Will Gov. Jerry Brown’s Twin Tunnels project for the California Delta still make it into the $11 billion water bond projected for the November election? It’s still possible.

The bond has been postponed twice already because legislators didn’t think it would pass muster with voters in 2010 and 2012. But the ongoing state drought gives it more urgency this year.

The new wrinkle is that Republicans now are part of the negotiations because putting the bond on the November ballot requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature. Democrats still have a two-thirds supermajority in the Assembly. But due to scandals that have suspended three Democratic senators earlier this year, that supermajority was lost in the Senate.

And Republicans from drought-stricken areas want the water the tunnels would convey. The GOP’s new point man in this legislative water war is state Sen. Andy Vidak of Hanford. Vidak said he would not vote for the proposed bond bill unless funding for conveyance is included.

By putting tunnels underground to convey water southward, a water highway interchange could be created that separates fish water and farm water for the first time, pleasing both environmentalists and farmers.

The public’s concern about the tunnels is mainly the final $15 billion cost.  Northern Californians say it is a “boondoggle” that will cost $67 billion. But that is with bond interest.

Water bonds are tax-exempt, which usually knocks about 2 percentage points off the bond interest rate. If the bond rate were the same as the inflation rate the state would be borrowing money for free. If the inflation rate were higher than the bond interest rate, then the state would be paying back less than $15 billion on the bond. Most investors consider 3 percent inflation a historical benchmark today.

Opposition

But on Monday, two powerful Democratic legislators, State Sens. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Lois Wolk, D-Davis, opposed the project on the Senate floor. Wolk cautioned that including the Twin Tunnels likely would lead voters to reject the bond.  Previous polls have found weak support for the project.

Wolk also was upset at Republicans changing their minds on including the Twin Tunnels in the bond, backing off from the previous agreed deal for the water bond without the tunnels. Wolk’s bond proposal includes three new dams, underground water storage and environmental re-creation of the Delta for fish.

Wolk openly told Republicans on the Senate floor, “At some point, you need to stick to your word. You ask for things and you … get what you want … and it’s time to say yes.”

But Republicans don’t have to say “yes.” The loss of the Democratic supermajority changed that.

And Republicans have been picking up legislative seats in Democratic strongholds in the Central Valley over the hot issue of “fish versus farmers.”

Bond monies would go for alternate water conveyance plan

Steinberg, the former Senate president pro tem, was interviewed on NBC TV News Los Angeles by Conan Nolan and said the tunnels have to stay out of the water bond to avoid a North-South water war.

Steinberg acknowledged that Brown and a majority of legislators favor of the tunnels. Surprisingly, Steinberg said, “Money [in the bond] will go to helping support the agenda of those who want to see some form of alternative conveyance built.  It’s how it’s done.”

Nolan was quick to retort, “The governor has not said whether or not he will support putting an alternative on the ballot for the water.”

Alternative plan

On June 22, Central California businessmen and farmers urged the state to abandon the current water tunnels part of the Water Plan for a less expensive plan called the Western Delta Intake Concept.  The proponent of the WDIC is water engineer Robert Pyke.

Bill Berryhill, a Stockton farmer and former Republican Assemblyman, supports Pyke’s conceptual plan. Berryhill has formed the Citizens Coalition for Delta Protection to try to get the Legislature to adopt Pyke’s concept.

But Pyke’s concept would do nothing to re-create uninterrupted fresh water fish flows for salmon from the San Joaquin River to the Bay Delta and ultimately the ocean. In 1982, voters defeated a ballot proposition to build the Peripheral Canal that today would be about half of the cost of the proposed tunnels.

The Senate has until Thursday to adopt the water bond or it will not appear on the November ballot in the middle of the drought.

by Wayne Lusvardi

Just as Hollywood often remakes old movies, water engineers apparently rehash old forgotten plans to refashion the Sacramento Delta.  And then the proponents call these plans “new” and “cheaper” alternatives.

