Mike McKenzie
07-23-2012, 08:09 AM
Hi Folks: CSPA is going to war! We, Restore the Delta, the Environmental Water Caucus, Sierra Club, PCFFA, NCCFFF, PCL and numerous other groups are gathering at noon on the West steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento this coming Wednesday, 25 July 2012 to voice our opposition to the Governor’s impending announcement to rush forward with his nightmarish scheme of building a peripheral canal/tunnel around the Delta.
We hope you can join us and spread the word. A media advisory and today’s Sacramento Bee editorial are attached.
Recently, the wheels came off of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan’s (BDCP) five-year, $150 million planning effort to build a $50 billion (including financing and operations) peripheral canal/tunnel to divert Sacramento River water around the Delta in order to increase exports to south valley agribusiness.
The National Research Council of the National Academies, the Delta Independent Science Board, NGO scientists, the USFWS, NMFS and DFG scathingly characterized BDCP’s Effects Analysis as failing to meet minimal standards for credible scientific analysis – that it ignored negative impacts, cherry picked data and misrepresented current scientific research – that, in short, the project would hasten extinction rather than restoring species. Consequently, the project would not be able to meet requirements for an HCP, in order to provide water contractors with 50-year no surprise exemptions from future Endangered Species Act regulation.
Not to be deterred, the proponents went back to the drawing board and came forth with the outrageous proposal to build it now and figure out how to operate it later; i.e., plumbing before policy.
According to the state and federal recommendation document for this connivance, key decisions, operating criteria, biological assurances, the details of adaptive management and restoration funding – even the quantity of water to be exported - are all relegated to an uncertain future. But, in the interval, they’ll move forward with construction of 9,000 cfs intakes on the Sacramento River and 15,000 cfs tunnels under the Delta to the export pumps. There will be no comprehensive benefit/cost analysis of the project and water exporters would be given key control over staffing, the science program and even veto power over improvements to biological goals and objectives. There is no acknowledgement that Delta outflow must increase if fisheries are to stabilize and recover.
This is not a path to a restored Delta; it’s a death sentence for one of the world’s great estuaries.
We ask that you do the following:
• Show up personally at the West steps of the Capitol in Sacramento by noon on July 25 to join the rally. Here’s an opportunity for some real grassroots advocacy.
• Share this email as soon as possible with all like-minded friends and associates who truly care about our environment and fisheries.
• Let us know by email if you will participate; we will send those who respond more detailed instruction as to timing and event coordination.
We cannot emphasize how important it is to stop this enormous mistake that the Governor and Secretary of the Interior are planning. The Peripheral Tunnel is unnecessary and will increase urban water rates while San Joaquin corporate farms receive most of the water. Once its constructed and tens of billions of dollars expended, the pressure to operate it to the maximum will be unstoppable.
We would be laughing about this preposterous Alice in Wonderland scheme if the state and federal government weren’t seriously intent on moving forward with it. BDCP is a recipe for ecological disaster.
Please plan to join us, and respond to this email to either Bill Jennings of CSPA/Restore the Delta ( deltakeep@me.com ) or Nick Di Croce of the Environmental Water Caucus ( troutnk@aol.com ) . A copy of Restore the Delta’s Media Advisory is attached.
Thanks and Cheers!
Be there if you can, if you can't, then deluge our Governor with letters emails and phone calls!
Mike
We hope you can join us and spread the word. A media advisory and today’s Sacramento Bee editorial are attached.
Recently, the wheels came off of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan’s (BDCP) five-year, $150 million planning effort to build a $50 billion (including financing and operations) peripheral canal/tunnel to divert Sacramento River water around the Delta in order to increase exports to south valley agribusiness.
The National Research Council of the National Academies, the Delta Independent Science Board, NGO scientists, the USFWS, NMFS and DFG scathingly characterized BDCP’s Effects Analysis as failing to meet minimal standards for credible scientific analysis – that it ignored negative impacts, cherry picked data and misrepresented current scientific research – that, in short, the project would hasten extinction rather than restoring species. Consequently, the project would not be able to meet requirements for an HCP, in order to provide water contractors with 50-year no surprise exemptions from future Endangered Species Act regulation.
Not to be deterred, the proponents went back to the drawing board and came forth with the outrageous proposal to build it now and figure out how to operate it later; i.e., plumbing before policy.
According to the state and federal recommendation document for this connivance, key decisions, operating criteria, biological assurances, the details of adaptive management and restoration funding – even the quantity of water to be exported - are all relegated to an uncertain future. But, in the interval, they’ll move forward with construction of 9,000 cfs intakes on the Sacramento River and 15,000 cfs tunnels under the Delta to the export pumps. There will be no comprehensive benefit/cost analysis of the project and water exporters would be given key control over staffing, the science program and even veto power over improvements to biological goals and objectives. There is no acknowledgement that Delta outflow must increase if fisheries are to stabilize and recover.
This is not a path to a restored Delta; it’s a death sentence for one of the world’s great estuaries.
We ask that you do the following:
• Show up personally at the West steps of the Capitol in Sacramento by noon on July 25 to join the rally. Here’s an opportunity for some real grassroots advocacy.
• Share this email as soon as possible with all like-minded friends and associates who truly care about our environment and fisheries.
• Let us know by email if you will participate; we will send those who respond more detailed instruction as to timing and event coordination.
We cannot emphasize how important it is to stop this enormous mistake that the Governor and Secretary of the Interior are planning. The Peripheral Tunnel is unnecessary and will increase urban water rates while San Joaquin corporate farms receive most of the water. Once its constructed and tens of billions of dollars expended, the pressure to operate it to the maximum will be unstoppable.
We would be laughing about this preposterous Alice in Wonderland scheme if the state and federal government weren’t seriously intent on moving forward with it. BDCP is a recipe for ecological disaster.
Please plan to join us, and respond to this email to either Bill Jennings of CSPA/Restore the Delta ( deltakeep@me.com ) or Nick Di Croce of the Environmental Water Caucus ( troutnk@aol.com ) . A copy of Restore the Delta’s Media Advisory is attached.
Thanks and Cheers!
Be there if you can, if you can't, then deluge our Governor with letters emails and phone calls!
Mike