Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA)

The Press’ new article: Franks Tract restoration project under fire (Delta smelt at center of state’s plan).

“The Division of Fish and Wildlife’s plan to ‘restore’ Franks Tract is another assault on the Delta and its people by the Natural Resources Agency,” said Bill Wells, executive director of the California Delta Chambers & Visitor’s Bureau. “John Laird, Charleton H. Bonham and Carl Wilcox should all be held personally responsible for any damage to the economy and the ecosystem in and around Franks Tract. Since the island flooded in 1937 it has been a paradise for wildlife and sportsmen. It is on the Pacific Flyway and visited by thousands of waterfowl each year. It is also prime habitat for many species of fish.”

Jim Frazier strongly objects to this project: ““As co-chair of the Delta Caucus, I see this effort by the administration to establish a ‘habitat’ project is clearly a cover for the irresponsible tunnels proposal and will worsen the reckless overpumping of the Delta,” said California 11th District Assemblymember Jim Frazier, a vocal opponent of WaterFix, in an email to The Press. “Franks Tract is a state park and a primary way into and out of the Delta. Over the decades, it has become a paradise for anglers and recreationalists. This project will wreak havoc on our marinas, boaters and fishermen in the Delta District and severely impact our culture. This reckless plan again puts the big money interests in the south over the people of the Delta.”

Read all about it.

Jan’s comments:

From the article, California Department of Fish & Wildlife’s Carl Wilcox “stated, however, that both Franks Tract and Little Franks Tract are choked with non-native vegetation and invasive species like black bass are predators of the native Delta smelt and juvenile salmon.”

That’s so misleading and going down the wrong path.

1. While true that Franks Tract may now have weeds, a lot of the Delta is nowadays. Why? Because of the over-exporting, ruining water quality throughout the Delta and making conditions ripe for invasive species like hyacinth, ragweed, egeria dense and worse, toxic blue-green algae. More fresh water flowing through the Delta is one way to start to improve water quality and flush out the invasive species. But that is no reason to ruin Franks Tract. It is still a popular bass fishing site and a State Recreational Area. This project wouldn’t “save” Franks Tract or do anything to fight the invasive weeds. The Bethel Island folks requested aid dredging a path across Franks Tract to aid boaters in accessing key marinas and businesses on Bethel Island. That’s what would help – not filling the tract up with tunnel muck.
2. Wilcox groups black bass with “invasive species.” That’s not valid. The attack on the popular bass species started some years ago when the bass fishermen became influential in the fight against the Delta Tunnels. A tunnel proponent was overheard to say, “Wait until [those fishermen] find out what we plan to do to their bass.” After that, there have been multiple State Bills to cause the extinction of the black bass. Do they have any justification? Scientific studies show that as the salmon species improve (when exports were less), the bass also thrived. When the pumps were cranked up to over 5 MAF, both the salmon species and the bass together struggled. Bass are not predators to be removed. There are studies that show them as predators in certain locations, like where smelt or salmon are entrapped behind dams or other barriers. But when the rivers are flowing freely – no problem. So once again, the “fix” is to get rid of dams (like the Head of Old River Dam that is periodically installed near Lathrop to try to keep salmon flowing away from the pumps. At that spot, salmon are entrapped and eaten by bass. But in general, no.
3. Let’s think about what this will do to Bethel Island. In addition to blocking access off for the major marinas and businesses, what about the homes that now look out at the scenic waters of Franks Tract, the State Recreational Area. They will be looking out at a sea of tunnel muck. Ilk! Smelly, toxic, likely to be a mosquito-friendly area. There are some really lovely homes along that stretch.

No – this is not a project that will do anything to help the communities of the Delta, only the influential water exporters.

FAKE NEWS !!!!!

Don’t believe everything you read. Although the State Agencies are spending their marketing money trying to spin information to make you believe in the Delta Tunnels. Desperate Times call for desperate measures, I guess.

If you’ve received this in your email box from the WaterFix, know it is 100 percent bogus. News this fake should be illegal.

THE DATA BELOW IS FAKE AND WRONG:

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

The actual PPIC survey, quoted, says:

With disappointing rainfall and snow pack totals this winter and talk of another possible drought, 53 percent of likely voters say that the supply of water is a big problem in their part of the state. Asked about the governor’s proposal to build tunnels in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta—starting with one tunnel and later adding a second—42 percent of likely voters say this is very important for the future quality of life and economic vitality of California.

