When
the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) crashed and burned the first
time, Gov. Brown brought his good friend Dr. Jerry Meral on board to
straighten out the mess. Before Meral, the BDCP Board of Directors was
made up of mostly water agency people--the MWD chairman, Corporate CEOs
and hangers-on. Thus from the git-go this had all the earmarks of a
private, not a public works, project. Meral, in his first showy move
towards legitimacy, revised the board, got rid of many of the water
people and replaced them with benign bodies--strictly cosmetic changes.
Meral's
second action was to declare transparency as the order of the day.
Every bit of BDCP action would be open to public scrutiny. But not three
months after this charade, Meral was caught in flagrante delicto
in secret meetings with water contractors, imploring them to fund the
Delta tunnels and provide what is called a "revenue stream" for the DWR
to build the twin cement monsters.
Meral
did this for Gov. Jerry Brown to keep the Delta tunnel construction
from having to rely on general obligation bonds which would require they
be voted on by the public. Jerry Brown did not want to repeat 1982 when
the Peripheral Canal campaign lost by a 2/3 vote of the people, hence
the move towards private funding.
Recently, as reported half-way in the Sacramento Bee, Meral was caught in flagrante delicto
again, holding private conferences with members of key water agencies.
These agencies--Westlands Water District, Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California, Santa Clara Valley Water District, Kern County
Water Agency, San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority and the State
Water Project Contractors Authority have come together as one
agency--the State and Federal Water Contractors Agency (SFWCA). This new
association effectively created the principle authorized funding agency
for the tunnels and also signaled to anyone who could see it that they
were attempting to bring both the fed's Central Valley Project (CVP) and
the State Water Project (SWP) under their control.
As
you can well imagine, this band of brothers thinks that if they are
going to foot the bill for the revenue stream that will allow the DWR to
build the twin tunnels, they should have some say in the design and
construction of said tunnels. The DWR, the biggest of a whole host of
bloated state agencies, is used to having its own way with water in
California and wants to see all design and construction under its
control. Three years ago it dropped a mild bomb by announcing that it
would hire 5,336 new employees when the permit to build was granted.
This would give it more water-grabbing leverage than even Mr.
Mullholland had!
And
so this mini-drama between the DWR and the SFWCA is playing out now as
the BDCP limps and staggers toward its questionable denouement.
The
Bee quoted DWR Director Bruce Cowin as saying, "The (water) contractors
are very concerned, and so are we, that we build this with
world-class-type management. They are naturally concerned, as
stakeholders, that if they are going to step up and pay these costs,
that they have a significant voice." It's expected that Cowin would put a
smiley-face on such a significant division of interests. That's what
big-time operators do when they know they've lost leverage in a big
fight. The upshot is that the DWR and the SFWCA have drawn up a "joint
powers" agreement with the DWR Director as chairman of this new entity,
but having no power at all since all decisions will be made by majority
vote. And guess who's in the majority.
This
was bound to happen because the SFWCA is not out to finance the twin
tunnels out of the goodness of their hearts. They want a return on their
investment and that means control of how much water can be diverted and
at what times and who it can be sold to, i.e, everything directed
towards maximizing profit for the water contractors.
Much
is at stake. With the water contractors now able to sell water at any
price to the oil companies for fracking purposes, upping the ante for
agriculture by increasing the cost per acre foot and increasing local
water rates ("the beneficiaries pay"-Delta Stewardship Council), we will
see our food, natural gas and oil prices rise in concert with the rise
in profits of the water contractors. So don't be surprised if sometime
soon you find the water contractors standing out in the street yelling
the state motto.
"Eureka! I have found it!"
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