Restore the Delta (RTD) held a news conference and big rally at the State Capitol on Tuesday, July 29, to submit tens of thousands of public comments opposing Governor Jerry Brown’s peripheral tunnels and to call for a new Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS).
Hundreds of people, including fishermen, Tribal leaders, environmentalists, Delta farmers and environmental justice advocates, showed up to to protest Jerry Brown’s tunnel plans.
The opponents charged that the EIR/EIS process has been fatally flawed due to its lack of public outreach to non-English speakers, failure to present a funding plan, exclusion of any non-tunnels alternative, and scientists’ identification of numerous “red flags.”
“We call upon Gov. Brown to rethink this unsustainable water export project,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of RTD. “The public comment process has been a mockery of outreach, dialogue and disclosure of what it will cost and who will pay.”
Speakers in the press conference include Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta; Bob Wright, Friends of the River; Kathryn Phillips, Sierra Club California; Zeke Grader, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations; Michael Jackson, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance; and Conner Everts, Environmental Water Caucus.
The rally opened with a blessing by Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, and featured a number of speakers, along with music by the Raging Grannies and Jonathan Michelson.
Chief Sisk emphasized that rather than growing export crops on drainage impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin, California is one of four salmon states in the U.S. and should rebuild the salmon population for economic, cultural and spiritual reasons. Salmon now contribute many billions to the New Zealand economy – and California should embrace its role as a salmon state. The Tribe is now engaged in a campagin to bring back the McCloud River winter run chinook salmon back from New Zealand to be reintroduced into the McCloud above Shasta Dam.
Michael Jackson of the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) read a statement from Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, pointing out the dire situation that Delta smelt, an endangered species, is now in:
"Several days ago, the Department of Fish and Wildlife released the results of the last of this year’s 20-mm surveys for Delta smelt.
At one time, Delta smelt were the most abundant fish in the Delta. Today, they’re an endangered species. Delta smelt are the proverbial “miner’s canary,” a yardstick of the health of the estuary.
In 141 separate trawls at 40 locations in the Delta – stretching from Cache Slough to San Pablo Bay, the survey found two Delta smelt: that’s two! By far, the lowest number in history.
We don’t know where the point of no return is for Delta smelt – but its close.
And the same folks that orchestrated this disaster – or stood by as it unfolded – now ask us to trust them that their latest scheme, BDCP, will restore the Delta."
During the rally, Delta advocates carried a "Death of the Delta" coffin filled with tens of thousands of comments blasting the tunnel project up to the Governor's Office. They were directed by Capitol security and state police to take the coffin to the Governor's mail room. They took the coffin to the mail room and left it there with mailroom staff to be delivered to the Governor.
On the day before, Restore the Delta featured a panel of experts at a press conference to discuss the many flaws of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build the peripheral tunnels.
“We call upon Gov. Brown to rethink this unsustainable water export project,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of RTD. “It won’t solve our water challenges. The public comment process has been a mockery of outreach, dialogue and disclosure of what it will cost and who will pay. We are calling on State and Federal officials – to abandon the tunnels project and to restart an inclusive process for creating water projects that will restore the Delta and manage California’s limited water supply in a fair and equitable manner for all Californians.”
“The BDCP commits several profoundly disturbing abuses of our environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act (ESA),” said Bob Wright, Senior Counsel for Friends of the River. “The BDCP fails to include any real alternatives to the Tunnels upstream from the already imperiled San Francisco Bay-Delta. The alternatives set forth in the Draft Plan and Draft EIR/EIS are simply different versions of the same project. The omission of not so much as one alternative reducing exports is deliberate bad faith tilting the process in favor of the Tunnels and against reducing exports since no other alternatives are presented. The BDCP agencies also deliberately banned the posting of all comment and correspondence on the BDCP website. They have done everything possible to keep the public in the dark about issues, information and alternatives supplied by those who are not Tunnels supporters. The concealment of real alternatives and comments is powerful evidence that the BDCP proponents are afraid of the facts and the truth.”
Alex Aliferis, Executive Director of the Contra Costa County Taxpayers Association, criticized the hidden property tax increase planned to pay for the BDCP costs, “Water districts have not been up front about using property taxes to finance construction of Governor Brown’s twin tunnels. This could double residents’ water bills for ten years. Groups have only learned about their intent to raise property taxes through Freedom of Information Act requests, which have been shared with newspapers. Property tax payers are being misled by the State to subsidize special interest groups that influence the Governor’s office. That is why property tax payers are not being given a vote as to whether or not they support this project.”
“Since the BDCP process started, the cost estimates of Delta conveyance have increased from $4 billion to $15 billion, the water supply and environmental benefits have declined, and seismic levee improvements have been shown to provide a broader range of economic and public safety benefits than the tunnels for a fraction of the cost,” said Dr. Jeffrey Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.
Michael said, “The BDCP has not released a financial plan or cost allocation because they know viable financing will require shifting billions of dollars of cost and risk from irrigators to taxpayers. Paying the colossal debt of the Delta tunnels will force Southern California and Silicon Valley to remain overly dependent on Delta water, and reduce investment in modern, greener alternatives and technologies that would create jobs across the state.”
The experts cited scientists’ harsh criticism of the proposed project. The National Academy of Sciences warned in May 2011– in commenting on an earlier version of the BDCP Plan– “Scientific reasons for not considering alternative actions are not presented in the plan.” (Report in Brief, p. 2, May 5, 2011).
“The vast majority of Californians have been left out of the decision making process so that this plan could be developed to slake the unquenchable thirst of almond growers in the Westlands and Kern County Water districts – and for the leaders of the Metropolitan Water District whose careers are built on reselling water,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.
Barrigan-Parrilla noted several fundamental flaws in the BDCP, “The new intakes will create the famous reverse flows associated with the Delta pumps – but at the new location – the project transfers this problem from one location to another. Water quality for the City of Antioch and Contra Costa Water District will be ridden with pollutants like Boron and Selenium at unhealthy, cancer causing levels. Stockton will be pumping salt water at its new water intake facility.”
“The largest strip of prime farmland in California, the Delta, will be destroyed by construction, and dewatering of farms during the 10-year construction period. And lastly, numerous violations of the Endangered Species Act. To put it bluntly, fisheries will not be restored – they will instead continue to decline to the point of extinction,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.
Restore the Delta is a 15,000-member grassroots organization committed to making the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable to benefit all of California. Restore the Delta works to improve water quality so that fisheries and farming can thrive together again in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. www.restorethedelta.org.
For a summary of the rally with photos, go to: http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/...
Note: I will soon be posting a more indepth article, with a link to photos from the protest, here.