Reprint of - Monterey Agreement: A Bloodless Coup by Tom Stroshane

From Spillway News, Winter 2000...a reprint with emphasis/comments by California Cornerstone.

It's time to again remind each other how and why we are backed into the corner we are; or if you are a newbie to the 'water game' in California...here's a fast-track fact-filled editorial from 2000 on why California has a Constitution.   In fact, I find this editorial more timely today than 14 years ago. (Where has the time gone?)

Also, for those that did not know, when Planning and Conservation League settled their won lawsuit against DWR, et al; they abdicated their Public Trust standing in any lawsuits related to the Monterey Agreement.  And whom was the President of PCL in 2003??  None other than Gerald Meral.  For $5.5 million...that's $5,500,000, the people of California and the Public Trust Doctrine was sold out.  

For 30 pieces of silver, the public was betrayed.

Kinda makes one wonder about some concerted strategic planning going on behind closed doors over a very, very long period of time.  Any one else see a pattern of behavior here?  A rotating cast of clowns, spinning away on their web of deceit. 

Editorial
Monterey Agreement:
A Bloodless Coup
by Tim Stroshane

Renewed public scrutiny awaits a little-known agreement
negotiated quietly in 1994 by six water agencies and the
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to
inaugurate California’s statewide water market and restructure
the State Water Project in the wake of a Sacramento
Third District Appellate Court decision on September 15,
2000. The Court found the compact’s environmental impact
report (EIR) defective.1 The Court also opens to further legal
challenge DWR’s transfer of a giant groundwater aquifer
called the Kern Fan Element (KFE) to the Kern County
Water Agency.

Dubbed the “Monterey Agreement” for the coastside city
where it was consummated, the Agreement states “principles”
for restructuring long-term contracts between the
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and local
water contractors receiving water deliveries from the
California State Water Project (SWP). The “principles” were
intended to settle disputes that erupted over SWP financing
and water allocation under the contracts during the drought
years of 1987-92.

The “principles” contained in the Monterey Agreement
are in reality fundamental policy changes to the California
State Water Project. For instance, the Agreement transfers
control, and in one case ownership, of SWP facilities
illegally to regional water districts.

But more important, DWR’s implementation of the
Agreement through amendments to SWP contracts betrays a
key “principle” of California’s representative democracy: the
people of California voted on the State Water Project
expecting the Project would have long-term contracts whose
policy basis could not be changed even by the Legislature
(let alone the Legislature’s agent DWR).

Through the Monterey Agreement, the Department of Water Resources changed the SWP long-term water supply contracts without possessing the legal authority to do so.

“The Monterey Agreement is written to obfuscate the
changes it makes in the state’s water system, and we think
it’s illegal,” says Carolee Krieger, a member of Citizens
Planning Association in Santa Barbara, and an organizer of
the lawsuit that stalled the Monterey Agreement. “The worst
thing about it is it hurts the people of California.”2

The people of California voted in 1960 to approve
Proposition 1, a general obligation bond referendum to
finance construction of the California State Water Project.3
The referendum addressed water supply contracts, stating
simply: “Such contracts shall not be impaired by subsequent acts of the Legislature during the time when any of the bonds authorized herein are outstanding and the State may sue and be sued with respect to said contracts.”4

To allay public fears their water would be given away for
private gain and help secure passage of the referendum,
Governor Pat Brown “stipulated the water contracts could
not be changed by the Legislature as long as [the SWP’s
general obligation] bonds were outstanding.”5

Brown circulated, and the Legislature accepted, specific “contracting
principles” for SWP’s long-term water supply contracts that
would be signed by water agencies benefiting directly from
the SWP.

The contracts

• called for “take or pay” financing by the contractors, in
which they would be responsible for paying annual charges
to DWR, which would in turn pay interest to bond holders,
operations and maintenance charges, and other costs,
regardless of how much water the SWP delivered each year.

• addressed short-term water shortages by requiring
agricultural contractors to forego water deliveries first,
before urban contractors’ deliveries are affected, and addressed
long-term water shortages by enabling the state to
declare a permanent water shortage and reduce all contractors’
water entitlements by their pro rata share of the SWP’s
capacity to deliver water.

