Water District in Southern California are filled to 90 percent
– It’s the reservoirs in the North that are at an all-time low due to earlier releases for unsustainable farms
– The answer isn’t to release more water for farming in the desert or building tunnels.
The answer is to cut back on unsustainable farming in the arid desert. Powerful corporate agribusinesses have been expanding farmlands, especially water-thirsty almonds to ship to Asia, without regard for how much water actually exists that is needed by Northern California farmers, communities and the environment.
This bill’s hidden provisions and the BDCP Delta Tunnels only make the matter worse. Please protect my community and surrounding Delta communities and remove the offensive clauses from the Farm Bill.
Contact Dianne Feinstein:
E-Mail (Contact form): https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
San Francisco
One Post Street, Suite 2450
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 393-0707
Fax: (415) 393-0710
Contact Barbara Boxer:
Email (Contact Form): http://www.boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm
Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
70 Washington Street, Suite 203
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 286-8537
Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
2500 Tulare Street, Suite 5290
Fresno, CA 93721
(559) 497-5109
Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
312 N. Spring St. Suite 1748
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 894-5000
Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
501 I Street, Suite 7-600
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 448-2787
Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-3553
Rocks are visible below the Headwall run as skiers make their way down a run at Squaw Valley Resort on Monday, December 30, 2013 in Olympic Valley, Calif. Lack of snow has left many resorts with runs full of obstacles, like rocks, grass and small trees for skiers and boarders to navigate on their way down the mountain. – Photo Sacramento Bee
Snowpack Report
See Sacramento Bee’s “Sierra snow survey points to dry year ahead” January 4, 2014.
Meanwhile, Jerry Meral is still arguing in favor of tunnels today – see Jerry Meral Viewpoint in the Sacramento Bee also January 4, 2014. It’s amazing how he can continue to justify his viewpoints when every paragraph in that story is either misleading or just untrue. See our rebuttal to Meral’s Viewpoint here: “Meral resigned, but is not gone”.
If the tunnels were already built, they would be sitting dry.
Tunnels will not help.
What if
From 1982 when the Peripheral Canal was voted down until today, what has the state done to get ready for another drought? What if we’d started building water recycling and desalination plants and implemented real conservation projects like upgrades to the LA aging water pipelines? Instead of water contractors putting hundreds of millions of dollars into producing 40,000 pages of meaningless documentation to justify a water grab, what if the contractors had been investing in regional self-sufficiency like ground water clean-up, recycling and ground water recharge?
Perhaps 2014 would be a good year for the state to change direction and start implementing projects that will protect us all during drought years. Instead of spending $67 billion on tunnels, we should start investing today in real solutions.
As 2013 wraps to an end, the media appears to be swinging against the tunnels. Here’s a few of this weeks articles.
Several were spawned from a recent presentation at Westlands Water District that presented an update to anticipated cost of the Delta Tunnels: now $67 billion! Some note that the cost revision was not included as part of the 40,000 pages of documents released 2 weeks ago.
- San Francisco Chronicle December 26th: Phil Matier: Cost Of California Water Plan Skyrocketing.
- San Jose Mercury News December 26th: Delta tunnels plan’s true price tag: As much as $67 billion.
- KQED December 27th: Coming Face to Face With the Real Cost of the Delta Tunnel Plan.
- Although not as mainstream a media report, this article reported on, in addition to the $67 billion cost, that the December 13 rally in Sacramento brought 400 protesters! “Fishermen, environmentalists, Tribal leaders, family farmers, Delta residents, Southern California water ratepayers and elected officials from across the political spectrum have united to stop Jerry Brown’s peripheral tunnels”. See Dan Batcher’s article December 26th Bay Delta Conservation Plan total cost could be as high as $67 billion. That’s an impressive turnout!
Tuesday, December 24th, Rep. John Garamendi repeated his plan and words of wisdom about the real solutions for California’s water situation. Garamendi: California needs a comprehensive water plan – not a $25 billion boondoggle. A few key points Rep. Garamendi makes:
- The technology already exists for agriculture to conserve 3 million acre feet of water each year. That would cut the Delta exports in half and take it back to the amount recommended by the SWRCB “Delta Flow” report.
- One million acre feet could be recycled and stored in the underground aquifers in Southern California at a cost of $1.3 billion.
- Conservation, recycling programs and new storage could create approximately 5.7 million acre feet of new water to use each year at a projected cost of $7.8 billion.
Here’s the Good
Good News/Bad News: Here’s the good – December 19 Sierra Club issues a White Paper opposing the Tunnels and offers common sense alternatives that should be pursued instead: “Sierra Club offers alternatives to the governor’s giant tunnels”.
Here’s the Bad
Sen Feinstein in the past has bent to the request of Resnick and big Agribusiness when she tried to add legislation in the Senate Jobs Bill to remove protection for endangered salmon.
Boxer’s reputation in the past has been to want to aid the environment, not abandon it.
Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA) 