Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA)

Save the California Delta Alliance can be seen today at the Taste of the Delta – with No Tunnel signs. Check it out! At the Windmill Cove Marina. Drop by and say hello!

Read the entire article here: https://time.com/6300886/climate-change-water/

People have been asking, “Where do we stand on the Delta Tunnel Project?” “Are they building in?” “Is the project still moving forward?” SHORT ANSWER: No, they aren’t building it. It’s in the review process now. And…the tunnel project was specifically NOT part of Newsom’s expedited projects for the state, so it will be going through the full review process.

First, a quick reminder of the history: The Delta Tunnel(s) Project was begun in 2006 as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (“BDCP”) and went through several guises until it was renamed California WaterFix, which was approved by DWR in 2017. The WaterFix Project consisted of two tunnels diverting up to 9,000 cubic feet per second from the Sacramento River at Hood and carrying it under the Delta to the existing pumps near Tracy.

Save the California Delta Alliance, and others, filed lawsuits challenging the WaterFix Project in 2017. By 2019, DWR saw the handwriting on the wall and figured out they were going to lose the lawsuits. In May of 2019, the WaterFix Project was canceled by DWR. SUCCESS! Thanks in large part to all of our members getting on the bus, going to meetings, sending in comments.

The One Tunnel Project: DWR came back and proposed the Delta Conveyance Project in 2020. The Delta Conveyance Project is really the same project as WaterFix with a few adjustments. Now there is one tunnel instead of two and the capacity is 6,000 cfs, down from 9,000. Also of note, the tunnel has now been routed around the edge of the Delta near Highway 5, instead of running through the center of the Delta as WaterFix did.

NOTE: DWR’s decision to re-route the tunnel was in response to allegations in Delta Alliance’s lawsuit that a tunnel route through the center of the Delta would destroy recreation and boating in the Delta for the decades long construction period. Due to our efforts, boating will be able to continue in the waterways.

So where are we now?

The one-tunnel Delta Conveyance Project is currently undergoing environmental review and there are several regulatory processes yet to come, including applications for permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, the California State Water Resources Control Board, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the National Marine Fisheries Services, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Delta Stewardship Council. Whew!

There are many legal flaws with the Delta Conveyance Project and it would still be terrible for the Delta, even though the tunnel route is better. Delta resident’s participation in submitting comments and attending meetings was essential in helping us win the 2017 lawsuit.

Your ongoing participation will be essential to helping us win future legal challenges as well!!!

There is a new report from the State Auditor that says DWR is wrong in their climate change predictions, and “has not developed a comprehensive, long-term plan for managing the Sate Water Project.” Read the entire report here:

Here’s some of the latest push-backs against moving forward on the Delta Tunnels. This report was by the Delta Protection Commission last month:

Report on water tunnels called flawed: https://www.thepress.net/news/regional_and_national/report-on-water-tunnels-called-flawed/article_ccfefc88-061d-11ee-8bb6-6f7ea3749ed4.html

And more recently, this opinion piece in the Mercury News written by one of the Contra Costa County Supervisors and Yolo County Supervisor calls it too risky to push the tunnel by bending environmental rules (as Newsom is currently trying to do). https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/06/21/opinion-delta-tunnel-is-too-risky-to-bend-environmental-rules/?fbclid=IwAR29KHqpeeRTm5fABwpxy7XPIcc6LL6cHrfTbbv2i6nHNUchyhVm9lZplWI

Please try to attend the Army Corps of Engineers in-person public hearing in Stockton on March 1, from 6 to 7:30 pm at the University Plaza Waterfront Hotel, 110 W. Fremont Street, Stockton. There will be an opportunity to ask questions.

The Army Corps of Engineers is preparing an EIS on the Delta Conveyance Project separate from DWR’s EIR. After some prodding, the CORPS agreed to hold an in-person public hearing (which DWR steadfastly refused to do).

ISSUES:

The CORPS EIS is very narrow. It is only studing the construction activity around the intakes and other areas where fill is involved. It is not studying anything to do with the operations of the tunnel. In our Legal Council, Michael Brodsky’s opinion, the law requires the CORPS to study operations too, including all the impacts on wildlife, fish, and people. He plans to ask them why they believe they are not required to study operations. 

The CORPS could include a study of alternate intake locations away from Hood in their own EIS. They could also require DWR to recirculate the EIR to study alternate intake locations away from Hood. Brodsky plans to ask why they have so far done neither, with some elaboration on the impacts on Hood and history of the intake locations.

If anyone can make and add to the chorus it would be good.

Attached are the official comments on the Delta Conveyance Project (Single Tunnel) Draft EIR by our legal council, Michael Brodsky. https://nodeltagates.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/michael-a.-brodsky-scda-delta-conveyance-deir-comments.pdf

This is very good. DWR really hasn’t passed their EIR requirements and the project needs to be scrapped!

If you haven’t already sent in your comments on the Delta Conveyance Project Draft EIR (the Single Tunnel), you’ve got three weeks left.

Most of the problems we commented on last time remain – especially the main issues:

Location of the Intakes on top of Hood, California.

The “alternative” intakes analyzed are all destructive to Hood and all in the area we’d strongly objected to before. Evaluating which way destroys the legacy community of Hood worse when they are all bad and destroy wetlands are not true alternatives.

No Alternatives to a Tunnel

Just like the prior EIR, there are various “alternatives” – two primary routes and minor alternatives whether to end up at a new Forebay near Clifton Court Forebay or go all the way to the Bethany Reservoir. The two primary routes, Central and East, both go through prime Delta wetlands and farms and include ground water impacts and leave tunnel muck everywhere. Both routes go through soft Delta alluvial soil. The worst, the Central, riskily drills under the railroad trestle. The East is not far enough East by I-5, out of the Delta wetlands and farmlands. Construction should not go through the Delta!

The other “Alternative” is “No Action.” That’s just silly. Why aren’t they evaluating real alternatives, like Congressman Garamendi and Governor Newsom proposed including a portfolio: Desalination, conservation, levee repair, infrastructure repair (i.e., leaking pipes throughout L.A.), covering the aqueduct to prevent evaporation, … Many improvements have been recommended. The best make new water for L.A. and long-term could reduce the huge electrical costs of pumping over the Tehachapis while saving more water for farmers.

Long-Term Issues

In general, taking the fresh water out of the Delta before it can flow through the estuary is a bad, bad idea – impacting the environment, Delta communities, Delta farms. More salt water and farm runoff in the Delta. More blue-green toxic algae and weeds.

Send in Comments

• Email: deltaconveyancecomments@water.ca.gov
• Mail:
  • Department of Water Resources
  • Attention: Delta Conveyance Office
  • P.O. Box 942836
  • Sacramento, CA 94236-0001

Since the DWR refuses to host real in-person meetings about the Single Tunnel (aka the Delta Conveyance Project) Draft EIR, the Delta County Coalition is taking it on and holding a meeting at ground zero, Hood, CA, the historical legacy community that will be destroyed by the Single Tunnel project. You are invited. Comments made will be recorded and entered into the public record. Having trouble knowing what to submit as comments? They will help write your comments at the meeting. The reporters and press are encouraged to attend.
December 6, 4-5:30 p.m. Willow Ballroom, Hood, CA.

One of the main objections to the EIR is the location of the intakes on top of the town of Hood. Every intake “alternative” destroys the town. Those aren’t real alternatives!

Go show them our support!