Bay Delta Conservation Plan Draws Environmental Ire
By Cheyenne Cary | 09/15/2012 | California, Energy and Water, Headline | 3 Comments
image courtesy SacramentoRiverDelta.net
In a push to provide more water for agribusiness and residents of southern California, Governor Jerry Brown has proposed a pair of 40 mile tunnels to move water from the Sacramento River Delta to the town of Tracy, a project with a price tag anywhere from $24 to $50 billion in construction, conservation and operational costs. The tunnels are the centerpiece of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a program designed to balance the water needs of communities and ecosystems around the Bay with those of southern California. Considering that local pumping of the Delta has already been restricted in recent years due to impact on fisheries, how will such an increase in water demand impact the Delta, local economies both north and south and, overall, the State of California budget?
Environmental impact: Whence the fishes?
The current Delta tunnel plan is essentially a revision to the original “peripheral canal” that Brown proposed in his first term as governor, and that voters defeated in 1982. Growing urban water consumption and years of droughts have given the proposal a new lease on life, but it remains dogged by the same environmental concerns as before.
Perhaps most obvious is the impact of the tunnels, or “conveyance system,” on fish and wildlife; excessively draining the watershed poses an existential risk for recreational and commercial fisheries of Chinook and steelhead salmon as well as a threat to their related food chain. Throughout the conveyance system planning process, the California Department of Fish and Game, National Marine Fisheries Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service have warned that fisheries could be irreparably harmed by the new development, and have argued that the methodologies used by the Bay Delta Conservation Plan understate the tunnel’s fish footprint.
Nonetheless, the Brown administration maintains that the BDCP will not only spare the salmon from extinction, it will in fact “improve the status of a wide variety of listed species and species of concern under the Endangered Species Act.” To be fair, the plan for the conveyance system budgets $10 billion toward habitat restoration, so that claim might have some merit. However, the fact that the plan includes a 50-year exemption from the very same Endangered Species Act throws the BDCP’s credibility into question.
State agencies are currently working on an Environmental Impact Report for the BDCP in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act and the National Environmental Protection Act. Results have not yet been released, but up until now almost every account holds that the conveyance system will have a net negative impact on the Delta ecosystem. So then, will the economic benefits of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan outweigh the environmental costs?
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3 Comments
Chris Gulick
09.16.2012
This is an excellent article that only scratches the surface of what is wrong Jerry Brown’s proposal.
BDCP to this point has not been able to scientifically validate a conveyance large enough to placate the water contractors who “might” eventually pay for it.
In the mean time it will, as usual, be left to rank and file taxpayers to finance the lion’s share of the actual costs of this pipe dream.
Saying that 10 Billion is budgeted for habitat restoration is nifty yet without a dedicated revenue stream there is little if any guarantee it will occur especially given the current financial condition of our state. The only thing we are guaranteed by Jerry Brown is that we are going to get sh*t done and build a tunnel.
I’m filled with enthusiasm.
As has always been the case, this isn’t about saving the Delta, it’s fisheries, a three inch bait fish, north versus south, fish versus farming or any other smokescreen being promoted by the pro canal crowd.
It’s all about the money.
Where is the logic in fallowing prime farmland in the Delta to provide subsidized water to a billionaire absentee landowner in the Central Valley irrigating pomegranates and almonds (mostly for export) on the selenium tainted soils of the westside that, as a direct result of that irrigation, produces toxic effluent that is left for taxpayers to deal with ?
Why is this welfare somehow more acceptable when the recipients are the wealthiest among us ?
farmwater
09.17.2012
@farmwater-2
What do farmers do with irrigation water? They grow food that ends up at the grocery store. Consumers have a common interest with farmers because of the bond they share in food production and availability.
Water that flows through the Delta is not just exported to family farmers and southern California residents either. It is delivered to East Bay and Central Coast residents, some of the 25 million Californians that rely on the Delta to help meet their water supply needs. And contrary to the outdated peripheral canal envisioned 30 years ago, the focus of today’s Bay Delta Conservation Plan is to meet the co-equal goals of both water supply reliability and restoration of the Delta, which is a marked difference from yesteryear’s plan. Individuals and organizations that suggest that the BDCP will drain the Delta fail to explain that the California Water Code prohibits any new project from negatively impacting existing water rights.
The Delta is failing. It doesn’t provide adequate habitat for endangered or threatened species. It doesn’t provide a reliable means to move water from its source to the end user, whether that’s a farmer, a manufacturing business or a suburban household. A lot of research has gone into the development of the BDCP by scientists, biologists, State/federal agencies and others. All credible voices have determined that doing nothing, the status quo, continues our march on the path of failure. A sensible plan that restores water supply reliability while at the same time provides ecosystem benefits for fish and wildlife is the right path for California.
Mike Wade
California Farm Water Coalition
Chris Gulick
09.19.2012
“A sensible plan that restores water supply reliability while at the same time provides ecosystem benefits for fish and wildlife is the right path for California.”
Mike, I am in almost total agreement with this quote.
How about this:
“A sensible plan, paid for proportionately by those who receive benefit, that restores water supply reliability while at the same time providing ecosystem benefits adequate to restore fisheries and wildlife is the right path for California.”
What do you think Mike ? Is this a reasonable compromise ?