Fran Spivy-Weber, who has served on the State Water Resources Control Board since 2007 and was recently reappointed by Governor Brown to another four-year term, was the keynote speaker at the California Municipal Utilities Association (CMUA) conference last week. (CMUA was formed “to protect the interests of California’s consumer-owned utilities before the California Legislature.”) Spivy-Weber...Read More

The California Water Commission has notified us that the Commission will not be considering amendments to Resolutions of Necessity in April, as we previously announced.  The items will probably be considered on May 15. Read More

“Mark Borba exemplifies an overdeveloped sense of entitlement…” Why would taxpayers pay tens of billions for Peripheral Tunnels for Mega-Growers of Permanent Crops on Unsuitable Land? Statement from Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta “Mark Borba and his family farm on about 8500 acres in the Westlands Water District with federally subsidized water...Read More

Tension beneath surface By Alex Breitler Stockton Record April 06, 2013 Proposal for a pair of tunnels to divert water away from Delta has residents concerned how life above ground will be affected. Continued…Read More

State water tunnel plans call for rerouting of 3 Delta highways for years By Matt Weiser Sacramento Bee Originally Published Sunday, Apr. 07, 2013 The state of California’s proposal to build two massive water diversion tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a major undertaking by itself. But the current plans also call for rerouting...Read More

Media Advisory for Thursday, April 4, 2013 Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; steve@hopcraft.comTwitter: @shopcraft Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta Peripheral Tunnel Opponents to Hold “Death of Delta” Funeral Protest Brown Administration’s Refusal to Consider Alternatives; Present Coffin to Peripheral Tunnel Proponents Opponents of Gov. Jerry Brown’s rush to build Peripheral Tunnels that would drain the Delta...Read More

We’re indebted to Dr. Jeff Michael of UOP’s Business Forecasting Center for pointing out how the recent State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) hearings on San Joaquin River flows are reminiscent of the Hunger Games in Suzanne Collins’ bestselling novels.  (See Dr. Michael’s March 21 blog posting.) While “relatively small farmers represented by relatively small...Read More

In our last newsletter, we mentioned that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is taking credit for habitat conservation work that is going forward anyway, whether or not BDCP is approved by state and federal fisheries agencies.  Melinda Terry of the North Delta Water Agency raised this issue regarding Conservation Measure 2, Yolo Bypass Fisheries...Read More

On the afternoon of March 20, while the Water Board and BDCP were holding meetings at which the concerns of Delta residents were being spectacularly ignored, the California Water Commission was hearing from DWR about why they should consider and, presumably, adopt an amendment to the Resolutions of Necessity underlying the pending eminent domain actions...Read More

Corresponding with release of the first chapters of the BDCP administrative draft, the Department of Water Resources has released a video “describing the ecological and economic importance of the Delta and the basic elements of the BDCP.”  (The video is posted on DWR’s  spotlight archive. ) DWR put together this 10-minute video and managed to...Read More