Money for Klamath dam removal included in California water bill… ..http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/11/money_for_klamath_dam_removal.html

Maybe when it dries up they can drive the bullet train thru it?

As to your “rate payers” are “tax payers” argument you are clearly trying to construct a straw man to CYA. The rate payers, especially in the Central Valley Project and most of the State Water Project know full well they are footing the vast majority of the bill. And here again, a little bit of research would show you that.

In closing you earlier asserted that I sound like a “sour grapes subsidized water user”. Again, shows your bias. In point of fact I am not now nor have I ever been a farmer of any other sort of so called “subsidized water user”. But if you want to talk honestly about subsidies you may want to research who pays for flood control benefits provided by the state and federal water projects, benefits that keep cities like Stockton, Sacramento and most of those in the delta from being hosed off the map. I’ll help you out. The land owners in those and other cities up and down the state haven’t paid a dime for it. And we could go down that same path with same findings talking about water quality benefits provided to in-delta land owners.

I would suggest that in the future you avoid commentary regarding facts about which you “…:don’t know the truth…” which are many. That or do your research to know what the facts are before spouting off.

In closing I would hope that CalWatchDog would monitor your writings with some fact checking of your writings so as to preserve its integrity and reputation.

California has no choice but to re-engineer the Delta because Southern California has lost the portion of its Colorado River water that it was borrowing from Arizona for several decades. Southern Cal used to get two thirds of its water from the Colorado River and one third from the Delta; now those percentages are reversed.

The Delta farmers who have access to free water without any water rights will likely be losers. If the Delta can be re-engineered to bring more cold freshwater into the system then freshwater fish may thrive.

To clarify the comment above about costs:
There are co-equal goals in the Delta Plan of 1) ecosystem rehabilitation and 2) greater reliability of water supply

Greater water supply reliability will be furthered by the Delta Tunnels but that will be paid for by a combination of sources including state, Federal, Central Valley farmers, and So. Cal water districts. Northern Cal is apparently does not have to pay for tunnels. Northern Californians are not “stakeholders” in the tunnels because they aren’t paying for them.

The ecosystem rehab however is tentatively planned to be financed by a general obligation bond to be paid by all ratepayers who get State Water Project water; or by all taxpayers in the state. The Delta Stewardship Council is releasing its financing plan for ecosystem rehab on April 22.

One correction: Millions of fish are killed but not millions of smelt:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/22/18685707.php

Sounds like the sour grapes of a subsidized water user.

The project will be financed on the backs of ratepayers and depends on bonds and federal money, so yes taxpayers will foot the bill.

I don’t know the truth of the salt intrusion, but environmentalists talk about that incessantly and it is discussed throughout the documents promoting this project. Duh. Everyone talks about salt intrusion and the Delta — it’s one of the big justifications for the whole ecological portion of the project.

And of course I’m biased. It’s a column and I opposed the enormous costs and destruction of the Delta so that people can enjoy subsidized water.

— Steven Greenhut

That is patently false and the data is readily available from both DWR and USBR web sites. For example, during the month of March 2013 the Total take (loss) of delta smelt at the delta export pumps was 22 fish. That will the reductions in delta pumping intended to reduce smelt take was a total of 180,000 acre-feet. To put that in perspective the average annual water use of the City of Sacramento is a bit less than 150,000 acre-feet.

You then go on, in the very next sentence, to tacitly accept and support the equally false premise: “Environmentalists also express concerns about the level of saltwater that moves inland from the Pacific Ocean.” That saltwater intrusion is today vastly less than before the water projects were built is documented with maps in the DWR Delta Atlas, water quality chapter available online with a simple Google search.

Finally, the basic premise of your article is that the cost of delta restoration and solving our state’s delta export water supply problem will be borne by tax payers. Fact is, and it is widely known and documented, that the vast majority of the cost will be borne by delta export water users.

In closing it is disheartening the Calwatchdog would carry such a blatantly biased, factually groundless article.