• allowed water use only within the geographic terrain of
contractor’s boundary.

• accounted for contractor payment responsibilities
through “entitlements” (an accounting device) and separated
these from actual deliveries of SWP water.6

The “take or pay” clause combined with the SWP’s first
long-term drought from 1987-92 to provoke economic,
political, and ecological crisis in California’s water system
(see “Glimpsing the Future,” this issue). (The next post will be "Glimpsing the Future")

Once the Monterey Agreement came to light through the
California Environmental Quality Act’s full disclosure
process in 1995, its negotiators presented the Agreement as a
done deal that would resolve SWP financial crises and
transform it into a marketing institution. The deal also keeps
intact long-cherished speculative water allocation practices
underwriting urban sprawl throughout California.

“California was one day away from the Monterey
Agreement being a done deal” back in October 1995, says
Rob Shulman of the Plumas County Counsel’s Office in
Quincy. “It was a stroke of foresight” by local Quincy lawyer
Michael Jackson to find out when the agreement would go
into effect. His action bought time for SWP contractor
Plumas County, Citizens Planning Association (CPA) of
Santa Barbara County and the statewide Planning and
Conservation League (PCL) to formulate a lawsuit against
the Monterey Agreement.7
The Agreement’s 14 principles speak to five unspoken
but interlinked objectives:

• greater control by contractors over SWP assets (water
and facilities for storage and transport), including transfer by
DWR of a giant groundwater aquifer called the Kern Fan
Element (KFE) to the Kern County Water Agency8;

• creation of a water transfer market9;

• completion of all SWP facilities originally approved by
California voters in 1960;

• shifting of water facilities costs from contractors to
taxpayers; and

• restructuring how future water shortages are handled,
partly by deleting Article 18(b) of the contracts, which
addressed permanent water shortages in the SWP.

“The Monterey Agreement gives us the tools to reduce
the cost of delivering water to the public,” protests Tim
Quinn, deputy general manager of MWD, who helped
negotiate the original Monterey principles.10

The Appeals Court found that DWR should prepare the
EIR (and not the Central Coast Water Authority [CCWA],
which was not even a SWP contractor at the time!) and
analyze an alternative in which permanent water shortage
aligns SWP water “entitlements” more closely with average
SWP water deliveries. The decision also enables the PCL
coalition to continue a challenge to DWR’s transfer of the
KFE to Kern County interests.

DWR, together with CCWA, appealed to the state
Supreme Court in October. (CCWA is a joint powers entity
created to receive Santa Barbara County’s only-recently
inaugurated SWP water entitlement.)

Lawyers for Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, Alameda County Water District Zone 7, and the
Kern County Water Agency also intervened with the state
Supreme Court to protect investments in San Joaquin Valley
groundwater storage projects, including the KFE, reliant on
the Monterey Agreement.

While EIR issues are important, the Monterey
Agreement’s bloodless coup against representative democracy
in California water policy should piss off everyone who
cares about the state’s rivers and equitable use of the
California State Water Project. Major corporate agribusiness
and developer constituencies in water entitlement-rich
districts (north and south) profit handsomely from buying
and selling water they don’t own.

Outrages like water marketing mount in today’s go-go
California corporate capitalist culture. Since both the Bay-
Delta Accord and the Monterey Agreement appeared in
1994, water for sale under the Agreement from the San
Joaquin Valley has already been “sold” to new urban
developments like Newhall Ranch and Dougherty Valley.11

Indeed, without a glimmer of irony, some environmental
groups, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, DWR, and other
CalFED-affiliated agencies advocate using such water
“entitlements” as assets for an “environmental water account.”
12

Just think: fish will have water bought for them at
taxpayers’ expense, when three generations ago the water was there in the rivers for free. Were the fish economic “free riders” in their own environment all this time?

In other spheres of life, this is known as property theft; in
the water industry, this is called “water marketing.” The new
water industry promotes a con game on the public here, a
water hustle dressed as ecosystem restoration. It’s time to
end this game.

