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Guest commentary: Contra Costa report on peripheral canal is “utter nonsense”

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 29, 2009 at 8:21 am

From the Pasadena Sub-Rosa blog, submitted directly to Aquafornia, here’s a rebuttal commentary to the article posted earlier this week in the Contra Costa Times, titled “Peripheral Canal No Drought Lifeline, Contra Costa Water District Finds”, which says in essence, A $10 billion plan to build a canal around the Delta would not deliver significantly more water to cities and farms if it were in place this year, new data shows.Water agencies and politicians from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on down have repeatedly stressed that water shortages this year from the Bay Area to San Diego prove the need for such a canal. It would divert water around the Delta for delivery to farms and cities. But numbers developed by a state-run planning group seeking to build the canal show it would not deliver more water in dry years, the Contra Costa Water District stated this week.

This commentary was written by David O. Powell, B.S. Civil Engineering, Cal-Tech; former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, formerly California Dept. of Water Resources Chief Engineer of San Diego office; water and hydro-electric engineer with Bechtel Corporation; Assistant Chief Engineer Alameda County Water District; Vice-President and Chief of Planning for Bookman-Edmonston Engineering, Glendale, California; presently retired:

My reaction to the above-cited article is “what utter nonsense!”

First, the article is by a reporter who apparently doesn’t fully understand what he is talking about. For example. the article refers to

“… numbers developed by a state-run planning group seeking (emphasis added) to build the canal…” yet the thrust of the article is opposition to the plan. A later paragraph refers to “…Gary Bobker, program manager of The Bay Institute, an environmental group, and a member of the conservation plan’s steering committee.” Mr. Bobker is quoted as stating “If you build a very expensive facility and don’t improve water supply much, does that create more incentive for water agencies to weaken existing environmental and water quality standards?”

The article appears in a Contra Costa County newspaper, and liberally quotes representatives of Contra Costa Water District. Please bear in mind that Contra Costa Water District’s water supply is dependent on (water) diversions directly from the Delta.

The article states “according to water users’ estimates, new rules to protect the threatened fish cost 300,000 acre-feet of water this year…” Later it says ” in dry years the increase is small to nonexistent…” Three hundred thousand acre-feet per year during droughts is insignificant?!?!?!

The article makes reference to an $8.5 billion cost for the current plan. I would like to see the cost estimate leading to this figure. I do not remember the estimated cost of the Peripheral Canal when it was proposed for construction a quarter century or so ago. But I would be very surprised if that figure, adjusted for inflation, would come anywhere near $8.5 billion.

Let me add a few closing remarks outlining my views.

I would have to agree that the fact that there is not very much new water available for capture during drought periods is sort of a no-brainer. Although 300,000 acre feet a year is not insignificant. The real function of a Peripheral Canal during periods of drought is to enable the transfer southerly of supplemental water originating northerly of the Delta, whether that water is from existing storage, new storage in the Sacramento Valley, water purchased from farmers or diversions from North Coast streams.

The article indicates that larger supplies originating north of the Delta are available during wet years. The problem is that with current restrictions on pumping from the Delta imposed on the State Water Project and the Federal Central Valley Project, the ability to transfer water during wet periods is severely impaired.

Various statements in the article suggest that a major function of the proposed plan will be for the purpose of “… existing environmental and water quality standards…[and to]… conserve endangered species.” I would suspect that a Peripheral Canal for the purposes of getting water from the north side of the Delta to the south side of the Delta (without aggravating environmental conditions tot a state worse than would exist under natural drought conditions) would cost far less than $8.5 billion.

I think that the remarks about the capacity inadequacy and inability to refill existing storage downstream from the Delta are well taken.

Sub Rosa Note: As best as we have been able to find online the original cost of the Peripheral Canal, not including offsite levees, was $1.5 billion in 1982. Recalculated in today’s dollars at a 4% per year monetary inflation rate, would be about $4.3 billion.

April 29, 2009 · Filed Under Peripheral Canal

Comments

One Response to “Guest commentary: Contra Costa report on peripheral canal is “utter nonsense””

  1. dfb on May 10th, 2009 4:10 pm

    From DWR: “The cost estimate for the short and long tunnel options is $7.3 billion and $7.5 billion, respectively. These estimates do not include environmental permitting or mitigation or Initial Dual Conveyance Assessment power facilities costs. Combining the cost of facilities for the Through-Delta Component with the costs for West Canal Alignment to create a Dual Conveyance System produces a range of total cost of approximately $8.6 to $17.2 billion.”

    http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2008/061908assessmentdual.pdf

    My understanding is that the difference in cost is due to design changes, the price of land, and the cost of raw materials. I seem to recall that the state also needs to buy some of the central delta islands as well but this is not part of the estimates given for the peripheral canal. The estimates were given last year during the run up in raw material prices and before the land value crash so the price estimates might have come down since. Adjusting for inflation does not always address particular regional costs not reflected well by national inflation indexes.

    My understanding is that the state and federal governments will share the costs in alignment with current delta operation cost sharing agreements. I cannot find anything addressing that fact on the state web site although I remember reading that at the end of 2008.

    I am personally skeptical about the peripheral canal plan. The study cited by the original piece is not the only one I have seen. The problem with the plan is that this will only move the pumps and the problem to the north delta. The same issues with killing off fish and other aquatic species and changing the flow of the water ways will still exist. It seems to me that a distributed pumping system would just as effectively serve our needs and not create the number of ecosystem problems as a singular pumping system.

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