More outrages call for ‘no’ vote on Delta tunnels
Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to force California water agencies, including the Santa Clara Valley Water District, to vote in the next month on whether they will pay for building his $17 billion “WaterFix” Delta tunnels project. It is an arbitrary, outrageous and irresponsible deadline. There is no formal agreement on how the project will be financed, how it will be governed or how the water will be allocated: none of the information a responsible water board needs to know for an informed decision.
Santa Clara’s water district has to refuse. It can at a minimum delay a vote until it gets enough information, but it should reject the project outright. This is an open-ended boondoggle that could stick generations of ratepayers with unfathomable costs. Brown wants approval now because he knows that the more information comes in, the worse the plan will look.
If this were a bond proposal being presented on Wall Street, it would get laughed out of the room, said Doug Obegi, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council.
Here’s how squishy — and probably sleazy — the financing is: The Washington Post reported Friday that the federal Bureau of Reclamation, an Interior Department agency, improperly paid $84 million toward what was supposed to be Westlands Water District’s share of planning costs for the tunnels.
And get this. The new No. 2 man at the Interior Department is David Bernhardt, a former Westlands lobbyist. Guess what water agency will be getting more breaks down the line. Hint: Not Santa Clara Valley. It’s likely to get burdened with more of the cost. Which, to belabor the point, is unknown.
Building the tunnels will not improve the fragile health of the Delta, the largest estuary west of the Mississippi. Multiple scientific studies agree that would require sending more water, not less, through the Delta, not to Central Valley farms and Southern California homes.
When the state water board updates its water quality flow plan for the Delta in 2018, it will almost certainly recommend reducing water exports. Yet we’re supposed to spend $17 billion — assuming that the biggest digging project in American history comes in on budget — on two huge 35-mile tunnels, as much as 150 feet below the ground, supposedly just to make the supply reliable, not substantially greater than now?
Instead the state should invest in proven local and regional water supply options including recycling, capture and storage of runoff and incentives for farmers to invest in conservation. Less than half the fields now have drip irrigation. If farmers could save just 10 percent of consumption, California’s water shortage would largely go away.
Water agencies need to reject this horrible plan. The Santa Clara Valley Water District needs to take a stand.
Building the tunnels will not improve the fragile health of the Delta, the largest estuary west of the Mississippi. Multiple scientific studies agree that would require sending more water, not less, through the Delta, not to Central Valley farms and Southern California homes.