To repeat: by law, water is owned by all the people of
California. That makes California water a common good.
Since water is essential for all life, this is not a communist
notion, but simply common sense for an arid land, written
into state law.13

The Monterey Agreement usurps this common good for
the benefit of elite constituents of water agencies with
financial interests in profiting from selling water made
available by the voters of California when they approved the State Water Project in 1960.

If the California Supreme Court upholds the Appeals
Court decision, DWR will have to prepare a new EIR,
buying time for California’s public to learn more about the
Agreement, to engage in an honest and open debate about the
place of real water allocation — not “paper water,” whose
value as SWP “entitlements” the Appeals Court estimated as
worth “a wish and a prayer” — in California’s future.

Plaintiff attorney Antonio Rossmann hopes that “a
collaboration among DWR, the contractors, other water
agencies, the environmental community, and consumers and
other stakeholders — with professional facilitation and
funding of the public interest participation — could lead to a
true consensus ‘preferred alternative’ on which the [new]
DWR EIR can then be prepared.”14 (And this is how Agenda 21 garbage started entering into the picture.  Or when the Public Process was hi-jacked.)

“CalFED II,” anyone? Hopefully such a process could
yield a referendum Californians could vote on, maybe even
pass. What would the “stakeholders” (outsiders and outside interests) have to fear from a
democratic vote if they come up with a plan everyone could
live with? In fact, voter approval might be necessary given
the nonimpairment clause of the Burns-Porter Act.

But if the California Supreme Court reverses the Appellate
decision, the Monterey Agreement will countenance
buying and selling of the California public’s water by water agencies and private corporations that don’t own the water via an institution whose creation has never been tested in a vote by the California electorate, an institution Californians never got to vote on.

I can’t think of a clearer wedding of democracy and
ecology than the idea that water belongs to the people of
California. But under continued implementation of the
Monterey Agreement this idea will be dead in reality, if not
in state law.

The Monterey Agreement also irresponsibly encourages
development pressure on the state’s water supplies, its
farmlands, and its vulnerable aquatic ecosystems. There are
ways to design a “monterey agreement” that might involve
some water policy shifts made by the original framers of the
“Monterey Agreement.” But such changes must involve state
legislators asking California’s voters their approval; the
legislators and DWR work for all Californians, not the other
way around.

To do the most democratic thing — the right thing in this
case — the California Supreme Court must deny hearing to
the defendants of PCL v. DWR and let the Third District
Appellate Court decision stand.

NOTES
1. Planning and Conservation League, Citizens Planning
Association of Santa Barbara County, Inc., and Plumas
County Flood Control and Water Conservation District v.
California Department of Water Resources and Central Coast
Water Authority, Third District Appellate Court, Sacramento,
California, filed 15 September 2000, C024576. Hereafter
cited as PCL v. DWR.

2. Carolee Krieger, Citizens Planning Association of Santa
Barbara County, personal communication, 29 October 2000.

3. Readers should remember that in November 1960,
Proposition 1 (the Burns-Porter Act referendum, now California
Water Code Sections 12930-12944) won by a margin of
just 174,000 votes out of a total electorate of 5.8 million
voters. The margin of victory in Los Angeles County was
313,000, so that county alone put Prop 1 over the top. Prop 1
won only 13 counties (less than one-fourth of the total) in
California: Butte (where Lake Oroville would be built).

4. California Water Code Section 12937 of the Burns-Porter
Act of 1959, approved by referendum of the voters in
November 1960.

5. See DWR News Office, Special Fall 2000 Edition, California
State Water Project: Past, Present, Future, p. 20.

6. State of California, Department of Water Resources,
Contract Between the State of California Department of
Water Resources and the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California for a Water Supply, November 4, 1960
(as amended to February 1, 1973). Available at California
Water Resources Center Archives, University of California,
Berkeley, and Boalt Hall School of Law Library, at
KFC.790.A87.

