The tycoon: Evidence The drought instead should raise skepticism about this $25 billion plan, the largest public works project in U.S. history, because it raises a conundrum: The plan says the tunnels will provide not a drop more water than the Delta provides today -- and that is completely out of whack with the interests of agencies and communities lining up to pay billions of dollars to build them. The explanation may lie in the size of the two 30-mile long, 40-foot high tunnels, vastly larger than needed to maintain the current water flow. That gives the Central Valleys powerful agriculture industry and Southern Californias water contractors reason to believe there will, in fact, be more water pumped out of that ecosystem to fill their needs. Otherwise, why build on such a massive scale? It would be like paying to build an eight-lane highway but claiming only two lanes would ever be used. The only way for Central Valley farmers and Southern Californians to substantially gain from the project without ruining the Deltas ecology would be to build more dams and other forms of storage for water pumped in wet years. But proponents of the Delta plan rarely talk about the costs and political challenges of building dams, which are out of environmental favor. mercurynews/opinion/ci_24840717/mercury-news-editorial-massive-delta-tunnels-could-destroy
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:06:17 +0000