Congressman Garamendi Responds to Governor Brown’s Revised BDCP Water Policy

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman John Garamendi (D-Fairfield, CA), one of California’s strongest voices against the proposed twin tunnel project, today responded to Governor Jerry Brown’s reimagining of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), now separated into two projects: the so-called “California Water Fix” and “California Eco Restore”.

“The changes to the BDCP – now known as the California Water Fix and California Eco Restore – just confirm our fear that this project is not about restoring the environment,” Congressman Garamendi said. “It is merely about stealing water by building a facility that will lead to the destruction of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The governor has jettisoned all pretense of enhancing the ecology of the Delta. The new plan released today represents a financial savings at the expense of fish, wildlife, the San Francisco Bay, and the Delta.”

Garamendi has consistently called for the twin tunnels to be scrapped in favor of water projects that actually create new water for the state and make the state more capable of adapting to future drought and flood conditions.

Under Governor Brown’s new proposal, the Administration estimates the twin tunnels will cost $15 billion, while the planned habitat restoration is reduced from $8 billion to $300 million. 100,000 acres of restoration are reduced to 30,000 in this plan. For context, the entire water bond that California voters approved in 2014 (Proposition 1), including every allocation for water storage, conservation, and recycling, costs $7.1 billion.

Garamendi is the author of A Water Plan for All California which, unlike the newly named “California Water Fix”, is a cost-effective comprehensive water solution for the state that doesn’t present an existential threat to the Delta.

In 1982, Garamendi was one of the leaders in the successful fight against the twin tunnel’s predecessor: the peripheral canal.