7. Rob Shulman, Plumas County Counsel’s Office, personal
communication, 22 November 2000.

8. The Kern Fan Element is part of a larger property, the Kern
Water Bank, owned by DWR. The Kern Fan Element, once
transferred to KCWA, was transferred days later to the newly created
Kern Water Bank Authority which owns and manages
the Kern Fan Element lands. (Kern Water Bank Authority is owned by Steward Resnick. Resnick also had several representatives voting his way in Monterey. Kern County Water Agency, Paramount Farms (The only private entity in the room), then to transfer the KFE the next day into his private control?)

9. Brent Haddad, Rivers of Gold: Designing Markets to
Allocate Water in California, Covelo, CA: Island Press, 2000,
p. 156. Unfortunately, Haddad’s treatise on designing water
markets ignores great swaths of historical, political, and
ecological context in developing his ideas. His soft-pedalingof the Monterey Agreement is perhaps his most egregious
oversight. The issues in PCL v. DWR are absent from the
book. Good books on water marketing don’t exist yet.

10. Tim Quinn, deputy general manager, Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, personal communication, 17
November 2000.

11. Arve Sjovold,Citizens Planning Association of Santa
Barbara County, personal communication, 10 November 2000.

12. Tim Stroshane, “Reframing CalFED,” SPILLWAY v1n1,
Fall 2000, p. 5.

13. Article 10, Section 5 of the California Constitution also
states: “The use of all water now appropriated, or that may
hereafter be appropriated, for sale, rental, or distribution, is
hereby declared to be a public use, and subject to the
regulation and control of the state, in the manner prescribed
by law.” Following on the state Constitution, California Water
Code Section 102 states in pertinent part: “All water within
the State is the property of the people of the State...

14. Antonio Rossmann, “Third District Court of Appeal Strikes
Down Monterey Amendment EIR, Restores Public Role in
State Water Project,” California Water Law and Policy
Reporter, forthcoming, 2000.

Hmmm...Funny the Subject of Earthquakes is the first Errata Paper Released by BDCP

BDCP Errata Paper - Funny...it is in regards to the errors and omissions in their earthquake analysis and documentation!

The best I can do is provide the link.  Screen prints do not reproduce the maps in a high enough quality to make it worthwhile to post here.

Looks like this will be the first of so very many. 

Don't know about you folks, but this scares the Heebee Jeebies out of me...if they can't get it right after all this time, what other f***-ups, I mean mistakes, will we have to correct and pay for with our dollars, homes, families and legacy?!

http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/Libraries/Dynamic_Document_Library/Draft_BDCP_EIR-EIS_Errata.sflb.ashx

Dr. Pyke's Comments to Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors 10/22/13

(Added by California Cornerstone)

October 22, 2013

To the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors

Sitting as the Santa Barbara Flood and Water Conservation District

Fellow Citizens and Residents of California,

I am a geotechnical, earthquake and water resources engineer who lives in the Bay Area
but who has often visited Santa Barbara and has worked on projects in the surrounding
area, including, for better or worse, Platforms Grace and Gilda. While projects like
offshore platforms and dams obviously require a team effort, I note that I personally
made key design decisions on both Warm Springs Dam and Sevenoaks Dam, two of the
handful of dams that have been built in California during the 40 years that I have lived
here. Sevenoaks Dam lies between the north and south traces of the San Andreas fault
and, amongst other things, provides flood control benefits for a million people who live
on the floodplain of the Santa Ana River. You might assume from this background that I
became a civil engineer because I like building things, and that is still true, but I only
like building things that make engineering, economic and environmental sense.
Building infrastructure projects to cement a politician’s legacy does not qualify as a
legitimate reason for building them.

The twin tunnels of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) qualify as a project that
makes no engineering, economic or environmental sense. In order to explain this as
briefly as possible without going over the entire tortuous history of the Peripheral Canal,
I will use as my starting point an article written by Matt Weiser in his continuing series
on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan that was published in the Sacramento Bee on
Sunday September 22, which provided the proponents of the BDCP an opportunity to
make their case for the BDCP as a whole and for constructing the twin tunnels following
several articles by Matt which strongly suggested that the BDCP will damage or even
destroy the Delta. However, if the arguments advanced by my friends Jason Peltier and
Roger Patterson are the best that they can do, they would be advised to urge their bosses
at the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District to more seriously
consider alternative solutions.

