Delta group claims government is planning financing of a peripheral canal
Central Valley Businesss Times
07/06/2011
Representatives from the State Water Contractors, the San Luis Delta-Mendota Water Authority, and the Metropolitan Water District (which serves Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California) are holding closed-door meetings with officials from the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water Resources to create a financing plan to build a peripheral canal around the Delta or a tunnel beneath it, claims the nonprofit group Restore the Delta.
The project, known as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, may divert much of the flow of the Sacramento River away from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Video from the June 28 Metropolitan Water District Special Committee on the Bay Delta confirms that water contractors, including Metropolitan Water District's General Manager Roger Patterson, are already working with government officials to create the finance plan for new conveyance,” says Restore the Delta.
"The BDCP website describes work on project financing as not beginning until the fall of 2011 after determinations are made regarding benefits of new water deliveries for state and federal water contractors,” says Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta. “However, as we have always suspected, those who want to take additional water away from Northern California and the Delta are crafting a finance plan without California taxpayer and/or rate payer input."
