When the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) released its 40,000 pages of planning and environmental review documents for public comment, the Implementation Agreement was conspicuously absent. However, the Implementation Agreement revealing the commitments to species recovery and how the Delta tunnels project will be financed, built and operated is a necessary and integral component of the plan. The project cannot be approved without it. BDCP assured everyone that the Implementation Agreement would be released for review 60-days before the 13 June 2014 deadline for public comments on the Plan and EIR/EIS.
Now, less than 60-days till the close of public comment there is still no Implementation Agreement and no indication of when it will be publically available for review. The State and Federal Water Contractors have been unable to reach agreement on how the tunnels will be financed or how they’ll be operated.
In an RTD press release, CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings observed, “If they cannot explain in the Implementation Agreement how the 40,000 pages of fantasy in the BDCP and the EIR are going to be implemented or financed, them how can the public be expected to comment effectively by June 13, 2014 or any date for that matter.”