The BDCP has five Achilles heels, enough to cripple at least two and a half men, let alone
Jason and Roger:

(1) Even the BDCP’s own consultants admit that the degradation of Delta water quality
cannot be addressed given the current preferred alternative. While, on the basis of past
performance it is impossible to predict the actions of the State Water Resources Control
Board, it seems unlikely that they will agree to improving export water quality at the
expense of Delta water quality.

(2) As confirmed by the report released recently by American Rivers and The Nature
Conservancy, the BDCP has yet to produce a legitimate effects analysis that could
provide the basis for granting incidental take permits;

(3) Roger may claim that the economics of the BDCP are “very sound” but the truth is
that that is very dubious. The $10 billion required for habitat restoration as part of the
plan is currently unfunded, and Dr Rod Smith, who analyzes investments in projects like
the twin tunnels for a living, says that he would likely not advise the individual water
districts to fund the BDCP, although he thinks that South of Delta storage might be a
viable investment.

(4) The threat of earthquakes and megastorms to the Delta levee system, often cited as
the principal justification for constructing the twin tunnels, is way overstated. As an
example, the balance of Matt Weiser’s article was thrown off by just one misstatement:
“the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that, by 2050, there is a 60 percent chance of
an earthquake occurring that is large enough to flood multiple islands.” In a more
recent interview with the River News Herald, Nancy Vogel, spokesperson for the BDCP,
said “according to the USGS, within the next 25 years there is an 80 percent chance that
10 islands within the Delta are going to flood due to ground motion. Neither of these
statements are true. The USGS has reasonably estimated that there is something like a
two-thirds chance of getting a large, approaching magnitude 7, earthquake in the Bay
Area in the next thirty years, or by 2050, but the Delta is not the Bay Area. The closest,
and likely the most active, fault in the Bay Area is the Hayward fault and that is 30 miles
from the western end of the Delta. The local earthquake sources within the Delta are
not well understood but they are both much less active and unlikely to produce a large
earthquake. The real probability of getting the kind of flooding due to earthquake
scenario that the DWR has studied likely lies between 0.1 and 0.01 percent per year.
Further, Matt Weiser’s own research, as reported in his article, indicated that the
consequences of widespread levee failures have been exaggerated. And, even if the scary
scenarios were valid, as noted in the article, the economic benefits resulting from
reduction of the alleged threat is really small. Put simply, it is time to stop talking about
the earthquake bogey and time to address the real issues of the Delta and California’s
water distribution system.

(5) Without a true “big gulp” capability and without vastly increased south of Delta
storage, the BDCP does not address the real possibility of seeing a six-year drought in
California. That is the most pressing need in California water management. Greatly
increased regional self-reliance will help mitigate this threat, but to the extent that the
State Water Project and the Central Valley Project can survive a six-year drought,
everyone would benefit. Users already complain about reductions in deliveries after two
or three years of drought but imagine what it will be like in the fifth and sixth years of a
drought. The BDCP does nothing to address this problem because the Metropolitan
Water District, which to their credit has accumulated significant storage in recent years,
is presently more concerned about water quality.

The fact that these five technical issues are still unresolved is an indication of the
current state of disarray of the BDCP. Secretary of Natural Resources John Laird has
made the fatuous claim that the current preferred alternative is the result of seven years
of study, but all those seven years of going around in circles has done is line the pockets
of numerous consultants. This circus has continued under the direction of Under
Secretary Jerry Meral, who is looking for a deal, not a solution. When Jerry Meral
continues to make promises at public meetings that he never delivers on, when Jason
Peltier and Roger Patterson, the spokespersons for the two largest water contractors
cannot come up with a persuasive defense of the current plan, and when Nancy Vogel
continues to spout nonsense about earthquakes, one has to question whether anything
of value has been achieved for the expenditure of $180 million dollars.

I have on occasion been brought in as a facilitator when engineering projects have
issues, and have had some success in that capacity, but in my judgment the BDCP
process is beyond salvation and to continue to fund it is just a waste of ratepayers
money. Such funds would be better spent advancing regional self-reliance and initiating
a new, more modest effort to study alternatives for addressing Statewide water
conveyance and ecosystem restoration issues that might actually work.

Sincerely,
Robert Pyke Ph.D.,G.E.

1310 Alma Avenue, No. 201, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Telephone 925.323.7338 E-mail bobpyke@attglobal.net

Dr. Pyke's Response to Jerry Meral's Off-the-Wall Comments on Levees and Earthquakes

More of Dr. Pyke's comments regarding Delta Levees and Earthquakes:

Response to the off-the-wall comments on Delta levees and earthquakes
that were part of a presentation by Dr. Jerry Meral, Under Secretary of the
California Natural Resources Agency, on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan at
a special meeting of the Redding City Council held on November 18, 2013.

Transcription of recorded remarks courtesy of Maven’s Minutes, November 25, 2013
http://mavensnotebook.com/

There are thousands of miles of levees protecting the islands, he said. “Unfortunately, those
levees are built on a very poor foundation. They are built on peat soils or soft clay soils, and
they were built mostly with clamshell dredges many years ago and built in a casual way by the
farmers who originally reclaimed the islands, although we’re trying to improve them. Now the
problem we have with this is that each of these islands that you see in blue here has failed at one
time or another. Some of them have failed seven times. When they fail, you will see your tax
dollars at work because the state and federal government come in, repair the failed levees, pump
out the islands, mostly at state or federal expense, there’s some local share, and they go back
into farming again. They are not polluted, particularly, so they can begin to farm again, but this
is very expensive. The last time it happened, it was tens of millions of dollars to repair Jones
Tract.”

There are in fact less than a thousand miles of Delta levees that are currently maintained, not thousands of miles. Further, since 1982, the State has contributed significant funding under both the subventions and special projects programs to make significant improvements to the Delta levee system with the overall goal of achieving the Delta-specific
PL 84-99 standard that had been agreed to in 1982 by the State and federal
governments. 

In spite of the negative propaganda on Delta levees that emanates from the
more political elements within DWR, the DWR staff members that are responsible for these Delta levee programs are justifiably proud of the progress that has been made. 

The recent construction of “fat levees” on Jones Tract as a result of outstanding cooperation between the East Bay Municipal Utility District, DWR, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the local reclamation district showed both that it was possible to construct such levees in line with the cost estimates contained in the Economic Sustainability Plan
of the Delta Protection Commission, a unit of the same Natural Resources Agency of which Dr Meral is the Under Secretary. 

In fact, the significant spending on the Delta levee system since 1982 means that most of the Delta levees have been effectively rebuilt in that
time. 

The picture that is painted by the doomsday school of hundred-year old, non-engineered levees is just wrong. It would be more correct to say that the bulk of the levee system has been rebuilt in the last 30 years in accordance with modern engineering practices.

The problem for the state and federal water projects is that if an island fails in the summer and
there’s not a lot of flow in the Delta, water comes in from San Francisco Bay to fill the space that
is created when the levee fails, he said. “Some of you may remember in 1972 when Anderson-(Andrus) Brannan Island failed, it was in the middle of the summer, probably from a gopher hole, who knows, you never find out what causes these things; the ocean came in to fill this space and the Delta became salty, and it was very difficult to pump water to the 20 million people who rely on it from the southern Delta.”

There are not 20 million people who rely on water exported from the South Delta. 

There are according to various reports 20 to 25 million people who obtain some portion of their water from Delta exports but, with the exception of Zone 7 of Alameda County, essentially all of the urban water districts that take some water from the Delta also have alternate sources of supply. 

The extent of any future outages will be a function of how many islands
are breached in a single event, how much salinity intrusion there is, and how long it takes for the Delta to flush out, but the probability that there would be any significant interruption of exports as a result of a single island flooding is very small, even in summer time.

“The danger we’re really facing in the Delta is an earthquake threat, he said. “The USGS has
said that there is a 60% chance of a major earthquake in the East Bay over the next 40 years and if that happens, many people predict that there will be as many as 20 islands fail at once. You’ve got to keep in mind that these island levees are based on very poor soils and we get liquefaction, just the same way they did in the Sunset District in the Loma Prieta earthquake or other places, such as in Kobe Japan. When you don’t have a good foundation, everything just slumps as you shake it, so this is what we fear would happen … “

This is a new variation on misquoting the USGS! 

In a recent BDCP blog, Richard Stapler actually got it right saying “the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there is a 63 percent chance of an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater in the San Francisco Bay region in the next 30 years”. 

Only about a third of that hazard involves earthquakes generated in the East Bay on the Hayward fault. The other two-thirds of the hazard comes from earthquakes on faults on the Peninsula or in the North Bay. Even the Hayward fault is 30 miles from the western edge of the Delta, and much further from most of the Delta. 

The major example of liquefaction in the Loma Prieta earthquake was in the Marina, not the Sunset District. The Marina District is very susceptible to liquefaction because the outer portion of the district is built on recent hydraulically filled sands. 

To understand the susceptibility of soils in the Delta to liquefaction you have to read Appendix E of the Economic Sustainability Report, but basically the likelihood of liquefaction is low and it is confined mostly to project levees that may have been constructed on recent alluvial foundations. The popular belief that peats perform badly in earthquakes is incorrect, as also discussed in Appendix E of the Economic Sustainability Report. 

This is confirmed by the testing of an embankment on Sherman Island by professors from UCLA, which was intended to replicate a nearby magnitude 7 earthquake, and did not result in a failure of the peat foundation. Even if levees suffer some distress during an earthquake they will not necessarily breach. 

For instance, the levees in Kobe, Japan that Dr Meral refers to, actually continued to hold water even though they were quite badly damaged. With proper emergency preparedness and response, any levees in the Delta that suffer distortion in an earthquake could be repaired before the next incidence of high water. That is part of the reason the probability of actually seeing multiple flooded islands is so low. Dr Meral should be going around the State preaching about the need for improved emergency preparedness and response, rather than trash-talking the levee system for which his agency is largely responsible.

Question from city council member: In the earthquakes that we have had, in San Francisco Bay
Area, since we’ve been busy out there since the 1840s … how many of those islands have failed
in any of the prior earthquakes?

“The last earthquake we had of large size was the Loma Prieta earthquake, but the shaking in
the Delta was very limited because the Loma Prieta earthquake was centered over in the
peninsula, so it was much further away than, for example, the Hayward fault,” responded Mr.
Meral. “That was the only major earthquake we’ve had since we had the problem of the islands
going below sea level – there hasn’t been a major earthquake to affect the Delta since that
happened. The 1907 earthquake occurred of course, but at that time all the islands were still
pretty much at sea level so we didn’t have this liquefaction problem.” “A very interesting thing happened in the Loma Prieta earthquake, though,” he continued. “There was an old barn. It was a pole barn, and it had been demolished, but the poles were still in the ground, and the soil around that area liquefied enough so that the poles floated up, so when someone came out the next day, they saw these old poles sticking up out of the ground, which shows the liquefaction potential. But we really haven’t had a big earthquake since the Winter’s Fault back in the 1890s when the Delta was mostly not even reclaimed, so much of this is based on engineering science as opposed to experience. We really haven’t had that.”

It is generally agreed that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake occurred in 1906, not in 1907. I have checked the video of the meeting and the transcript is correct. Dr Meral inexplicably said 1907. 

Any liquefaction problem in the Delta is unrelated to whether or not the islands are subsided. Maybe Dr Meral meant that we did not have the same potential salt water intrusion problem in 1906, but who knows. 

The Winters-Vacaville earthquake sequence of 1892 occurred “within a zone of active crustal shortening accommodated by postulated blind thrust faults”, not on Winter’s fault which does not exist. 

