Article from Central Valley Business Times.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=29508
SACRAMENTO
November 25, 2015 2:13pm
• Groups say that step must come before approving tunnel permits
• “The ball is in the State Water Board’s court”’
Completion by the State Water Resources Control Board of the long-delayed update to the water quality plan for the California Delta must come before the board approves a request that would help clear the way for construction of massive water tunnels in the Delta, say four environmental groups in a letter to the board.
The water quality plan has not been significantly updated in 20 years.
The writers — Restore the Delta, Friends of the River, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and the Environmental Water Caucus – say the water board cannot approve the “Petition for Change in Points of Diversion and Re-Diversion along the lower Sacramento River” without violating state law.
Approval of the petition with the snooze-inducing name would help clear the way for ultimate approval of a plan pushed by Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. for construction of two massive water tunnels to drain fresh water from the Sacramento River into the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project irrigation systems.
But the groups say the Tunnels Project Change Petition “is the most damaging and controversial diversion and rediversion proposal in California history.”
At a possible $60 billion or more to build and finance, it would be “the most expensive water project proposal in California history,” they point out.
The tunnels scheme is essentially an underground version of the infamous Peripheral Canal idea pushed by Mr. Brown but voted down in a statewide referendum in June 1982 by a 2 to 1 margin.
“As a result of its massive diversions, the freshwater that presently flows through designated critical habitats for now-crashing fish populations in the Sacramento River and sloughs to and through the Bay-Delta before being diverted for export at the south Delta, would no longer even reach the Delta,” says the letter to the water board.
The letter say there is no adequate informational basis at this time to hold an evidentiary hearing. It adds: “Finally, there is no lawful basis to proceed with a project that will worsen already existing water quality violations in the Delta or consider a water quality certification in the absence of an adequate Draft EIR/EIS and in the absence of public trust analysis,” says the letter.
“The state wants to process water rights permits for the tunnels intakes without an adequate EIR because Governor Jerry Brown wants this as a legacy project by the time he leaves office in 2019, and water exporters see this as a crucial opportunity with a supportive governor to ram this thing through state regulatory agencies like the Water Board,” says Tim Stroshan, Restore the Delta’s policy analyst. “But the document lacks important information about the tunnels’ impacts, and lacks reasonable and meaningful alternatives that also would solve Delta problems and increase the state’s water supply reliability.”
“The ball is in the State Water Board’s court,” says Bob Wright, senior counsel at Friends of the River. “They can either do a legitimate environmental review or tell Reclamation and DWR they must do so. The inadequate environmental review for the Delta Tunnels is a defect that can only be cured by doing an adequate review.”
Four of the five members of the State Water Resources Control Board owe their appointments to Mr. Brown. Taxpayers pay them each $131,564 a year plus another $37,037 for their retirement and health care.