Surprise: New PPIC Report Promotes Peripheral Canal

by Dan Bacher 

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has just released a new report, “California 2025: Planning for a Better Future,” touching on an array of issues including water. 

Other topics included in the report (http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=895) are budget, climate change, economy, education, housing, population and the workforce 

Those hoping that the PPIC might break with its past reports calling for the construction of the peripheral canal to export more Delta water to corporate agribusiness and Southern California will be disappointed, since the report includes a rousing endorsement of the peripheral canal as the “solution” to both ecosystem restoration and water supply needs in California. 

Like in its previous reports, the PPIC describes California’s “biggest water challenge” as “Instability in the Delta,” using the threat of catastrophe from the “looming collapse” of the Delta levees from an earthquake or sea level change as the reason to proceed ahead with the construction of a peripheral canal. 

“As the fragile hub of California’s water supply, the Delta now poses serious risks to the economies of the Bay Area, Southern California, and the San Joaquin Valley,” the report claims. “Sea level rise and earthquakes threaten the weak Delta levees that keep salt water at bay.”  

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, countered this absurd contention. 

“If you understand the status of levees now, a moderate investment in Delta levees would create a robust levee system that will protect the Delta’s $20 billion worth of infrastructure, according to the Delta Protection Commission Economic Sustainability Report,” Barrigan-Parrilla said. 

“Historically, Delta levees have never been in better shape because of the improvements made in the last 30 years,” she added. “Most of the historic levee failures discussed in materials distributed by the PPIC and state of California refer to levee collapses from a long time ago.” 

Report claims canal will be ‘good for native fish’

In a statement that could have come out of a press release of the Department of Water Resources or the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, an agribusiness Astroturf group founded by three executives from billionaire Stewart Resnick’s Paramount Farms, the report claims, “Environmental measures are also having an effect on water supplies.” 

“Since 2007, the collapse of native fish species has led to court-ordered cutbacks of pumping from the southern Delta. The Delta’s physical deterioration will not be delayed by political indecision: the state faces inevitable, fundamental change in this region,” the report states. 

“A peripheral canal is the best approach for addressing both ecosystem and economic risks,” the document continues. “Instead of pulling water through the Delta to the pumps (the current system), a peripheral canal (or tunnel) would tap water upstream on the Sacramento River and move it around (or underneath) the Delta to the pumps. 

This change would be good for native fish: fewer would be trapped in the pumps and most would benefit from an increase in natural tidal flows within the Delta. It would also be good for the economy, improving both water quality and water supply reliability. Dual conveyance (a peripheral canal combined with continued through-Delta pumping) is a potential near-term solution.” 

However, Barrigan-Parrilla noted that if the state builds the intakes for the canal in the north end of the Delta near Hood, that will negate any benefits to fish provided by the flooding of the Yolo Bypass most years. 

Agencies failed to install new fish screens, killed record fish numbers

The state and federal governments have also failed to install state-of-the-art fish screens on the Delta pumps as they were required by the CalFed Record of Decision of 2000 because the water contractors refused to pay for them, so it is hard to believe that they would build new screens on the Delta intakes that will effectively protect migrating salmon, steelhead and other fish species, according to Barrigan-Parrilla. 

“We don’t have proper fish screening of the pumps now – do we really think they would provide proper screening for fish in the six new intakes on the Sacramento River proposed for the canal?” she asked. 

Delta advocates find it hard to believe that the construction of the canal will lead to any benefits for imperiled fish species, based on the state and federal government’s abysmal record of “protecting” fish at the Delta pumps over the past several decades. 

The Brown and Obama administrations authorized the export of a record amount of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in the 2011 water year. The water export total, including water diverted by the Contra Costa Canal and North Bay Aqueduct, was 6,633,000 acre-feet in 2011 – 163,000 acre-feet more than the previous record of 6,470,000 acre-feet set in 2005, according to DWR data. 

The record pumping from the Delta in 2011 – used to fill billionaire Stewart Resnick’s Kern Water Bank and southern California reservoirs – resulted in a huge, unprecedented fish kill at the Delta pumps. Agency staff “salvaged” a total of 11,158,025 fish in the Delta water pumping facilities between January 1 and September 7, 2011 alone. Scientists estimate that the actual amount of fish lost in the pumps is 5 to 10 times the “salvage” numbers. 

Approximately 9 million Sacramento splittail, the largest number ever recorded, were “salvaged” during this period. The previous record salvage number for the splittail, a native minnow found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, was 5.5 million in 2006. 

The fish “salvaged” at the “death pumps” of the state and federal water projects also include hundreds of thousands of threadfin shad, striped bass, American shad, white catfish and other species. DFG data reveals that 742,850 threadfin shad, 514,921 American shad, 496,601 striped bass and 100,373 white catfish were “salvaged” between January 1 and September 7 of 2011. Agency staff also “salvaged” 35,560 Sacramento River spring run and fall run chinooks, 1,642 Central Valley steelhead, 51 Delta smelt and 14 green sturgeon in the project facilities during the same period. 

When you consider that the the real loss of fish at the pumps was 5 to 10 times the “salvage” figures, the “dual conveyance” facilities proposed will likely just transfer a big chunk of the annual fish massacre at the Delta pumps from the South Delta to the Sacramento River.  

Finally, the report contends, “To ensure that the canal is managed for environmental benefits and to prevent a ‘water grab’ by those who rely on Delta exports, safeguards are needed. For example, giving fish managers a share of conveyance capacity can provide environmental safeguards.“ 

Canal will lead to species extinction

You got to be kidding! Do the apparently “faith-based” report authors really believe that the canal is anything but a water grab for more water from the Delta that will result in dramatically less flows for fish – and in the likely extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and southern resident killer whales? 

Considering the state and federal government’s abysmal management of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations over the past several decades, do we really believe that Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Water Resources officials are going to suddenly and magically transform themselves from fish killers to veritable “John Muirs” and “Rachel Carsons” the moment that construction of the canal is completed? 

Who is the report funded by? In the past, the PPIC reports promoting the peripheral canal have been funded by the Stephen Bechtel Foundation, Resources Legacy Fund and David and Lucile Packard Foundation. 

The Resources Legacy Fund and David and Lucile Packard foundation also fund the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas” on the California coast, a process that is filled with numerous conflicts of interests. The MLPA Initiative, under the “leadership” of a big oil lobbyist, created a network of questionable “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012. 

This time the report is funded by the “Donor’s Circle.” I couldn’t find any information in the report or on the PPIC website (http://www.ppic.org) that revealed exactly who these “donors” actually are, but it would be interesting to find out which individuals have contributed to the latest effort by the PPIC to greenwash the construction of the peripheral canal. 

For more information about Restore the Delta, go to: http://restorethedelta.org