LWVC Questions on BDCP

Introduction

The League of Women Voters of California (LWVC) was invited to receive a presentation about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) from the BDCP Outreach and Communications Manager. We arranged for the presentation to be made to our Water Committee, which heard the presentation in October 2013.  

At the time of the presentation, we were offered the chance to submit any questions we might have. The questions we submitted are listed below.

Both because we know that documents sent to public agencies are public documents and because we strongly believe that our government should be open, accountable and responsive, we are publishing this list of questions on the LWVC Website as well as submitting them to the Department of Water Resources. We hope that this will help more Californians to become engaged in the process and make informed comments on the BDCP.

The Questions

Construction

What is the total amount of agricultural land in the Delta that will be impacted by construction, including disposal of dirt and material, irrespective of any comparison to the 1982 Peripheral Canal plan?

How long will construction take, and how will construction activities impact residents, farming, fisheries, recreation, and other economic activities?  What provisions are being made for negative impacts?

How many seismic faults will the proposed tunnels cross?  At what depth?

Operation

Please explain how gravity will function to move water through the tunnels without intermediate pumps. What amount of drop (per foot, and total over the 30 miles) will be needed for the gravity feed, and what energy will be required to retrieve water from the lower depth at the south end of the tunnels and lift it into the canals?  What is the altitude above sea level for tunnel entrances and for canals?

What provisions are proposed for maintaining these tunnels over the life of the project?

Explain south-of-Delta storage: Where will the project store the extra water that comes in wet years?  That is, to what extent is optimum use of this new conveyance dependent on storage projects that have not yet been approved or funded?

If adaptive management is unsuccessful and species are not recovering, at what point will the fisheries agencies suspend the “take” permits, and what is the plan for export water deliveries if that occurs?

Deliveries

What are the anticipated deliveries to State and Federal project contractors in wet, average, and dry years?  How many acre-feet are expected to be pumped through the South Delta pumps during those same wet, average, and dry years?  How do those amounts compare to average deliveries during the 1990s and 2000s?  Please provide spreadsheets.

In addition to “anticipated” water deliveries, what will be the maximum delivery possible if the tunnels are built to the maximum size (15,000 cfs capacity)?

Water Use

BDCP is not promising additional water to project supporters, but only reliability of supply.  Please explain what percentages of this finite supply of export water are currently being used for the following purposes, and whether those relative percentages are anticipated to change: agriculture, urban uses, steam extraction of oil, and fracking.

What do you expect the final cost of water to the contractors will be?  What are the current ranges of prices south of the Delta for agricultural water, urban water, and water for oil extraction and/or fracking?

Species and Habitat Restoration

What is the timetable for restoration?  How will you know that the BDCP’s habitat conservation plan is moving forward successfully?

In regard to the statement that the tunnels are necessary to protect fish runs, how will the fish screens on the North Delta tunnel intakes differ from the ones on the South Delta pumps?  Are these new screens in use anywhere else?  What is their success rate?  Who is engineering and testing them?

Should the South Delta pumps, which will continue to be operated 51% of the time, including during dry years, have new screens?  If not, why not?

Why is no nonstructural alternative for achieving habitat and species restoration being considered?

In the October 1 presentation, we were told that the current approach will be getting away from the single species approach to system recovery.  Which species may be detrimentally affected by this approach?  Will one or more single species be allowed to fail?  Which ones?  How will that decision be made?  Explain how this is allowable under a permitted habitat conservation plan.

Financing

According to BDCP literature, two water bonds are anticipated, one in 2014 to pay for restoration and at least one more within 50 years for additional work.  What is the back-up plan if voters do not approve these bonds?  Under what circumstances would conveyance construction begin before restoration funding is secured?

Please distinguish clearly between mitigation and restoration.  Exactly what does each involve?  Please be specific about what features of the restoration necessary for this project to be permitted are considered by BDCP to be public benefits rather than measures required by the permits being sought.  Please explain exactly what the BDCP expects to identify as public benefits that will be paid under the 2014 water bond.

Please provide evidence that irrigators in the southern San Joaquin Valley are willing and able to pay for the water they will receive.  Please explain whether and how the situation changes if farmers grow annual crops of lower dollar value that are resilient to annual changes in water supply rather than high value permanent crops that depend on inflexible water supplies.

Supply/Watershed Issues

To what extent does the success of this habitat conservation plan depend on reoperation of upstream dams, especially on the Sacramento River?

Given that the greatest loss of the snowpack resulting from climate change occurs in the watershed of the Feather River, how will Oroville Dam be operated differently to keep water in the river?

Water Quality

What is the timetable for the State Water Resources Control board to place and enforce limits on water that can be exported from the Delta so that outflows and water quality will be preserved?  Please describe the future condition of the Bay Delta Estuary in the event that limits are not placed on the amount of water that can be exported from the Delta.

Governance

Chapter 7 of the draft includes a number of 'groups' which must be consulted and reach concurrence.  This process does not appear to be nimble enough to deal with any emergency situation. Who has the ultimate authority to 'pull the plug' in response to 'changed circumstances'?