Delta tunnel project clears important hurdle with release of final environmental impact report – Bay City News 12/15/23
…Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the group Restore the Delta, said the state agencies’ argument that the tunnel is a climate project was built on incomplete data and faulty analysis. She also raised social justice issues associated with its construction near urban communities and called for an investment in resilience projects that reduce reliance on water exports from the Delta.
“The big pipe engineering solutions of the last century are no longer the way forward in California water’s climate-changed reality,” Barrigan-Parrilla said. “We need more underground storage in agricultural regions and more regional stormwater collection and water recycling in our cities. … The plan still largely ignores the project’s impacts on Delta urban environmental justice communities and how construction will ruin small Delta farming towns.”
In regard to underground storage, Crowfoot said it’s an “and not an or” situation, saying this project will help diversify the state’s water supplies, which includes recharging groundwater during wet years. He further noted that the redesign of the project includes investments to address impacts to urban communities like Stockton to protect their drinking water.
Restore the Delta’s Policy Analyst Cintia Cortez in response to Secretary Crowfoot’s comments: As a lifelong Delta resident in Stockton, I am saddened by Governor Newsom’s continued efforts to build a tunnel and Secretary Crowfoot’s continued support to dismiss the SF Bay-Delta as a climate sacrifice zone. Climate change is coming, and California’s Governor has decided to ignore the science and is married to the idea of building a tunnel to divert water from the Delta that will impact drinking water reservoirs, impede recreation, threaten public health for disadvantaged communities, wipe away endemic fish species, and preclude tribes from traditional ceremonies and cultural practices.
In short, the Delta tunnel is a band aid over a gunshot wound. The Delta tunnel will allow for excessive diversion of water flow which will impact the health and wellbeing of the Bay-Delta ecosystem and its communities. Secretary Crowfoot’s promise to invest in communities whose drinking water will be augmented by the construction of the tunnel will only continue the falsehood that the Delta tunnel is a climate project. Contrary to Crowfoot’s statement, the tunnel would deplete the river watersheds of needed flows for groundwater recharge. He has pitted the desires, not drinking water needs, as determined by the leaders of the State Water Contractors against the needs of other environmental justice communities throughout the Delta watershed and in the San Joaquin Valley. He aims to solely protect big agriculture, and new developments in Southern CA, and not the Delta. Unlike Secretary Crowfoot, we are advocating for the protection of drinking water, vulnerable communities, fisheries, tribes, and access to safe recreation for all California water users.
Climate change solutions should promote equity. California needs a sustainable water management plan that allows for adequate flow to protect communities, tribes, and fisheries, not the Delta tunnel.
State certifies Delta tunnel EIR Solano calls ‘inadequate’ – Daily Republic 12/23/23
The state on Thursday [December 21, 2023] certified the Delta Conveyance Project Environmental Impact Report.
The county, in comments sent to the state, argued that the report “is inadequate” in its mitigation of potential impacts.
Supervisor Mitch Mashburn in an earlier interview noted that nothing has changed about the state’s intent, and said the plan will destroy Delta communities, harm fish and wildlife habitats, and gives no regard to Native American cultural protections.
“In this EIR, they have made it clear they will not be able to mitigate all the impacts this project will cause,” Mashburn said.
He has gone so far as to say the project “threatens national security” due to increased traffic in Solano and its possible impacts on Travis Air Force Base.
A look back at Stockton’s 2023 – Stocktonia 12/27/23
As for the Delta tunnel — the Godzilla to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s Tokyo — its approval by the California Department of Water Resources is procrustean, a tragic disregard of environmentalism backed by sound biological science. It is merely a government of the moneyed, by the moneyed, for the moneyed.
Diverting 6,000 cubic feet a second of water from the Sacramento River through a 45-mile underground tunnel — if the exporters stop at that much, which they never do — will, by the state’s own account, scar the Delta with construction, further harm dying salmon and Delta smelt fisheries, and hurt regional farming. As if we need our weak economy to be gob-smacked for the benefit of Beverly Hills.
“We and our broad coalition of partners will engage in all necessary processes, and when necessary, litigation, to stop the Delta Conveyance Project once and for all,” vowed Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director for Restore the Delta.
California Climate 2024 edition – Politico 1/2/24
…And finally, the state’s zombiest of zombie water projects, the controversial tunnel to pipe more water from Northern to Southern California through the Delta, is clawing its way back to life after the Newsom administration released a final environmental review in the waning days of 2023. What it needs now is financial support, which big players like the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California are set to consider this year.
California Congressman John Garamendi Statement on Gavin Newsom Administration Advancing Delta tunnel ‘Boondoggle’ Say, “I Urge The Governor To Reconsider This Deeply Misguided Project” – Sierra Sun Times 1/3/24
“As I told the six previous Governors and now Governor Newsom, this tunnel will never be built. The state should not continue spending hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars in pursuit of a multibillion-dollar boondoggle. Tunneling under the Delta to export more water to Southern California risks collapsing the Delta’s earthen levees and inundating this iconic working landscape with saltwater. While I share the Governor’s enthusiasm for modernizing California’s water supply infrastructure, forcing a tunnel on Delta residents ignores better ways to meet our state’s future water needs. I urge the Governor to reconsider this deeply misguided project,” said Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA).