“150 years of human intervention in and around the Delta has significantly changed the Delta; changes such as reclamation of land, where approximately 1100 miles of levee construction developed over 400,000 acres of farmland and increased Delta residents to approximately 500,000 in population, has reshaped what the Delta is now.
The Delta Plan is a comprehensive management plan for the Delta; it is not a project plan.
“Benefits related to reduced fish entrainment losses, operational flexibility related to limiting reverse flow conditions and fish entrainment, to create more variable flow patterns, support Delta water quality management, address climate change and future uncertainty, and adaptively manage the system to achieve the coequal goals.
But we did make some organizational changes to be able to better tie the problems that we’re trying to address to solutions and opportunities that we’re presenting in the amendment.” “Councilmembers suggested that the draft amendment should improve its description on how the options were evaluated and selected for promotion, so we’ve made revisions to the problem statement to tie them more directly to those characteristics that we’ve presented in the recommendations for new conveyance, storage, and operations, and we heard that we should be relying more on the substantial time and effort and work that has been done over the last two decades in particular, on the development analysis for options for conveyance, storage, and operations, so you’ll see a lot more references in the upfront sections of the amendment to that historical background and work that’s already been performed by others.” They received a number of suggestions related to specific text and language that’s included in the draft that we revised, as well as suggestions for a lot of new recommendations, she said.
So in response to these comments, we have expanded the introduction and problem statements, we’ve made a lot of changes to the recommendations and added a number of new recommendations for your consideration today.” The Council and staff then spent about the next two hours going line by line through the draft amendment language, discussing many issues, including science the science behind the amendment and construction and other impacts to the community.
… Stockton is being set up to take all of the risk with all the Delta tunnels project which has only been 10% designed.” BARBARA BARRIGAN-PARILLA, RESTORE THE DELTA: “Last month, hundreds of informed Delta residents made comments to this Council expressing their robust opposition to the proposed Delta Plan amendment for conveyance and storage that would make Cal Water Fix tunnels the preferred conveyance alternative.
I have lived in the Delta for 20 years and in Discovery Bay for 11 of those years.
How is taking a habitat conservation plan out of this system and dual conveyance making things better?” “I’m confused that the Delta Stewardship Council doesn’t seem to be concerned about the Delta, and everything associated with it.
You say conveyance doesn’t mean the Delta tunnels or the Water Fix, but it’s the only thing out there that anyone is looking at, so to me, I think that you’re really saying the Delta tunnels.” “The opening remarks from the Brentwood meeting said, ‘the current system of exporting water is clearly not working, and that the Water Fix is needed to fix it.’ That was the statement.
However, the proposed changes to this water conveyance storage and operations amendment appear to endorse approval of the only major water conveyance project being discussed today, California Water Fix.