Article from Daily Kos.
By Dan Bacher
2016/08/18 · 11:51
In the latest salvo in the California water wars, a broad coalition of fishing, conservation, environmental justice and public interest organizations today sent a letter to the state and federal governments requesting a new and complete environmental analysis of Governor Brown’s controversial Delta Tunnels plan, the “California WaterFix.”
The groups claim the proposal, as currently submitted, violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). California WaterFix opponents consider the plan to be the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that poses a huge threat to the ecosystems of the Sacramento, San Joaquin, Klamath and Trinity River systems.
The letter targeted Sally Jewell, Secretary of Interior; Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Commerce; Gina McCarthy, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Christina Goldfuss, Managing Director, Council on Environmental Quality; John Laird, Secretary, California Natural Resources Agency; and David Murillo, Regional Director, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Groups signing the letter include: AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Water Impact Network, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Environmental Water Caucus, Friends of the River, Planning and Conservation League, Restore the Delta, and Sierra Club California.
Claims made by the groups in the letter include the following:
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the most recent environmental review documents for the project a failing grade in October 2015.
• The EPA expected that the essential, but missing, environmental analyses would be supplied by other agencies during their review processes. That did not happen.
• The US Bureau of Reclamation has now issued a biological assessment admitting the project is “likely to adversely affect” endangered and threatened fish species and their designated critical habitats. That contradicts Reclamation’s denials of adverse effects in the earlier Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
• A new White House guidance requires consideration of the effects of climate change on federally-permitted projects.
The groups concluded in their letter:
“Reclamation and DWR must either drop the Water Tunnels project or finally prepare and issue for public review and comment and decision-maker review a new Draft EIR/EIS that includes the required range of reasonable alternatives. Alternatives including through-Delta conveyance and increasing Delta flows by reducing exports must be included.
Extinction is forever. It is time to cure the deficiencies found by the EPA in October of 2015. It is time to finally stop hiding the ball from the public.”
“The National Environmental Protection Act is often called the ‘take a hard look at the environmental impacts’ law,” said Robert Wright, Senior Counsel for Friends of the River and author of the coalition letter. “Until the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources can prove the Delta Tunnels will not kill off fish species or destroy water quality for people in the Delta, the project remains un-permittable.”
“The dog ate my homework defense doesn’t work in the federal courts,” he quipped.
The letter is available here: restorethedelta.org/…
The organizations sent the letter as the State Water Resources Control Board, whose members are appointed by Governor Brown, resumes its hearings in Sacramento regarding the permits required to build the Delta Tunnels.
As I said in my testimony before the Board in late July, the California WaterFix is based on the absurd contention that taking up to 9,000 cubic feet per second of water from the Sacramento River at the new points of diversion, as requested in the petition by the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to the State Water Resources Control Board, will somehow “restore” the Delta ecosystem.
I am not aware of a single project in US or world history where the construction of a project that takes more water out of a river or estuary has resulted in the restoration of that river or estuary. You can read my testimony before the Water Board at: www.dailykos.com/…