The Sacramento Delta ecosystem will be devastated if the Bay Delta Conservation Plan happens, says the Sacramento News Review, being considerably more charitable towards Gov. “Bulldoze everything and screw you” Brown than I am.
To date, the state has been unable to produce scientific evidence to support claims that operation of the tunnel system would improve freshwater flows and benefit the Delta. Equally important, BDCP advocates have failed to provide a long-promised cost-benefit analysis explaining why the taxpayers and water-district ratepayers should be willing to pick up the project’s $23 billion price tag.
Jerry Brown don’t need no stinking evidence. Big labor and big banks want the BDCP and Brown is happy to oblige them. If the Delta is devastated by this, oh well.
Fortunately, there are alternatives. Opponents of the plan have pointed out that a “portfolio approach”—that combines increased water recycling and conservation, new storage facilities south of the Delta, improved cooperation between water agencies, and levee improvements—could do more to achieve the state-mandated co-equal goals of restoring the Delta and protecting California’s water supply, and do it for billions less than Brown’s plan.