Numbers are less important than assumptions. And none of these cost/benefit studies disclose their assumptions even though no real estate appraiser could get away with that without losing their license.

The big story with Dr. Michaels’ cost-benefit study is that no infrastructure project can be built in California anymore except for the highest cost alternative. Environmental lawsuits and unions interests have made it so.

Michael is simply suggesting that the envirnomental benefits of a through-Delta conveyance system are just as legitimate, absent clear science of a greater environmental benefit via a canal or tunnel, as any other means of conveyance. And vastly less expensive.

Michael goes to some length to say that he is open to the possibility of a canal or tunnel if certain criteria are met, and writes about the difficulty of getting Delta landowners to give up land to build big, habitat-sustaining setback levees if the option of the vastly less expensvie throu-Delta conveyance option is implemented.

I suppose Mr Michael made it confusing when he suggested doing nothing instead of saying no canal or tunnel. It’s right there, in the title to the piece. That’s my read of his thoughts anyway.

Agriculture uses 80% of the water used by humans in CA, but bears a disproportionately small portion of the cost of said water. For all of this, we get a farm economy which provides only 2% of our Gross State Product.

Doing nothing, which seems to be where this article is pointing, does more harm than good. California only has a half-year of water storage available and that supply quickly becomes stretched during years of drought. This year is a good example. Not much rain and snow has fallen to replenish our supplies. As a result, much of the carryover supply from last year has already been allocated and farmers are only receiving 40 and 65 percent of their water supply from State and federal sources.

Doing nothing means California’s future water supply will continue to be unreliable. Not only can food production drop, on-farm jobs will dwindle. Too often water users have been forced into courtrooms to battle for their water. This scenario could repeat itself if a reliable water supply is not secured. Is this really where we want to go?

Mike Wade
California Farm Water Coalition

But on to the latter issue I have with your piece. While there seems to be a confusion over what is meant by “conveyance,” “no-tunnel” and “no conveyance” in Michael’s piece, (all three terms he used) he is not saying don’t convey water through the Delta to the pumps. He is is asking what exactly, does environmental mitigation buy? It buys assurance against liability, not proof of habitat health..

He is asking a very simple question:

If regulatory assurance is the operative and binding legal mechanism here, what advantage does that mechanism gain by building a conveyance that either goes under or around the Delta? Why not just convey water as we do now, on the surface, with vastly increased habitat?

Michaels says demand is decreasing. Not really. Per captita demand is indeed decreasing, but the population is growing, albeit slowly. Demand is basically stuck where it’s been for 20 years or so and once the last low-flush toiled is retrofitted, we’ll have a hard time showing such dramatic conservation benefits.

The question to be asked isn’t “Should the project be built at all,” but rather, “What’s going to happen to California if we don’t build it?” Or at least come up with a better alternative than anything I see here.

I don’t say regulatory assurance is fictional (although it could be depending on the final BDCP). It is real benefit for exporters, and a real negative for all the upstream users. If the regulators say fish need more water or higher flows in the future that can’t come from the projects – it will have to come from the upstream folks or taxpayers will be on the hook to pay for even more compensating habitat projects. That is a particularly crappy deal for taxpayers, who will have already paid $4 billion for the habitat projects that gave regulatory assurance to the exporters.

It IS interesting that it wasn’t in the original scope of work though.

I highly recommend this book, not just for Chapter 8, for all 10 Chapters covering every imaginable environmental issue that our “Bible-thumping” Greenies care to bring up.

I highly recommend this book, not just for Chapter 8, for all 10 Chapters covering every imaginable environmental issue that our “Bible-thumping” Greenies care to bring up.