In a marathon day of meetings on March 20, Delta advocates were all over Sacramento trying to keep up with the State’s different planning processes affecting the Delta region. While the State Water Resources Control Board was meeting a few blocks away (see below), the California Water Commission (CWC) spent Wednesday morning having a “workshop”...Read More

Wednesday afternoon, as the Water Board hearing continued, Jerry Meral and consultants held a public meeting to take questions on the first four chapters of the administrative draft of the BDCP, released just a week ago. Dozens of Delta residents showed up for this meeting, and they were mostly well-prepared with thoughtful questions. But it’s...Read More

At the State Water Resources Control hearing on San Joaquin River Flows as part of the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta) Program, Phase I, John Rubin, Senior Council for the San Luis Delta-Mendota Water Authority, made a presentation to the State Water Resources Control Board that was an all out attack on the...Read More

In addition to failing to rectify years of water quality violations in the San Joaquin River and South Delta, the proposed plan also fails to increase flows sufficiently to restore salmon and steelhead in the San Joaquin River. It fails to balance the public trust. It fails to provide sufficient water quality and water quantity...Read More

Restore the Delta Criticizes Two Water Plans: BDCP will “Fail to Restore Estuary,” Water Board must Restore Flows to San Joaquin River Testifies at Two Public Hearings SACRAMENTO, CA – Restore the Delta (RTD), a coalition opposed to the Brown Administration’s rush to construct massive Peripheral Tunnels to take millions of acre-feet of water from...Read More

Two Important Meetings for the Delta Need Attendance by Restore the Delta Supporters This Wednesday, March 20, 2013! While all eyes are on the Bay Delta Conservation Play, people cannot forget that the Delta cannot be restored if flows are not restored on the San Joaquin River.  The State Water Resource Control Board is receiving...Read More

By Robert Pyke and Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla Special to the Mercury News Posted:   03/15/2013  Water exporters misrepresent the risk of earthquakes to generate support for the peripheral tunnels. Powerful interests control California’s water resources and the message about the state’s water. Since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, these powerful interests have stoked fear of flooding...Read More

Experts: Latest BDCP Proposal Still “Fatally Flawed” No Cost-Benefit Analysis of Alternatives; Dewatering the Delta billed as “Conservation Measure” SACRAMENTO, CA – Restore the Delta (RTD), a coalition opposed to the Brown Administration’s rush to construct massive Peripheral Tunnels to take millions of acre-feet of water from the Delta, today said the revised BDCP proposal...Read More

Last month, DWR director Mark Cowin announced that computer modeling showed an additional 700,000 acre-feet of water could have been sent to exporters since November 1 if the peripheral tunnels had been in place. The argument is that with North Delta diversions, less water would be pumped from the South Delta, so smelt would not...Read More

As he seeks to make the case that the benefits of BDCP will exceed its costs, economist Dr. David Sunding is estimating that restoring 30,000 or more acres of habitat in the Delta, some of it on land currently used for farming, will mean a net gain in jobs for the half-century scope of the...Read More