The Delta | Contra Costa Herald

Pittsburg Yacht Club to celebrate 69th annual Opening Day on the Delta, Saturday, April 9

April 3, 2016 By Publisher Leave a Comment

The Pittsburg Yacht Club is hosting their 69th annual Opening Day on the Delta Parade of decorated boats and Blessing of the fleet on Saturday, April 9th. All boat owners in all three marinas are invited to attend. The theme is flags and banners.

Currently, there are 21 boats are signed up including Delta Bayliners Y.C and Sea Ray Y.C.

A captains meeting will be held at the Yacht Club, located at 3 Marina Boulevard, at 10:00 a.m., the parade will start at 11:00 a.m.

The parade will start directly across from the Yacht Club at the west end of Brown’s Island and proceed to beyond the POSCO steel mill and return. Staff Chaplain, Father Robert Rien of St. Ignatius Church in Antioch, will be stationed on the Commodore’s yacht to bless the fleet as it sails past.

The best public viewing will be from the gazebo area and along the shoreline between the center basin and the George Lowey Basin.

First, second and third place awards will be presented during lunch at the yacht club following the parade.

Residents urged to speak against Contra Costa Water District deal on Delta Tunnels, Wed., April 6

April 1, 2016 By Publisher Leave a Comment

Restore the Delta says to tell the Contra Costa Water Board “Say no to back room deals that sell out Delta water 1uality for the region”

By Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director, Restore the Delta

The Contra Costa Water District Board of Directors will soon be reviewing the settlement agreement that they recently signed with the Delta Tunnels plan effort. The settlement drops CCWD’s protest against the tunnels plan in exchange for a separate pipeline to deliver drinking water to its customers. We are urging all concerned residents to attend the meeting.

This may be your only opportunity to register a public comment on how you feel about CCWD’s self-interested approach to secure a water supply at the expense of the community it serves.

What: CCWD Public Board Meeting
When: Wednesday, April 6, 2016, 6:30 to 9:00 pm. (Come at 6:00 pm if you would like to organize with us prior to the meeting)
Where: 1331 Concord Ave., Concord, CA.

The Contra Costa Water District, is choosing to exchange its present contract for Delta water deliveries for an intake above the Delta that will remove even more fresh water from the estuary. This not only puts all other Delta communities at risk for even worse water quality, but also leaves their own customers within their own district with degraded Delta water for other uses. Additionally, their decision leaves the San Francisco Bay Estuary with degraded water quality which will negatively impact that magnificent ecosystem.

Contra Costa County residents recreate in high numbers in the Delta, live around its water ways, and have regular contact with the water. Environmental justice communities and recreational anglers fish Delta waterways for sustenance and professional tournaments, and Contra Costa County farmers depend on quality Delta water for their businesses.

Furthermore, the impacts will be exacerbated for residents in Discovery Bay for all water uses — from toxic algal blooms to waterways polluted with salt, Selenium and human carcinogens. Reducing flow through the Delta will put the estuary in a state of “permanent drought.”

CCWD’s willingness to settle is an indictment of how bad the Delta Tunnels plan really is. The Tunnels Project will have egregious water quality impacts in the Delta. CCWD should drop the settlement, and rejoin the unified opposition to the Tunnels plan launched by the entire Bay-Delta community, not cut a self-serving back room deal!

Lastly, Restore the Delta and collaborating environmental groups have in the past supported an expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir (and an intertie between Contra Costa Water District and Santa Clara Valley Water District) as ways to meet water needs for the greater Bay Area. However, we are reconsidering our support of such measures seeing that Contra Costa Water District would now become a party to depriving the Bay-Delta estuary of needed flows through the Delta tunnels project. CCWD is effectively transforming the expansion of Los Vaqueros from a solution to a tool of the Bay-Delta estuary water grab.

Read our opposition to this settlement here.

If you have questions, about this alert, please feel free to call our office at 209-475-9550. We will see you, our members, at 6 pm in order to organize before the meeting on April 6, 2016. If you cannot make the meeting, submit a public comment here.

Thank you for your continued support.