Californians will vote in June on Proposition 68 to fund water infrastructure projects. Asked if they would vote for such a bond measure, two-thirds of likely voters (66%) say they would vote yes. An overwhelming majority of Democrats (78%) and a strong majority of independents (66%) say they would vote yes, compared to about half of Republicans (51%).

Somehow, the WaterFix people took “78 percent of Democrats want improved water infrastructure” PLUS only “42 percent say this [WaterFix] is very important” and ended up with “78 want WaterFix.” Maybe it’s new math?

BUT WAIT, Prop 68 isn’t even all about “improved water infrastructure.” The title of Prop 68 is: “Drought, Water, Parks, Climate, Coastal Protection, and Outdoor Access for All Act of 2018.”

So:
78 percent of Democrats want Drought, Water, Parks, Climate, Coastal Protection, and Outdoor Access for All

+ PLUS 42 percent say WaterFix is important

= 78 Percent of Californians want WaterFix

New math?

Save the California Delta Alliance is now one of the sponsored charities for Amazon! For any product you buy there, Amazon will make a donation to STCDA!

But first, you need to register Save the California Delta Alliance as your Amazon preferred charity. It’s as easy as 1-2-3.

1. First, go to smile.amazon.com. The first time you go to smile.amazon.com, it will ask you to name your favorite charity. Pick us! Type “Save the California Delta Alliance” in the box and click “Search”:
   
2. Second, “Select” Save the California Delta Alliance in Discovery Bay, CA:
   
3. Third, you will then be told that you’ve selected STCDA as your charity and remind you to always go to smile.amazon.com (instead of http://www.amazon.com) and Amazon will make a donation to us. Click the “Yes” checkbox and click the button to start shopping:
   

You will then be reminded to always go to smile.amazon.com for your purchases. They also give you an optional way to add smile.amazon.com to your favorites:

NOTE: If you forget and start shopping have items in your cart, just type “smile.amazon.com” before you check out. Your items will still be there and STCDA will get a donation.

Thank you for your support!

Sacramento — Part 2 of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Hearing on the WaterFix Water Right Change Petition (aka Delta tunnels) has been ongoing since February 22, 2018. On March 14,15, and 16, 2018, the County of San Joaquin, the San Joaquin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Local Agencies of the North Delta, and the South and Central Delta Water Agencies presented testimony by a geotechnical engineer and the principal engineer for many of the Reclamation Districts in the Delta. The engineers testified on the inadequacy of the preliminary engineering for the Delta tunnels, and the resulting risks to the project, and to people and property in the Delta.

Read California Water Research’s full report here: https://cah2oresearch.com/2018/03/20/waterfix-hearing-tunnels-not-being-designed-to-withstand-maximum-earthquake-in-the-delta/

We haven’t heard from “On the Public Record” for a while – but this blog really is special:

Thoughts on Araxs Kingdom (Stewart Resnick and Almonds)”. As everyone said, “Mark Arax’s reporting on the Resnicks‘ involvement in Kern is wonderful.”

From the article:

A couple things surprised me. I just didn’t expect an illegal, self-installed pipeline. When I talk about how hard it is to move water, I wasn’t expecting someone with infinite money, nor completely unpermitted small-scale infrastructure. I never imagined a public agency doing that, yet Dudley Ridge WD and Lost Hills WD allowed it (more on that later).

I was also surprised to read that Wonderful doesn’t hassle with precision agriculture. I think I remember from Arax’s book, King of California, that the Boswell Farming Company paid a lot of attention to detail. At a recent irrigation conference, I was surprised at the extent of technology some farming companies use to improve their yields or their profit margins. I wonder what is being lost by their acceptance of “mediocre” yields; they might be missing the first few years of declining yields from salinity

***

Stewart Resnick appears to have zero understanding of climate change. His description of a five-year drought as a surprising piece of bad luck and not the aridification that the past twenty years of climate modeling has consistently predicted means that he still doesn’t appreciate it. Stewart Resnick says that he has hired good people, but if none of them have been planning for climate change (aridification and loss of chilling hours) then they are not doing their jobs.

We just received the draft proposal from the California Fish & Wildlife on the study being funded by Metropolitan Water District to alter Franks Tract. Stated goals are to decrease salinity influx (so they can pump more water than they should down south) and to improve Delta Smelt habitat (so there’s less pressure to stop the pumps due to the Smelt getting caught in them).

I will post my review as soon as I can, but wanted to let you all take a peak now.

