Bay Delta Conservation Plan's actual cost: $54.1 billion
June 8, 2013 | by Dan Bacher | Restore the Delta (RTD) has revealed that the actual costs of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2013/06/bay-delta-conservation-plans-actual.html
June 8, 2013 | by Dan Bacher |
Restore
the Delta (RTD) has revealed that the actual costs of the Bay Delta
Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels would amount to
$54.1 billion, not the $24.5 billion touted by Natural Resources
Secretary John Laird and Department of Water Resources Director Mark
Cowin in a press conference and news release on May 29.
The
news release from the Natural Resources Agency announcing the release
of the final chapters of the tunnel plan claimed the BDCP "is expected
to cost $24.5 billion during its 50-year implementation period, with
water users expected to pay an estimated 68 percent of the total price
tag for design, construction, operation, mitigation, and adaptive
management of a new water conveyance system."
Te
remaining balance, an estimated $7.9 billion for habitat restoration,
pollution control, anti-poaching programs, and other measures to reduce
ecological stress, could be funded through a variety of sources,
including state and federal financial participation," the agency
proclaimed.
The
agency also admitted that the taxpayers would be expected to fund the
state's portion of the budget-busting project's "non-conveyance" costs.
"An
exact financing plan is not yet developed, but will be under
discussion. Although the final federal and state allocation of costs and
funding sources are yet to be determined, the BDCP assumes that
California taxpayers would fund the state’s share of the non-conveyance
costs primarily through passage of two general obligation bonds in
future years," the agency said.
In
response, Restore the Delta, opponents of Governor Jerry Brown’s rush
to build peripheral tunnels that would drain the Delta and doom Central
Valley Chinook salmon and other Pacific fisheries, released its "Simple
Math" total of costs that counter the figure of $24.5 billion cited by
Laird and Cowin.
"The
Brown Administration has released tens of thousands of pages but not
one single, simple accounting of the costs," said Barbara
Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta. "They are
hiding the math because the cost keeps escalating and the benefits
diminishing."
Here is the breakdown of the actual cost by Restore the Delta:
Cost of Peripheral Tunnels:
Construction: $ 14.5 billion
O&M (Operation and Maintenance: $ 1.5 billion
Interest on Tunnel Revenue Bonds: $ 26.3 billion
Habitat and Conservation: $ 7 billion
Interest on General Obligation Bonds: $ 3.2 billion
Administration and Research: $ 1.6 billion
Total: $ 54.1 billion
All costs were drawn from BDCP documents, according to RTD.
RTD's
economic analysis came up with a figure for the total cost of the
tunnel project similar to the estimate of $53.8 billion made by
economist Steven Kasower of the Strategic Economic Applications Company
in August 2009.
Kasower's
draft economic report was released to California Legislature prior to
passage of the water policy/water bond legislation that cleared the path
for the construction of a peripheral canal or tunnels.
His
$53.8 billion estimate was based on a combination of $33 billion for a
conveyance tunnel and $9.8 billion for through Delta conveyance, in
addition to $2 billion for mitigation, $4 billion for restoration, and
$5 billion for off-stream storage.
The
peripheral tunnel plan to export massive quantities of water to
corporate agribusiness and oil companies will not only cost Californians
an estimated $54.1 billion, but will hasten the extinction of Central
Valley Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt and other fish
populations. The plan will take huge areas of Delta farmland, among the
most fertile on the planet, to irrigate toxic, drainage impaired land on
the west side of San Joaquin Valley owned by corporate growers.
Some
political analysts are questioning if the Governor's obsession with the
construction of the peripheral tunnels as part of his "legacy" is
spurred by "Jerry Brown's Father Complex."
"Brown
is burnishing the family name," wrote Steven Greenhut in Bloomberg
News. "As he faces his own mortality, he is imposing debt on future
generations to finance projects of dubious value, including one that
will damage a pristine environment."
For more information, go to; http://www.restorethedelta.org
Background: Brown continues and expands Schwarzenegger's environmental policies
The
rush to build the peripheral tunnels, in spite of widespread
opposition, is not the only abysmal Schwarzenegger administration
environmental policy that the Brown administration has continued and
expanded. Brown continued and expanded the massive water exports and
fish kills at the Delta pumps that the Schwarzenegger regime became
notorious for.
The
Brown administration authorized the export of record water amounts of
water from the Delta in 2011 – 6,520,000 acre-feet, 217,000 acre feet
more than the previous record of 6,303,000 acre feet set in 2005 under
the Schwarzenegger administration.
Brown
also presided over the "salvage" of a record 9 million Sacramento
splittail and over 2 million other fish including Central Valley salmon,
steelhead, striped bass, largemouth bass, threadfin shad, white catfish
and sturgeon in 2011. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/07/carnage-in-the-pumps/)
In
addition, Brown and Natural Resources Secretary John Laird continued
the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative
started by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2004. The conflicts of interest,
failure to comprehensively protect the ocean, shadowy private funding,
incomplete and terminally flawed science and violation of the Yurok
Tribe's traditional harvesting rights have made the MLPA Initiative to
create so-called "marine protected areas into one of the worst examples
of corporate greenwashing in California history.
In
a huge conflict of interest, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the
Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the Marine Life Protection
Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called
"marine protected areas" in Southern California. Reheis-Boyd, the oil
industry's lead lobbyist for fracking, offshore oil drilling, the
construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the evisceration of
environmental laws, also served on the MLPA task forces for the North
Coast, North Central Coast and Central Coast.
Other
environmental policies of the Schwarzenegger administration that Brown
and Laird have continued include engineering the collapse of six Delta
fish populations by pumping massive quantities of water out of the
Delta; presiding over the annual stranding of endangered coho salmon on
the Scott and Shasta rivers; clear cutting forests in the Sierra Nevada;
supporting legislation weakening the California Environmental Water
Quality Act (CEQA); and embracing the corruption and conflicts of
interests that infest California environmental processes and government
bodies ranging from the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to the regional
water boards.
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