The Contra Costa Water District service area includes Antioch, Bay Point, Brentwood (portion), Clayton, Clyde, Concord, Martinez (portion), Oakley, Pittsburg, Pleasant Hill (portion), Port Costa and Walnut Creek (portion). To find your Director on the Board visit http://www.ccwater.com/426/Division-Map—Find-Your-Director. If you can’t attend the meeting you can email your Director by visiting http://www.ccwater.com/416/Board-of-Directors.

Restore the Delta opposes DWR-Contra Costa Water District deal on Delta Tunnels

April 1, 2016 By Publisher Leave a Comment

On Tuesday, the Contra Costa Water District announced a withdrawal of their protest petition with the State Water Resources Control Board regarding the “Change of Diversion Petition” filed by the lead state and federal agencies promoting the Delta Tunnels.

The Contra Costa Water District has settled with the Department of Water Resources claiming that the state is going to pay for their new water diversion facility, rather than CCWD customers, to mitigate impacts to drinking water quality resulting from operation of the Delta Tunnels.

Response from Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director, Restore the Delta:

“The settlement is, in itself, an indictment of the Tunnels and represents Contra Costa Water District’s self-interested approach to the Delta as a whole.

“The new CCWD intake will have an impact on water quality and quantity in the Delta and is not covered in the EIR for the Delta Tunnels. The settlement says that DWR reserves the right to override environmental needs and concerns to build/operate the Delta tunnels. They are setting up the project as beyond the law, a project by Governor Brown’s fiat.

“Meanwhile, the CCWD says they are not supporting CA Water Fix — this is simply their insurance policy for their customers. However, Contra Costa residents still need good water quality in the Delta for all the other uses. Contra Costa residents recreate in the Delta in high numbers.

“In addition, a new intake for the Contra Costa Water District will require another change in the point of diversion petition to be brought to the State Water Resources Control Board. The process will continue to unfold for years, yet water exporters still do not have money on the table to continue moving the process forward or to finance the project.

“Sadly, CCWD has sacrificed other Delta communities and Bay-Delta fisheries by agreeing to this settlement, as everyone else in the Delta would be left with degraded water quality. Clearly the Brown Administration is attempting to carve up Delta communities, in the same way Owens Valley was carved up for a water grab many years ago.

“California taxpayers are going to be on the hook to pay for this mitigation so that mega growers in the Westlands Water District and in Kern County can continue to grow almonds in the desert for export. All of this deal making is to create a system that subsidizes mega growers at the expense of California taxpayers and the environment.

“This strategy of CA Water Fix is to work around public processes and to keep the public in the dark in an attempt to push the project through no matter the impacts on the San Francisco Bay-Delta, or the people or species who live here.”

To learn more about Restore the Delta visit www.restorethedelta.org.

Southern California Water Agency to Purchase Delta islands, Could Advance Tunnels Project

March 10, 2016 By Publisher Leave a Comment

At a closed session board meeting Wednesday morning, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California authorized the purchase of four islands in the San Francisco Bay-Delta for an undisclosed sum.

The deal is highly controversial in Northern California as it would put Southern California’s most powerful water agency in control of a group of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta islands that can serve as water storage areas or entry points for the proposed $15 billion Delta Tunnels projects.

For months MWD has been considering the purchase of islands now used for farming. The islands mirror the path of the plan for the Delta Tunnels proposal.

The four island deal includes Bouldin Island, Webb Tract, Holland Tract, and Bacon Island. They cover approximately 20,000 acres of the Delta. Here (and above) is a map of the islands in the path of the Delta Tunnels.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta spoke on the matter.

“It is troubling for the Delta region that Metropolitan Water District is going to acquire such a significant portion of Delta land and Delta water rights,” she said. “They have the resources to change law and policies statewide to maximize their access to Delta water in their favor. They will own two islands that are directly in the path of the proposed Delta Tunnels project, eliminating eminent domain concerns for that portion of tunnels construction. We believe that having MWD as a neighbor is an existential threat to the future of the Delta and Delta communities.”

Delta Tunnels opponents note that after nine years and a quarter of a billion dollars spent on the proposal, Delta Tunnel backers have still has not produced a legally acceptable plan that can pass environmental standards. On October 30, 2015 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the Draft Environmental Impact Report a failing grade of “Inadequate” due to lack of science about the impacts on the Delta ecosystem and endangered species.

For more information on the Restore the Delta visit www.restorethedelta.org.