FranksSummarySecondDraft3-13-2018v.

I’ll study it more, but the opening remarks set me off (sorry).

“Franks Tract is located in the heart of the Delta near the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. This 3,300 acre flooded island is a hot spot for invasive plants and native fish predators, not to mention a hydrodynamic conduit for saltwater intrusion into waterways used to convey freshwater supplies to cities and agriculture. Franks Tract is also one of the least subsided, and largest, islands in the Central Delta and a strong candidate for partial restoration.”

So the “predators” are bass (which the economy of Bethel Island and much of Northern California relies on). And the only reason there’s saltwater intrusion through Franks Tract is because they are exporting too much fresh water via the pumps. Grrrr. This is not science, this is all political.

Okay – I’ll take a few deep breaths and then will do a more objective review.

We should probably stop calling it “drought”: John Fleck, author of “Water is for Fighting Over (and Other Myths about Water in the West)” writes, “Colorado River Basin Managers are working on what they call a “Drought Contingency Plan” to reduce water use, but that’s probably a bad name to describe what’s going on: We should probably stop calling it ‘drought.’ “

I think the same thing applies here, in California.

He goes on to explain in his white paper (read more here), that to most people, the word drought contains two concepts. The first is the lack of available water, primarily a function of below normal precipitation. Second is the notion that the condition is temporary – a deviation from a norm that is expected to eventually return. Aridity, in contrast, refers to a dryness that is permanent, and is a function of natural (and presumably stable) climatic conditions. He argues that perhaps a better term is aridification, which describes a period of transition to an increasingly water scarce environment—an evolving new baseline around which future extreme events (droughts and floods) will occur.

In another recent blog, “Understanding California’s Water Culture, Rina Valetti who received her Ph.D. in Art History created a recent art display depicting the effect of water on California, and saying “Water is a cultural commodity.”

She goes on to say, “We’re always teetering on that edge between scarcity and excess. What’s enough? What’s not enough? We develop water supplies that create the need that the supply is purporting to meet. It’s a conundrum. And California’s water culture exemplifies the conundrum.”

I agree. By making Central Valley farmers feel that they are entitled to more water (via paper contracts) than exists in the system, we have lead them on into expanding almond orchards ad infinitum. That has created the demand to continue to export more and more water, more than the Delta can afford to loose.

We need to admit that we live in an arid climate, that not only can’t we continue to try to export more water via the Delta Tunnels or any other means, the fact is we need to start to reduce exports now and balance the expectation with the reality of the future projected drying trends throughout the West.

The State Water Board is proposing common-sense conservation rules, like not letting water run down the sidewalk into the storm drain (i.e., using a shut-off on the hose when washing your car). It makes sense. California is becoming more arid every year (even though there may be a year here or there with more water the overall trend is drying).

This didn’t surprise me: Groups concerned about the proposed conservation rules includes the state’s farm lobby. They fear rules on urban water usage could eventually lead to regulations on the types of crops farmers can irrigate. “There’s the potential they’ll make similar decisions encroaching on agriculture,” Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition said in an interview.

Haha – That’s EXACTLY what needs to happen. Central Valley rich corporate farmers have been profiting from water-thirsty almonds grown in the middle of the desert for far too long. Conservation is the best way to start to improve California’s long-term water picture.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article205092679.html#emlnl=Alerts_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Our infamous Peter Moyle once again publishes a report, New report claims tunnels could help save native species, that favors the tunnels. Unfortunately, Moyle’s research often seems to be slanted.

Here are my problems with this latest report.

First, Moyle received guidance and direction in this effort by Metropolitan Water District, the agency pushing the tunnels forward.

Second, a great deal of his analysis is based on habitat restoration: “Achieving this goal,” [saving native fish from extinction] “according to the report, will require restoring a great deal of riverside habitat in the northern and western Delta. Saving the native fish, the report says, will also probably require building the Delta tunnels, or something resembling them.”

Third, it is based on the status quo continuing. Boyle claims that “We predicted they’d go extinct if present trends continue,” he said. “The new report is a plan to make present trends not continue.”

But I say, why not first do the obvious. Fish need water. The pumps are exporting too much water. Why not cut back to the levels approved by the legislature and levels dictated by the Delta Flow requirements first? All true scientists agree that is the most likely and safest way to stop their demise and reverse this horrible decline of so many fish species in the Delta.

