Delta advocates prefer tunnel

The DNP supports open-minded thinking about change, infrastructure, and management of the future Delta.

So, in light of the increasing unlikelihood that a through-Delta solution is coming (climate change, I’m sorry is), we thought it would be useful to pose a choice to advocates of the Delta.

A gun has been put to your head - choose an infrastructure for southern Californians to steal your water before it entered the Delta - a peripheral canal, or a tunnel.

A clue to their answer is in a document they recently published via their lobby shop.

The Planning and Conservation League, supported by Delta advocates Dan Bacher and Restore the Delta, have recently published “8 Affordable Water Solutions for California,” (.pdf available at PCL website) that in part calls for a feasibility study of a 3000 cfs tunnel.

Since these are smart people and everything anyone smart does when it comes to advocacy is carefully crafted, the DNP infers that this is a signal that the various Delta advocacy groups would prefer a tunnel to a canal.

Sure, a 3000 cfs tunnel would be preferable to a 15,000 cfs tunnel(s), but in the end, this is the signal:

When push comes to shove, Delta advocates will come down on the side of a tunnel, not a canal.

This is because a tunnel will not require the same extent of eminent domain proceedings to wrest land from landowners along a potential canal route. A tunnel is a path of least resistance, good for Delta landowners, water exporters, and politicians.

This published position suggests the possibility that organizations like California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and journalists like Mr. Bacher are first and foremost concerned about their recreation space, not endangered fish and ecosystem quality.

They advocate for the protection of an invasive species, after all.

And organizations like Restore the Delta are private property rights libertarians, not environmental advocates.

How does one come to this conjecture? Ask yourself this: is a tunnel better for endangered fish, or is a peripheral canal? Let’s go ahead and make it a 3000 cfs peripheral canal apples to apples situation, if you’d like.

The pro-Delta argument is that removing a significant portion of the Delta’s freshwater inflow will inevitably lead to ecosystem degradation because of greater salt water intrusion and a larger proportion of poorer quality San Joaquin River water in the Delta.

That will happen for sure if a tunnel is built. But not necessarily a canal. This is due to the likely location of each.

A tunnel would be constructed along an ‘as the crow flies’ path. A canal would circumnavigate the Delta at its eastern perimeter.

A previous post described in principle how a peripheral canal might actually improve the quality of water in the Delta.

Certainly, a tunnel would be less of a tool for humans attempting to manage the distribution of fresh water through the Delta’s waterways. Unlike the tunnel, a peripheral canal could be a critical tool for ecosystem management.

Both explicitly and implicitly, CSPA, Mr. Bacher, and RTD are sending a message - let us keep our striped bass and our land, and we might let you have at least 3000 cfs of our water.