For Immediate Release: Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546; steve@hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft; @MrSandHillCrane; Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara@restorethedelta.org;
Twitter: @RestoretheDelta
Water Bond Campaign Source,
“Polling showing today that bond that’s on the 2014 ballot
would go down pretty dramatically.”
Points to Opposition to Damaging Delta as Key Cause
What now that Gov. Brown can’t get voters to approve spending billions
to make up for Peripheral Tunnels Damage?
STOCKTON, CA – Restore the Delta, opponents of Gov. Brown’s Peripheral Tunnels that would drain the Delta and doom salmon and other Pacific fisheries, today called on the governor to abandon his proposed tunnel. RTD cited the campaign manager, three successful water bonds, statement that the measure would “go down pretty dramatically” due to Delta opposition. “Voters are not going to stick ourselves with a $7 billion bill to mitigate damage from the proposed water export tunnels,” said RTD Exec. Director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla. “The tunnels can’t go forward without a certain source of funding to mitigate its disastrous effects. If voters won’t approve that funding, and water-takers won’t pay for the damage they’ll do, then it’s time to abandon this unworkable project. What now, Gov. Brown? How are you going to spin the tunnels going forward?“
Joe Caves, “campaign manager” for three previous water bonds, told a Southern California Water Committee (a group being paid by the Brown Administration to push its tunnels) dinner, said, “The polling that we did…is showing today that the bond that’s on the 2014 ballot would go down pretty dramatically… the Delta opposition to the current BDCP is great enough in the Delta communities that particularly in the Bay Area and Northern California, it tends to translate into this north-south water grab issue that fundamentally doomed the peripheral canal back in 1982. All of our polling indicates that if that’s the message that Northern California has and if there are credible messengers pushing that, it’s very easy to defeat a bond, any bond.”