Water engineer Robert Pyke has gotten a lot of media attention recently for his  “Delta Tunnel Alternative Plan.”  Pyke’s plan is called the Western Delta Intakes Concept.  Pykes plan:

* Was proposed at the eleventh hour after $150 million had recently been spent on Delta studies.  Pyke’s plan ignores the 1,051 comments received by the Delta Stewardship Commission about alternative concepts for conveyance of water through the Delta;

* Is supported by a northern California water lobby, Restore the Delta, disguised as an environmental advocacy organization;

* Also has a tunnel concept.  Any above-ground canal would require very high embankments to protect the canal if a Delta island became inundated, and would have to be very wide to provide support;

* Has no detailed cost estimate other than the unsubstantiated and self-serving claim by Pyke that it is a cheaper alternative.  A similar plan studied in 1997 was two to three times the cost of an isolated eastern canal;

* Even if it had lower construction costs it would likely mean more pumping costs;

* Would likely mean more salinity, resulting in lower quality exported water and higher downstream water treatment costs;

* A key component of Pyke’s plan — a permeable fish screen — would eventually silt up and be useless.  A prior 1997 plan to use the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel to divert water did not provide sufficient “fishery benefits”;

* Would likely result in seepage on adjacent islands resulting in damages to landowners;

* Would eliminate reverse-flow impacts in the central and south Delta, but would not supply fresh water into the extreme eastern Delta.

The Pyke plan calls for a water intake in the western Delta near higher elevated uplands and intertidal areas.  It would be analogous to depending on water only during unusually high tides, instead of on water at low tides. Pyke’s plan is a thinly disguised way for Northern California water interests to keep more water in the Delta by only exporting water to Southern farms and cities when there is a very wet year. Pyke’s alternative would still leave farmers and Southern cities at the mercy of the rainfall cycle.  Thus, it would do little to solve so-called “climate change.”

And this “new” plan is just a rehash of several plans proposed from the 1950s up to 2008.

Rehash of old plans

Pyke’s plan apparently is an undisclosed rehash of:

* The 1957 and 1960 proposed Western Delta salinity control facilities authorized under the State Department of Water Resources Bulletin No. 60 in compliance with the Abshire-Kelly Salinity Control Barrier Act of 1957;

* The Montezuma Hills Canal Plan of 1977;

* The “isolated conveyance alternative 3G” proposed in 1997 as part of the old CALFED Delta Plan;

* The Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel plan proposed by the Department of Water Resources in 2001;

* The Isolated Conveyance Plan for a proposed isolated conveyance as part of the Record of Decision (ROD) of the CALFED plan 2008.

Pyke’s plan is anything but new. And like all plans for refashioning the Sacramento Delta, it has already been “studied to death.”

If the current Bay Delta Conservation Plan does not pass a cost-benefit test, Pyke’s Western Delta Intakes Concept would be even less-cost effective. Even if it were a cheaper alternative, it would only deliver water sporadically on an unplanned basis. It would put Central Valley farmers and Southern California cities in a permanent state of drought.

In short, there would be no reliable water supply from such a plan.  Without a dependable water supply, farmers could not get financing to produce crops.  And there would likely be hidden costs, such as higher pumping and water treatment costs and increased need for downstream water banks and conjunctive use basins.

New plan does not provide a solution

Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition commented on Jan. 17 on his blog:

 “This is not a new proposal. It has been part of the project review documented all the way back to last March and can be found here. Proponents of this “new” proposal have taken the current two-tunnel project and cut it in half to only one, reducing its ability to deliver water to farms that need it now and to meet the future needs of cities later, as the article describes. They’re also proposing a reduced ecosystem restoration program in the Delta, cutting back more costs but also reducing the effectiveness of those projects for the environment. Under the guise of cost cutting they have dramatically swept aside years of study that have resulted in the two-tunnel proposal. On the eve of the plan’s formal announcement, this plan suddenly is being shopped as a new idea. It’s not.

“The ‘new’ proposal does not provide a solution to a broken water supply system that threatens our state. This editorial admits that it will not answer long-term needs. Water supply reliability has declined, affecting everyone from urban residents through higher water costs to the farmers that grow fresh fruit and vegetables destined for the grocery store.  The end result is fewer locally grown food choices and higher food costs, all at a time when the economy is just beginning to recover.

“Significantly absent from this group of environmental organizations and business groups are public water agencies that represent large areas of some of the state’s most productive farmland. Not surprising, this ‘new’ proposal would be devastating to farmers in California’s San Joaquin Valley, home to some of the most productive farmland in the world. 

“Planning for a reliable water supply must continue to move forward.  … [A] smaller approach that ignores the needs of California’s farm community is a step backwards and is the wrong choice for California.”

The newly proposed alternative Delta Plan is like watching the remake of an old popular Hollywood movie.  And this remake is way over budget and is flopping at the box office.