Farmers learn their land may be bought as right-of-way

State Sen. Lois Wolk said reports that up to 300 Delta farms may be purchased as right-of-way for two 30-mile water tunnels means the construction project “has been a foregone conclusion.”

A 160-page property acquisition plan lists hundreds of parcels and maps them as part of advanced planning for the project. But the tunnel project has not yet been approved. Other officials said the acquisitions plan needs to be developed ahead of time.

Roger Patterson, assistant general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said right-of-way needs must be anticipated.

“That is the key part of your normal planning process,” Patterson said. His district would be among those helped by the twin tunnels.

But some farmers, among them Richard Elliot of Courtland, disagreed. His family farm, one of many in the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, has grown cherries, pears and other crops since the 1860s.

“To find out they’re sitting in a room figuring out this eminent domain makes it sound like they’re going to bully us — and take what they want,” Elliot said.

“It is wrong and premature that the Department of Water Resources (DWR) has a unit creating a secret land acquisition plan to take 150-year-old farms like ours through condemnation,” he said.

“Now it is going to be condemned for thirsty water agencies working with DWR.”

Elliot said forsaking prime Delta farmland that has access to water and is situated where weather is moderate “does not make good policy sense,” particularly when compared to farmland farther south, which he described as being “in a dry desert that is filled with salt and selenium in its soils and that is not sustainable.”

He added, “The entire plan doesn’t make for sustainable food policies, smart land-use practices, or even common sense.”

Wolk is chairperson of the Senate Select Committee on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which heard a panel and members of the public comment Tuesday morning about the tunnels proposal in an attempt to analyze its impact on the state.

“After years of analysis, at tremendous expense, there remain unanswered questions about what the Delta Tunnels will cost, whether they will improve water supply reliability in the state, and whether they’ll be good for the Delta ecosystem,” Wolk said.

“There are unanswered questions about whether the tunnels will significantly affect the economy and communities of the Delta, and about alternatives.

“These are some of the basic questions that all Californians should expect to have answered prior to moving forward with a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure proposal, the most expensive and controversial water infrastructure proposal in California history.”

She described the tunnels as being 40 feet in diameter and placed 150 feet under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to divert freshwater from the Sacramento River, bypassing the Delta to deliver the water to exporting infrastructure in the south Delta.

Speaking at the panel hearing, Jeffrey Michael, director of the Center for Business and Policy Research at the University of the Pacific, said, “The tunnels are not economically justified and are financially infeasible without a substantial taxpayer subsidy. Benefit-cost analysis guidelines require consideration of strong alternatives, and comparison to no-action or the ‘status quo.’”

But the tunnels plan doesn’t explore less-costly alternatives, he said, saying it was no better than the current situation.

“The state’s analysis of the tunnels show water contractors only receive about 30 cents of value for each dollar spent,” he said. “The economics of the tunnels for water exporters require a large boost to water yield, but the tunnels plan has little to no increase in water exports.”

Don Nottoli, Sacramento County District 5 supervisor, said other, more reasonable means are available to provide for California’s water needs and urged instead restoration of the Delta.

Craig Wilson, who formerly was the State Water Resources Control Board’s Delta water master, said a western Delta alternative should be considered. “We could end up with the worst of all worlds, where you have this isolated facility at great expense and perhaps less water being made available to the environment and the water exporters.”

Christina Swanson, director of the Science Center for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said unlike the rest of the state, which has been enduring a severe drought for four years, the Delta estuary has been in “a very, very severe drought” for 15 years and more. “The Delta’s been in a drought for decades.”

Fish populations depend on water flow, she said, blaming large fluctuations in the amount of water exported from the Delta. “That’s the problem we should be looking to solve with a California water fix. We have misidentified the causal factors in the problem we are trying to address.”

Those representing businesses and construction companies that would benefit by the project told Wolk that safe, dependable drinking water was important, perhaps more important than jobs. Some said if the Delta’s islands are allowed to disappear, it would draw saltwater farther upstream from the Pacific Ocean.

Others advocated examining desalinizing water, explaining that removing salt from water in Antioch, which has less salt than ocean water, would be a less expensive approach and would “create” more water without harming the Delta.

Gov. Jerry Brown has been among those endorsing the tunnels as a better way to distribute water throughout the state. His administration has said Delta water flows need to be re-engineered to correct mistakes of past water projects and supply those in Southern California.

An environmental review of the tunnels and other proposed changes for the Delta is undergoing a period of public review and comment through October.

Meanwhile, an alliance of farmers, the fishing community, environmentalists and others calling themselves Restore the Delta released a property plan the organization obtained through a state open records law request. The plan affects land in Sacramento, San Joaquin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties.

The Acquisitions Management Plan was intended as a consultation document for the proposed Design and Construction Enterprise (DCE) that would oversee the design and construction of Conservation Measure 1 water infrastructure of the pending Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). DCE would oversee property acquisition.

The plan focuses on the California Environmental Quality Act Preferred Alternative 4 that calls for four dual conveyances with modified pipeline or tunnel and intakes labeled “2,” “3” and “5.”

Under Alternative 4, water would be carried from the North Delta to the South Delta through pipelines or tunnels. The plan covers the utility alignment to power the intake pumping plants, tunnel boring machinery and other equipment along the conveyance.

While the plan focuses on property rights acquisition, it doesn’t cover detailed schedules, budgets, policies or staffing plans.

The report said hundreds of privately owned properties in four counties would be impacted, but how those lands would be acquired would depend on the construction project. “All of some properties and portions of others will be needed,” the report said. “Every effort shall be given to reasonable negotiations and to provide any relocation assistance to property owners and/or their tenants as they may be eligible to receive.”

While the report said project teams should clearly identify and communicate rights needed for investigations, construction and monitoring the project to minimize interaction and disruption to property owners, it stated the goal is “to approach each property owner once for all necessary rights where practical.” Subsequent meetings would be for negotiating terms and answering questions, it said, and the process could take four years.

In an email Monday, Wolk wrote, “If these reports are correct, then we have further confirmation that the tunnels project has been a forgone conclusion.” She added that the environmental review, “which should be used to choose a project, is simply being used to justify the favored project.”

Restore the Delta executive director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla sharply criticized state agencies who “view public oversight as simply a distraction” while those opposed to the tunnels are making their comments available to those interested in the subject.

“These documents arrogantly envision groundbreaking ceremonies as early as July 2016,” she said. “Bulldozers and cement trucks are ready to roll! Red ribbons are budgeted! All for a $60 billion boondoggle without even one permit. Clearly, water officials under the Brown Administration view the Delta as a colony.”

Restore the Delta proponents said DWR already has awarded an $11.4 million no-bid contract to the Hallmark Group, a capital program management firm in Sacramento, to direct its Delta Design Construction Enterprise.