CSPA assailed the Bay Delta Conservation Program’s statewide economic assessment prepared by the Brattle Group at the BDCP Finance Committee’s 8 August 2013 meeting in West Sacramento. The study claimed that construction of twin tunnels to divert the Sacramento River around the Delta would result in statewide economic benefits.
Bill Jennings, CSPA’s Executive Director, testified that the study was not a full benefit/cost analysis, failed to meet accepted professional standards for economic evaluation of water resource projects, ignored reasonable alternatives, understated or ignored adverse impacts and overstated benefits, discounted risk and uncertainty and was predicated on hypothetical and highly speculative assumptions. Rather than providing economic benefit, BDCP is more likely to become a financial nightmare for those who will have to pay for it.