Public comment period to open this week on massive proposal to address longstanding environmental, water supply issues

READ the Bay Delta Conservation Plan EIR/EIS at http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/PublicReview.aspx.

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Editor’s note: First of two parts; part two will be published Thursday.

THE BAY DELTA CONSERVATION PLAN and its Environmental Impact Report and Statement are available for public review and comment.

Though the public comment period that opens Friday will last until next April, some of those who have studied the plan, including government officials from the Delta counties, already have expressed their distaste for the proposal — one even called the plan a “boondoggle.”

The plan’s proponents, however, have called it “a comprehensive conservation strategy aimed at protecting dozens of species of fish and wildlife,” while permitting the reliable operation of California’s two biggest water delivery projects.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which the Bay Delta Conservation Plan called “the heart of California’s water system,” is both a major California water source and a significant estuary and wildlife habitat. About 500,000 Californians live on the Delta, some in historic towns there. They and visitors use Delta waterways for such recreation activities as boating and bird watching.

Cargo ships travel the Delta, as do trains and vehicles; its economy also is bolstered by farms established on some of the richest soil in the state.

Its fresh water comes from the Sierra Nevada, and the Delta provides water for 25 million Californians, from the San Francisco Bay Area through the Central Valley and down to Southern California.

But the Delta and its ecosystem have been “stretched to the breaking point,” the plan contends.

In the past 150 years, the Delta has been changed through manmade levees and reservoirs that removed tidal marshes. Rip-rap and other shoreline barriers have replaced natural riverbank environments that promote native species, and water pumps trap fish. And it’s been dredged to provide water to farmland and urban areas, and to protect its towns and cities from flooding.

The California State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project, two California water delivery systems, also affect the Delta, as do climate change, earthquakes, illegal fishing, nonnative species and local water diversions.

The plan contends that without change to the way water flows through the Delta, the state may lose a reliable drinking water source, the state economy could be hurt through loss of jobs and businesses, and native species could become extinct.

The plan called the current situation “unsustainable,” but has conceded that any changes would be controversial — just the latest stage in a long-standing conflict on how to conserve the state’s natural resources while providing enough water to its residents.

Proponents call the Bay Delta Conservation Plan an “ecosystem-based approach” that would restore fish and wildlife habitat — a total of 56 species — while protecting water supplies.

The plan would move the primary point of water diversion from the south Delta to the north Delta, which it contends creates more natural east-west flow to the San Francisco Bay, helps fish that depend on the Delta for their survival and provides secure water deliveries.

It would accelerate habitat restoration, proponents say, creating 30,000 acres of aquatic habitat, reconnecting flood plains, isolating water deliveries from stressed levees and installing fish screens to reduce fish trapping by pumps.

The design is expected to improve conditions for Delta and longfin smelt through improved seasonal outflows, as well as chinook salmon, which would be prevented from straying into South Delta channels.

Perhaps most controversially, the plan would involve the digging of two tunnels to reduce chances of threats to water quality, such as damage to levees, seismic disruption and flooding.

The tunnels would move water at a rate of up to 9,000 cubic feet per second, primarily through gravity flow, designed to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The tunnels would be drilled with circular cutter head tunnel borers that work in advance of the installation of segmented pre-cast concrete liners that will be bolted in place and grouted — a method that has been shown to cause less disturbance of surrounding soils, according to the plan.

While the two 30-mile main tunnels are the most talked-about change in water conveyance proposed by the plan, they aren’t the only changes the plan would bring.

The plan also involves three North Delta intakes, each with state-of-the-art fish screens, placed to avoid changes in tidal salinity; a new 40-acre “forebay,” or water collection reservoir; a new gate at the head of Old River; and improvements and expansion to Clifton Court Forebay.

It would operate existing as well as new water conveyors, including the North Delta intakes, South Delta exporters, Delta Cross Channel gates, Suisun Marsh Salinity Control gates and the North Bay Aqueduct Intake.

Operation of the water system would vary, depending on seasonal conditions.

The plan outlines methods by which 11 different “natural communities” — flood plains, tidal marshlands, grasslands and the like — would be restored. It also addresses ways to reduce chemical contamination, invasive species, dissolved oxygen levels, illegal fishing and other elements that add stress to the Delta system.

However, the plan acknowledges that addressing all the elements of the Delta has been a challenge, and that the proposal doesn’t have all the answers wrapped up in a single document.

Not only would the plan collaborate with other agencies — the plan itself calls for additional research and monitoring, and encourages adaptability, noting that there still is “a degree of scientific uncertainty” because “the Delta is an ecologically complex estuary.”

The plan calls this “adaptive management and monitoring,” indicating the program itself would allow for adjustments to conservation measures based on new scientific information gained from monitoring and targeted research.