Then he returns to EcoRestore: Moyle points to the other part of the solution, EcoRestore: “The new report outlines a state-mandated project called EcoRestore, initially introduced several years ago as a mitigation to the Delta tunnels project. EcoRestore would protect or revive about 30,000 acres in the Delta region – mainly floodplain and inter-tidal habitat. ”

The problem? EcoRestore was named and then shelved. There has been no work done on the project, no EIR, no Habitat Conservation Plan, no evaluation, no analysis, no review. In 2014, the state split the BDCP into it’s two halves: EcoRestore (the environmental half) and WaterFix (the tunnel half) and then moved ahead only with WaterFix. There’s no funding, nothing for EcoRestore.

“People know what the fish need,” Moyle said.

He’s right on that. Fish need fresh water. It’s time for the state to start providing that.

Boyle continues: “The status quo is not sustainable; it will result in the likely collapse of many remaining stocks of desirable fishes even with large investment in restoration projects,” the new report warns, referring to the existing water diversion system.

Right again – status quo is not sustainable. Step one is cutting back on exports. No other hocus pocus will accomplish anything.

Updates since our last post Feb. 17.

A lot of hubbub is going on, but nothing that has changed in the process since our last update.

Some people were disappointed that the judge turned down a recent lawsuit the City of Sacramento and other cities and counties to stop the The State Water Resource Control Board Part II Hearings due to the ex-parte communications Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA) had uncovered in early February.

But as our Legal Council, Michael Brodsky, said: “It is very difficult to prevail in a lawsuit against an administrative agency during the middle of the agency’s process. The general rule is that you have to wait until the agency makes its final decision on the whole matter and then go to court with all issues at one time.”

“In administrative law this is known as the ‘finality rule.’ ”

That being said, we would have loved it if they had prevailed and if the judge had stopped the Hearings. It was worth a try!

That ruling does, however, not change our course of action.

The SWRCB Hearings have resumed, albeit a few weeks later than they planned due to our findings of ex-parte communications and due to the Department of Water Resources (DWR) flip-flopping between one or two tunnels and variations thereof. But bottom line, we’re still on-plan. STCDA has submitted testimonies and are prepared to testify at the Part II Hearings to raise our strong objections to them ripping up the Delta during this construction project, ruining legacy communities in the North Delta and boating communities in the South Delta; dumping tunnel muck everywhere as they go. And, as always, STCDA is opposed to the end result of tunnels routing water around the Delta instead of through it, destroying farms, fish, and communities in the Delta.

The good news from finding the DWR/SWRCB colluded during the Part I hearings, is that we will have a much stronger case if the SWRCB actually issues a permit. A judge will not look kindly on their permit approval when they colluded and then continued anyway. So our “Stay” request strengthened our future law suit. It’s too bad they keep marching along, wasting everyone’s time and money, but we are still confident we have the law on our side once we get to the lawsuit period (which needs to wait until they have actually issued a permit.

HOWEVER, we need more donations for this next phase! Your donations are greatly appreciated. Click on the Donate button on the http://www.NoDeltaGates.com or on our FaceBook page or send a check made out to “STCDA” and mail to STCDA, P.O. Box 1760, Discovery Bay, CA 94505.

Other Hubbub: Metropolitan Water Distict (MWD) is considering funding more of the tunnel project so they can build both tunnels up-front instead of one now and then raise money for another later. They are working on a plan to charge the other farmers that are on the CVP water to help offset their costs. Whether they will/can do that is a question. And even if they can, that doesn’t make the tunnels cost effective for them or anyone.

There is no Financial Analysis for two tunnels or even one tunnel now and one later. Dr. Sunding did his one-tunnel cost/benefit analysis that we posted about here: https://nodeltagates.com/2018/02/18/review-of-the-cost-and-benefits-analysis-continued-the-earthquake-bogey/and everyone have shot full of holes. Dr. Sunding, once again, did a very poor financial analysis – really bad. He ignores all the negative economics, overblown the risk to earthquake, etc., and misses the point. He says that they will get cost benefit from more water, but a more recent report agrees – there will be no more water from the tunnels than they are getting now. The reductions in exports that will be coming are going to come regardless of where they take out the water. The smoke and mirrors they are hoping for, hoping to fool environmentalists, scientists, and judges about the negative impact of exporting too much, are just not going to work this time.

Summary: STCDA is on-track and preparing our data to stop them, but need your support. Please donate!

STCDA’s Feb 17 update in case you missed it:

Summary of Recent Events