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Delta-Saving Water Plan Would Be Financial, Environmental Drain, Critics Say

A multi-billion-dollar project meant to restore the struggling Delta is getting opposition from people who say promises of protecting the Delta can't be trusted.

Rogene Reynolds has lived a long time in the Delta, and she's trying to rally others against the state of California.

He's passing out signs saying "Save the Delta. Stop the tunnels."

Those tunnels are part of the $25 billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan aimed at restoring and protecting the Delta's ecosystem.

The plan calls for building two twin tunnels to funnel water out of the Sacramento River near Clarksburg and Courtland. It would then bring water to the aqueducts in the south Delta, which then provide it to 25 million people from the Bay Area on south.

Currently, water is pumped from the south, near Tracy. But that's had negatives effects such as putting more saltwater in the Delta from the Bay, reversing natural water flows, and declining fish populations.

Those pumps would still be used about half the time, but the state says the proposed pumps and tunneling from the north would help fish populations.

"If the fish are down there, they'll pump from up here, and they won't kill as many fish by moving the diversions," said Reynolds. "We're not buying it."

The state's plan is also supposed to improve water quality for the customers who receive it, and ensure quality water is available in the event of an earthquake.

"If a levee fails, you have all that empty space that would be inundated with water from the Bay, and so that would be much more saline water," said Paul Helliker with the California Department of Water Resources.

But Reynolds and Restore The Delta say there's a better solution to preserving the Delta.

"You have to begin this discussion with the acknowledgement that they're taking too much," she said.

She thinks the state needs to start by cutting down how much water is pumped out. After that, she says, shore up the levees to make sure they don't fail in an earthquake.

"You can fix every levee in the Delta and put habitat on the fat levees for less money than this project will cost," she said.

The state says that's not a good plan, as it believes the levees can't be reinforced that much.

But does the state's plan make financial sense?

"It's by far the most expensive water infrastructure plan ever considered in California," said University of the Pacific economist Jeff Michael.

He says the cost-benefit analysis doesn't make sense, and that farmers getting the water won't be able to afford it.

"Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley would be paying $800 million a year in debt service on these tunnels," he said.

The state counters it is an affordable plan and the customers do want the tunnels.

In this war of words and water, only time will tell who really stands to benefit from the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

"Everybody that rings this Delta, everybody that lives and depends on it and loves it is against this project," Reynolds said.

The state recently began a four-month public comment period on the plan and hopes to start construction in mid-2017.

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