Sacramento County Sues to Block Delta Tunnels – And It’s Not Alone

At the August 3, 2017 BCVWD Workshop titled: "The Rising Cost of Imported Water" Jeff Davis listed three 'sure thing' sources of water:

• 1. 20 year supply of Nickel Water for $55 Million: Deal is done, just need $55 Million.
  
• 2. Sites Reservoir Project: Over $50 Million spent since 1985 without any progress.
  
• 3. Cal Water Fix: Headline in Sacramento Bee when Project was Approved: "Let the Lawsuits Begin"

People in the Pass Area better wake up to the reality that because of past and current government corruption:

• 1. Your Water Supply is running out.
  
• 2. There is no water to buy and you're not rich enough to out-bid rich people to buy water.
  
• 3. There will be no additional water supply from the North in the near or distant future because the people in the North will stand on the side of the Environment and the Farmers over a bunch of fools that built too many houses in the high desert.

Written by DALE KASLER AND RYAN SABALOW

Reprinted from the Sacramento Bee:

Sacramento County led a cascade of area governments suing the state in an effort to block the Delta tunnels, saying the $17 billion project would harm county farmers, endangered fish and low-income communities at the south end of the county.

The lawsuits come as the tunnels project, championed by Gov. Jerry Brown as a means of improving south state water supplies, makes headway with environmental regulators. In July, the state announced that the massive project complies with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, and wouldn’t hurt fish, wildlife or human health in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Elected officials in the Sacramento area have long opposed the project and have formed an alliance, called the Delta Counties Coalition, dedicated to fighting the tunnels. Sacramento County filed its lawsuit Thursday, as did the Placer County Water Agency, the cities of Stockton and Antioch and a consortium of commercial fishermen’s groups. Additional lawsuits were expected to be filed Friday and Monday.

“There are many more coming,” said Matthew Emrick, the attorney for the city of Antioch.

The suits, filed in Sacramento Superior Court, say the state Department of Water Resources is ignoring the environmental harm the tunnels will create in the Delta, in violation of CEQA. The Sacramento suit says “almost 700 acres of county farmland will be rendered unusable” during the 13-year construction period, and once the project is operational it will degrade the quality of the water flowing through the Delta by diverting portions of the Sacramento River’s clean water flows through the tunnels.

The suits were hardly a surprise; state officials said last month they expected litigation to come rolling in. CEQA can be a powerful tool for slowing or even halting a big development project. Legal experts say it’s likely the suits will get consolidated, but that process alone could take months.

The first round of lawsuits came in June, after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service said the tunnels, known as California WaterFix, gave the tunnels their blessing and said the project wouldn’t jeopardize the continued existence of such endangered species as the smelt and Chinook salmon. Days later, the federal agencies were sued by the Golden Gate Salmon Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife and The Bay Institute. The suit says the agencies’ declaration violated the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Meanwhile, Butte County officials announced last week that they will file their own suit against the state over the tunnels.

The project would divert a portion of the Sacramento River’s flow into a pair of underground tunnels, delivering the water directly to the massive federal and state pumping stations in the south Delta. By doing so, Brown’s administration argues, the project would overhaul the way water flows through the Delta and reduce harm to fish. In particular, the tunnels would largely remedy the damaging “reverse flow” phenomenon that occurs when the pumps are operating. Often the pumps have to be shut off to keep fish from peril. That would enable the state and federal governments to keep the pumps running more reliably.

Environmentalists and others reject the argument that the tunnels will protect salmon and other fish. “The project sacrifices rather than saves the Delta’s fish and wildlife,” according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by a group of commercial fishermen’s associations.
The pumps supply water to Southern California, parts of the Bay Area and the farms of the San Joaquin Valley.

The suits are gushing in as the south-of-Delta water agencies deliberate on whether they want to pay for the project.

Read Full Story Here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/sta...