Tunnel foes shift focus to Delta’s most disadvantaged communities
STOCKTON — California’s proposal to construct two massive tunnels underneath the Delta northwest of the city to divert Sacramento River water south would “devastate” Stockton and other communities in and around the Delta, especially what a new report refers to as “environmental justice communities” that often have been ignored in the discussion around the tunnels.
The 216-page report — “The Fate of the Delta: Impacts of Proposed Water Projects and Plans on Delta Environmental Justice Communities” from grassroots advocacy group Restore the Delta — was released Monday during a news conference attended by Stockton’s representatives in Congress and the California Legislature, Mayor Michael Tubbs, San Joaquin County Supervisor Kathy Miller and others all stating their support.
It is Restore the Delta’s intent to change the primary focus surrounding the twin tunnels proposal from water to people.
Miller, who said she was speaking on behalf of the Board of Supervisors, said “today, we stand united in our fight to preserve our precious Delta and the livelihoods of our families and friends who were raised here and have fished, farmed and protected this land for generations (and) who will never relent and never give up this good fight.”
Environmental justice, as defined in the report, “is the potential for public decisions to avoid or mitigate disproportionate or discriminatory environmental impacts to minority and low-income people.”
It is the role of government agencies to consider environmental justice concerns as they affect all groups of people, including communities of color and low-income residents that comprise a significant number of residents in Stockton and throughout the Delta region. Many of those communities are impoverished, according to the report.
“This report addresses a number of things that San Joaquin County has been fighting for and we stand behind the principles that seek protection of the Delta and the people that we serve,” Miller said. “The story of San Joaquin County is one that is deeply rooted in the story of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the socioeconomic climate of the people who live and work in and around the Delta is a story that must be told and understood by all Californians.”
Miller and her colleagues believe, as the report states, that the $20 billion twin tunnels project being pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown will only make the problems facing Stockton — among the most economically disadvantaged cities in the state — worse environmentally and impact the economic future of the entire region through increased water contamination, farmland degradation, levee road deterioration and job loss.
“San Joaquin County has long advocated for increased common-sense statewide investments in recycled water, underground storage, stormwater capture, desalinization and other alternatives that actually produce more water for regions who need it and increase our statewide water supply,” she said.
“It is unacceptable to build these tunnels and disproportionately affect our residents and our environment. San Joaquin County will continue to work with (Restore the Delta) to defeat WaterFix and stand up to the bullies, critics and naysayers who minimize and disregard the devastating impacts their poorly thought-out decisions will have on our region,” Miller said.
Restore the Delta Executive Director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla said the report creates a voice for the region’s voiceless, creating one historic record of what has been said to the State Water Resources Control Board previously about the tunnels’ impact.
Acknowledging the need by millions of state residents for water from the Delta, Barrigan Parrilla said “the fight has never been about fish vs. farmers. In fact, the fish vs. farmers campaign was created 10 years ago by former tobacco advertising executives as a way to split California’s environmental justice communities, with Northern California (Indian) tribes and Delta (environmental justice) communities on one side and San Joaquin Valley farm towns and Greater Los Angeles Area residents on the other.”