The plan would be governed through a collaborative effort. Most of the responsibility would belong to the BDCP Implementation Office and led by a program manager governed by a panel made up of the director of the Department of Water Resources, the regional director for reclamation and representatives of participating state and federal contractors.

An adaptive management team would administer the changes that additional information suggest would need to be made to the water plan’s operations, and a stakeholder council would be organized as a forum for interested parties to help with the plan’s operations and improvements. State and federal fish and wildlife agencies would make up the permit oversight group.

The Delta conservation plan is expected to cost nearly $20 billion for capital expenditures, and another nearly $5 billion in operations and maintenance costs. Federal funding would cover $14 billion; state funds would cover another $4.12 billion. Another $165 million would come from interest. The bulk, $16.93 billion, would come from water contractor funding.

This funding would be spread out across 50 years, primarily borne through those who receive the benefit — municipal, industrial and agricultural water users.

State funding is projected to come from two future water bonds, one of them approved by the state Legislature in 2009 for the statewide ballot, though voters won’t see the matter until 2014 unless the Legislature decides to modify the bond.

The plan doesn’t present a project budget, which instead would be developed by the BDCP Implementation Office based on these estimates.

Members of the Delta Counties Coalition already have offered some preliminary comments about the proposal.

Supervisor Skip Thomson, representing Solano County, said, “We are reviewing this enormous document with healthy skepticism, given the state’s track record so far on the transparency of the process, the lack of clarity that the science justifies the level of investment proposed, the inclusion of affected stakeholders in a meaningful way, and keeping its promises.”

He continued, “While we understand and appreciate the broader water management objectives, the Delta cannot be sacrificed to address water needs elsewhere.”

His counterpart in Contra Costa County minced few words.

Supervisor Karen Mitchoff said, “Once again, and after numerous meetings between the Secretary of Natural Resources and other state officials associated with the BDCP and representatives of all the Delta Counties, we have been shut out of participating at a meaningful level should the BDCP be implemented.”

She said that during the past three months, when coalition members hoped to learn of comprehensive solutions to the state’s water issues, “we were led to believe that our input was valued and would be recognized.

“Unfortunately, the governance section of the Draft EIR (environmental impact report) leaves the Delta counties out of any significant role in the control and operation of BDCP,” she said.

“I am extremely disappointed that our good-faith efforts in getting a seat at the table have been for naught.”

Supervisor Don Nottoli of Sacramento County called the proposed plan “a feeble attempt to disguise a massive water transfer project as a habitat restoration program.”

He said the two tunnels “and all that accompanies them” would not produce any more water to supply Californians.

“However, make no mistake: this project will have lasting and negative impacts on the Delta, its economy and its people,” Nottoli said.

“We need to continue working to find reasonable and fiscally responsible solutions to the water challenges facing California but sacrificing the Delta to benefit other regions of the state is not the answer.”

San Joaquin County Supervisor Larry Ruhstaller said taxpayers, too, were excluded from having any input on the plan, particularly the tunnels.

“The law was written in a way that the BDCP won’t be put up for a public vote,” Ruhstaller said.

He called the environmental report, which exceeds 30,000 pages, “the first time the public will have any real say in the process.” But he wondered how many people who want to know how the plan would affect their neighborhoods and towns would wade through thousands of pages of plan and environmental report, which he described as “technical jargon and nonsense,” just to contribute their own comments.

“Truth be told, this public comment period is really just a charade,” he said. “Based on the experience of the Delta, it is unlikely that proponents will take into consideration any input from people who don’t agree with them,” he said.

San Joaquin County Supervisor Ken Vogel said the state’s tax and rate payers would be underwriting the “narrowly focused BDCP.”

He said they should ask themselves two “critical” questions as they read the documents. One of those questions, he said, is, “Can we as a state, afford this multi-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded project that will clearly not produce a single drop of new water?”

The other question: “Will the project actually restore the Delta’s fragile ecosystem?” He added, “Ultimately, the BDCP will fail in meeting the co-equal goals of improving both the state’s water supply and Delta ecosystem.

“The BDCP pits region against region and relies upon huge ratepayer increases and taxpayer subsidies from those who would see little or no benefit in the urban areas, while others in the Delta and Northern California would have their livelihoods destroyed.”

U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Davis, has been among the Bay Delta Conservation Plan most vocal critics. It is a title he calls a misnomer.

“Thus far every analysis of the proposed twin tunnels and disruptive habitat restoration projects in the BDCP has shown the proposal fails to achieve the legally required goals of environmental restoration and reliable water,” he said.

“Since there has been no substantive change in the purpose or fundamental design of the BDCP, it is hard to imagine how these documents change the fundamental fact that the whole BDCP is a $25 billion boondoggle that will lead to the destruction of the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Western Hemisphere,” Garamendi said.