Restore the Delta Responds to Delta Stewardship Council’s Release of Plan: “The Fix is in for a New ‘Conveyance'”
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD) responded this week to the release of the Delta Stewardship Council’s Draft Plan:
“Joe Grindstaff, with the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC), says the Delta Plan recommends new conveyance as a way to improve water quality. Without a water quality analysis that examines how eliminating fresh water flows from entering the Delta will affect water quality, this draft of the Delta Plan is as incomplete as the last draft. The Delta Stewardship Council must build its plan on a cost benefit analysis, a public trust analysis, a water quality analysis, and a flow analysis, and until it does so, its planning will remain incomplete.
“By indicating that new conveyance and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) will be favored by the Delta Stewardship Council, Joe Grindstaff has undermined the intent of the legislation that created the DSC. The DSC was given the charge to make its determination regarding the BDCP after members of the public appealed the merits of the plan to the DSC. But apparently, such appeals will not carry much weight if the decision has already been made. From a Delta perspective, the fix is in.”
“The Delta Plan fails to call for levee improvements at the highest standard as called for by the Delta Protection Commission, and last week by the Army Corps of Engineers. They are adhering to a lower levee safety standard as put forth by the Department of Water Resources. The Delta Stewardship Council is therefore failing in its mission to protect the Delta as a place.”
