Stakeholder Engagement Committee members call for reconsideration of Delta tunnel design

Since January of 2020, the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority (DCA) has been working closely with the Stakeholder Engagement Committee (SEC) to review and provide input on the proposed Delta tunnel design. The DCA has completed the draft facility maps and engineering reports for the Central and Easter Corridor Options for the Delta tunnel and transmitted the designs to the Department of Water Resources (DWR) for review and approval. The mapbook for the proposed facility sites is available here.

At the July meeting of the Stakeholder Engagement Committee (SEC), DWR’s Environmental Program Manager, Carrie Buckman, said that the SEC had been “considering ways to move facilities and optimize to avoid impacts on communities to the extent possible.”

Angelica Whaley, the North Delta Business representative on the Stakeholder Engagement Committee, wrote to the DCA on September 23 and asked that the DCA and DWR take the time to address impacts of the project on Delta businesses and Delta communities. Ms. Whaley’s letter is available here. In the letter, Ms. Whaley stated,

As I wrote to you in April, Delta businesses have been in crisis because of the shutdown, my own included. Rushing ahead meant that businesses didn’t have the time to participate.

and also stated,

I strongly disagree that the Central and Eastern Corridor designs the SEC has developed avoid impacts on communities to the extent possible, and so do many business owners and community members in the North Delta.

She continued,

Construction of intakes #2, #3 and #5 together would likely devastate the North Delta communities, even with the new access roads the DCA has proposed.  Yet you have refused to consider alternatives for the Central and Eastern Corridors.

She also stated,

If the SEC is actually going to consider “ways to move facilities and optimize to avoid impacts on communities to the extent possible” the DCA must also consider moving the intakes in the Central and Eastern Corridor designs downstream.

At the September 23 Stakeholder Engagement Committee meeting, Yolo At Large member Anna Swenson also requested that DWR and the DCA reconsider the the intake locations. Swenson’s request echoed the request of the Delta Protection Commission in comments on the Delta tunnel Notice of Preparation (NOP):

the analysis of potential diversion points undertaken in the BDCP/WaterFix EIR’s Appendix 3F should be revisited with impacts to Delta communities weighted equally with impacts to fish and wildlife.

Carrie Buckman responded to Swenson’s request by stating that there were “no other possible locations” for the intakes. Buckman’s statement is contradicted by comments of the County of Sacramento on the Delta tunnel Notice of Preparation. The County of Sacramento stated,

Information in the WaterFix EIR Appendix 3F, Intake Location Analyses (pp. 3.F.6 - 3.F.8), relying on the Fish Facilities Technical Team report, indicates that there are suitable intake locations farther downstream below Steamboat Slough (identified as intakes 6 and 7). Moving intakes farther south on the Sacramento River would reduce the potential for conflicts with and significant impacts to SRWTP operations, and thus the FRWP operations, as well as Town of Hood wells, and have the benefit of being better for salmon.

The DCA Executive Director, Kathryn Mallon, announced that the DCA had canceled the October meeting of the Stakeholder Engagement Committee, and would be closing out the question and answer log for the Delta tunnel designs at the November SEC meeting.