Dr. David Sunding and the Brattle Group did a good job of producing what they are being paid to produce: an economic justification for exporters to pay for BDCP and Delta conveyance.  To do that, the Brattle Group had to ignore the economic effects of this project on the rest of California, including the Delta. ...Read More

The biggest difference between Sunding’s and Michael’s analyses is that Sunding’s analysis took a lot of economic credit for “regulatory certainty” under BDCP.  Sunding assumed that under BDCP, exporters could make plans without having to worry about regulations changing in response to changing conditions. Now remember that decision tree?  Resources Secretary Jerry Meral said there’s...Read More

If the decision tree led to different water supply yields, they could, said Meral, augment water supplies by buying upstream.  With this strategy, irrigators in the north are paid to use less of the water they have rights to so that those in the south can use more.  What often happens is that irrigators in...Read More

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 Contact:  Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546  steve@hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft; Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta   Restore the Delta: BDCP Plus “Defies Common Sense” Would impose 75% of cost on LA ratepayers, for 25% of water Sacramento, CA – Restore the Delta (RTD) today told the Resources Agency that the...Read More

Dear Friends, Sometime between the middle and the end of July, Governor Brown will announce a plan to proceed with building tunnel conveyance under the Delta – the current version of the Peripheral Canal that voters defeated with a referendum in 1982. We are asking our supporters to write a letter to the Governor urging...Read More

For every $2.50 spent building the Delta conveyance tunnel proposed by the BDCP, we can expect to see $1.00 of economic benefits. That’s the conclusion of a new report by Dr. Jeffrey Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific. The report notes that other economic analyses have tended to...Read More

The “BDCP Plus” conveyance plan is now proposing three rather than five intakes – at a savings of $1 billion per intake – for a total of 9,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) instead of 15,000 cfs.   But before anyone gets the idea that this involves any real intention to limit export flows, you need...Read More

The Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) will remain independent after all, despite efforts by the Brown administration and the advice of the Little Hoover Commission to move it under the umbrella of the Resources Agency.  Chair Phil Isenberg made the case for continued independence before an Assembly Special Committee on the Governor’s Reorganization Plan last week....Read More

The Delta Plan is moving toward its final version, and the revision process is proving troublesome for staff and the public. At the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) meeting last week, council members were irate with staff for not following some of their directions regarding revisions of the sixth staff draft. Some changes labeled “errata” were...Read More

Senator Michael Rubio pulled his SB 250 before it could be heard by the Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee last week, even though Chair Jared Huffman had made it clear that it was then or never. This is the bill that would have called for the completion of the BDCP process by 2013 and...Read More