It is always interesting to glimpse the Metropolitan Water District’s (MWD’s) internal communications about Delta processes. The MWD general manager’s Bay-Delta Management Report to a board committee this week manages not to mention that the planned “decision tree” for operation of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) includes a possible reduction of exports to 4.5...Read More

This backup plan to get freshwater to urban areas in the unlikely event of levee failure should relieve the minds of the Latino Water Coalition, which has teamed up with the California Conference of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to write to Interior Secretary Salazar and Natural Resources Secretary John...Read More

The Delta Independent Science Board met this week to discuss its reviews of science programs in the Delta, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan Draft Environmental Impact Report/Statement (BDCP DEIR/EIS), the Delta Science Program, and the Delta ISB workplan. Board members Judy Meyer and John Wiens provided written comments on a report by the Independent Scientific...Read More

When economist David Sunding reported to the BDCP recently, his analysis showed that the tunnel project would provide a net benefit to beneficiaries (water contractors). That isn’t because tunnels would provide more water, better quality water, or reduced seismic risk. It was because tunnels built as part of the BDCP would provide “regulatory assurance” against...Read More

Restore The Delta to Launch Campaign Against Peripheral Tunnel: Ed Begley, Jr. Narrates “Over Troubled Waters” Screenings set for Sacramento, Stockton & Los Angeles STOCKTON, CA – Restore the Delta (RTD) announced today that it is launching a campaign to defeat the planned Peripheral Tunnel, including release of “Over Troubled Waters,” a documentary film narrated...Read More

Restore the Delta has received back from Hollywood its master copy of Over Troubled Waters and is preparing to announce its premiere screening. Details will be out shortly. Film synopsis: The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas, is a national treasure being squandered by greed. In this visually...Read More

Lots of Californians will be hurt by cuts in this year’s State Budget, but lawmakers found a little something for struggling water contractors. The Budget includes “75 new positions to perform preliminary engineering and design work for the Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program.” In other words, taxpayers, not beneficiaries (water contractors), are paying the...Read More

DWR Director Mark Cowin has made it clear to Delta reclamation district engineers that the state’s priority for levees is to save the state money rather than to protect the people, infrastructure, and economic activities of the Delta. The flood management investment framework being promoted by DWR endorses a baseline levee requirement using “minimum geometry...Read More

Twelve California Congressional representatives have signed a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Acting Department of Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank asking them not to rush into supporting BDCP Plus – the build-it-first-and-ask-questions-later conveyance plan that Governor Brown and Secretary Salazar are expected to announce in July. Says the letter, “We do not believe it...Read More

The Delta Stewardship Council is meeting to try to come up with policies and recommendations relative to the Delta Plan that will allow the process to move forward with the environmental review. Some council members and many stakeholders think the Delta Plan isn’t there yet, both in small, wordsmithing ways and in big, policy ways....Read More