Today, CSPA, CWIN and AquAlliance issued a press release assailing the deceptive BDCP economic impact study released by the Brown Administration. BDCP’s tunnel scheme will saddle ratepayers with more than $50 billion in debt and imperil the Delta estuary and its tributary waters. BDCP is predicated on the irrational assumption that you can restore an estuary hemorrhaging from lack of flow by diverting additional water around it.
The Brown Administration promised they would provide a comprehensive BDCP benefit/cost analysis. Instead, it baited and switched with an inadequate, deceptive impact study rooted in fantasy.
The Report:
- Assumes a 1.3 MAF increase in exports, while the Administration and BDCP EIR/EIS acknowledges that BDCP will not increase the present level of exports. Without an export increase, BDCP has no economic benefits.
- Fails to compare the project with effective less expensive alternatives that would improve water supply security, provide more jobs, create additional water and restore the Delta.
- Does not meet professionally accepted standards for this type of economic analysis.
- Makes wildly optimistic assumptions of the benefits of habitat restoration that have been refuted by agency fishery scientists.
- Ignores the over-subscription, waste and unreasonable use of water, overstates the seismic risk to the existing delivery infrastructure and bases its conclusions on inflated population growth and water usage projections.
An intellectually honest economic analysis that complied with accepted professional standards would demonstrate that the costs of BDCP vastly outweigh any economic benefit to both project proponents and statewide interests.