The Twin Tunnel water project would create two side-by-side underground tunnels to carry fresh water from the Sacramento River to Tracy. Water would travel south to farms in the Central Valley and urban areas in the East and South Bay and in Southern California.
Reported by Auburn Journal, May 21, 2014: Placer County supervisors are sending a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown outlining the direction they would like to see a state water bond move toward.
Board members voted to approve a letter to be sent out over Chairman Jack Duran's signature to Brown that reinforces the county's stance on 2014 water-bond legislation. Supervisors were told Tuesday by management analyst Joel Joyce that a dozen options are being considered on a bond. A bond measure asking voters to approve $11 billion in borrowing is due to be tested in the November election.
"A water bond must expand water storage capacity and improve groundwater management," Duran's letter will state. "(It must also) provide funding for regional water infrastructure that will diversify water supply and enhance reliability."
The letter will also weigh in on the county's stance against twin tunnels proposed in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery received support from fellow supervisors to add language to a rough draft of the letter that reinforces the county's backing of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and Tahoe Conservancy. Both are in line to have a portion of bond funding dedicated to programs within their boundaries.
"I do think it would be appropriate to include information on watershed and forest management, particularly within the Sierra Nevada and Tahoe conservancy boundaries," Montgomery said.
Supervisor Robert Weygandt said that additional information could help the two conservancies gain more bond funding in competition with other others around the state.
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?
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?
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)?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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'?
"The BDCP acknowledges that sea levels will rise by 16 inches or more in the coming decades," said said Einar Maisch, Director of Strategic Affairs at PCWA. "Yet, the plan and the analysis do not address how California will adapt to rising sea levels and the increased salinity in the Delta that will result. If we don't acknowledge the need to adapt our environmental objectives to these rising sea levels, Folsom and Shasta reservoirs will be drained to literally push back the rising sea, leaving Northern California economies in peril."
PCWA noted that the tunnels themselves are positioned to keep them away from the growing salinity -- but the standards for salinity are sidestepped.
"We must develop a plan to provide water supply reliability for the entire state, not just the exporters, and this plan is far from it," said Joshua Alpine, Chairman of the PCWA Board of Directors.
The BDCP plan projects Folsom Reservoir will be at "dead pool" every 10 years + with no water available to be pumped from the reservoir during those years.
"California's climate is changing and the state must recognize this fact and create an operational and environmental plan that addresses this issue," said Alpine. "Draining Northern California reservoirs to export water to other parts of the state and maintain a freshwater Delta is a partial solution that creates more problems than it solves."
Alpine added: "We have directed Placer County Water Agency staff to vigorously defend the water rights we have under long-standing and established federal and state law. Reliable water supply is critical to our County's economic future and we will take all necessary steps to protect that water reliability."