Brown Administration Releases Deceptive Economic Impact Report of Delta Export Scheme
By Dan Bacher | August 10, 2013 A report on the supposed boons of a plan to build two huge tunnels to export Sacramento River a...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2013/08/brown-administration-releases-deceptive.html
By Dan Bacher | August 10, 2013
A
report on the supposed boons of a plan to build two huge tunnels to
export Sacramento River and Trinity River water to San Joaquin Valley
corporate farms reneges on a Brown administration pledge to provide a
comprehensive cost/benefit analysis of the proposed project.
Instead,
the study released this week by University of California at Berkeley
professor David Sunding and the Brattle Group presents a limited and
misleading analysis of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), a massive
water conveyance project that will saddle urban ratepayers with more
than $50 billion in debt, imperil the Sacramento River watershed, and
devastate the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay,
collectively the largest and most productive estuary on the west coast
of the continental United States.
Sunding’s
report, funded by the California Department of Water Resources, assumes
that BDCP will increase water exports by approximately 1.3 million acre
feet, while the Brown Administration and BDCP EIR/EIS acknowledge that
exports will remain at present levels even if the project goes forward.
It fails to evaluate reasonable and cost effective alternatives that
would improve water supply security, provide more jobs, create
additional water supplies and restore the Delta. It makes wildly
optimistic assumptions of the benefits of habitat restoration projects
that fishery agency scientists observe are of unknown and unproven
value.
The
report also ignores the waste and inequitable use of California’s
oversubscribed water resources, overstates the seismic risk to existing
water delivery infrastructure and bases its conclusions on inflated
population growth and water usage projections.
And
it fails to meet the professional standards for economic analyses set
forth in: a) the 2013 update to the U.S. Water Resources Council’s
Economic and Environmental Principles and Guidelines for Water and
Related land Resources Implementation Studies; b) the U.S.EPA’s 2010
Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses and 2009 Value of Protection
of Ecological Systems and Services and c) DWR’s 2008 Economic Analysis
Guidebook.
Carolee
Krieger, the executive director of the California Water Impact Network
(C-WIN), observes the report falls far short of a Brown administration
promise to provide a full, objective and transparent cost/benefit
analysis of the BDCP.
“This
isn’t a complete analysis,” Krieger said. “This is a whitewash. It
glosses over the profound fiscal burden this boondoggle will impose on
urban ratepayers south of the Delta, while exaggerating the benefits.
And it isn’t fooling anyone. Even the primary beneficiaries of the Twin
Tunnels – the corporate farmers of the western San Joaquin Valley and
the big urban water districts of the South State – are getting cold feet
about this project. Dr. Sunding’s report is a Hail Mary pass.”
Further, the report ignores the threat the BDCP poses to state aquifers, particularly those of the Sacramento Valley.
“The
Twin Tunnels will transport subsidized water to the western San Joaquin
Valley from the Sacramento and Trinity Rivers, but it doesn’t stop
there,” said Barbara Vlamis, the executive director of AquAlliance, an
organization dedicated to protecting northern Sacramento Valley
watersheds. “The tunnels will also accelerate the mining of the Tuscan
Aquifer, which is crucial to the cities, farms, fisheries and wildlife
of the Sacramento Valley.”
Ultimately,
Sunding’s report is nothing more than a rehash of talking points the
Brown administration has used to fast-track the BDCP past much-needed
fiscal scrutiny and environmental review. It is based on speculative
guesses, in that the BDCP has yet to identify project yield, operating
guidelines, cost apportionment, or the true parameters of the habitat
restoration component.
“The
administration could not allow Dr. Sunding to prepare the comprehensive
cost/benefit analysis that was promised because such a study would
reveal BDCP for what it is – a scheme to perpetuate the wasteful and
inefficient distribution of the state’s water by publicly subsidizing
special interests,” said Bill Jennings, the executive director of the
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
Finally,
the report does not identify alternatives to the BDCP that could
ameliorate California’s water crisis at a fraction of the cost of the
Twin Tunnels.
“Water
conservation, reclamation and recycling could create millions of
acre-feet of ‘new’ water, improve water security, provide more jobs than
the BDCP and restore the Delta,” said Jennings. “These alternatives
would receive equal weight in any true analysis and any intellectually
honest economic analysis would show that the costs of BDCP vastly
outweigh any economic benefit to both project proponents and statewide
interests.”
The Draft Statewide Economic Impact Study can be found at:http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/Libraries/Dynamic_Document_Library/Draft_BDCP_Statewide_Economic_Impact_Report_8-5-13.sflb.ashx
Contact information:
Carolee Krieger, C-WIN 805-969-0824 cell 805-451-9565 http://www.c-win.org
Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance 209-464-5067 cell 938-9053 http://www.calsport.org
Barbara Vlamis, AquAlliance 530-895-9420 cell 530-519-7468 http://www.aqualliance.net
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