The pole barn story is apocryphal. The original report by Michael Finch was debunked in a 1992 DWR report that points out that Venice Island, where this allegedly occurred, was flooded at the time, which was during the 1983 Coalinga earthquake, not the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake! 

I am informed that Dr Meral has previously been told this, but I guess he does not want to let go of a good yarn.

If there is an earthquake and we have multiple island failures, then the sea water will come in
and eventually the Delta becomes salty and you can’t export water, he said. “This is a serious
consequence for the entire state of California. It would take a long time to repair the islands,
pump them out and get fresh water going again. How long we don’t really know, we’ve never
had a multi-island failure of this type. But certainly it would be more than 6 months and it could
be up to three years. If enough failures occurred, it could be 10 years.”

No, it would most likely not be more than 6 months. 

The latest studies for the DWR conducted by RMA and Jack R. Benjamin & Associates indicate that even in a worse than worst case event, an undefined earthquake causing 50 levees breaches and 20 flooded islands, a scenario that has an annual probability of occurrence somewhere between 0.1 and 0.01 percent, the Delta would likely flush out within several months or six months at the most. 

In the case of levee failures in a major flood, the Delta will already be awash
with fresh water and the demand for exports would in any case be low. Dr Meral should talk to Steve Bradley and Geoff Shaw of DWR about these studies.

Robert Pyke Ph.D., G.E, is an individual consultant on geotechnical, earthquake and
water resources engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California,
Berkeley, working with the late Professor Harry Seed, the father of earthquake
geotechnical engineering. His Ph.D. thesis is entitled “Settlement and Liquefaction of
Sands Under Multi-Directional Loading”. He is a registered civil and geotechnical
engineer in the State of California. Dr Jerry Meral also has a Ph.D. from the University
of California - in zoology. He is not licensed to practice any branch of engineering in the
State of California.

Robert Pyke, Consulting Engineer
1310 Alma Avenue, No. 201, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Telephone 925.323.7338
E-mail bobpyke@attglobal.net

Reprint: Dr. Pyke's Correcting Stubborn Myths

Recirculating Dr. Robert Pyke's awesome 'scribblings'!!

It my contention Dr. Pyke's Western Delta Intake Concept is the cornerstone of solving and resolving California's genuine water issues.

It is also my stance, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is nothing more than a colluded fraud perpetuated upon the citizens of California by a handful of inbred Water Buffaloes...y'all know who you are.

In the first of Dr. Pyke's undertakings is rebutting the fear mongering by the Earthquake Boogeymen in the Delta.  

Any other time in history, we would be giving Dr. Pyke awards for his proactive, preventive engineering expertise and projects. 

Well, Dr. Pyke is certainly 'Award Worthy' in my book!

Correcting Stubborn Myths
http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/news/blog/13-12-12/Correcting_Stubborn_Myths.aspx

December 12, 2013
By Karla Nemeth, California Natural Resources Agency

Short Responses by Robert Pyke Ph.D., G.E

(It would take too long to fully address all the false and misleading statements in this piece
which is blatant propaganda that is unbecoming to an official of the State of California.)

In light of the importance of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to most Californians,
we thought it time to address some of the stubborn “urban myths” that are being
perpetuated about the BDCP. We encourage Californians to get involved with understanding
the proposed plan and investigate the details for themselves.

Good water policy in California requires an open discussion of facts. It also requires a
good faith acknowledgment that “final” answers aren’t, by definition, to be found
in “draft” documents. Public draft documents open up the process for review and
constructive comments. Hopefully by correcting some more persistent myths, we will clear
the way for a meaningful exchange of ideas during the public review process, set to begin
on December 13, 2013.

Boldface added by the commenter, whose response is “what!” After seven years of effort and $200 million, there still aren’t any final answers? (Pink color added by California Cornerstone.)

Myth 1: No one knows how much water will be exported under the Bay Delta
Conservation Plan. The BDCP would provide approximately 10% more or 10%
less than the average annual amount diverted by the federal and state water
projects over the last 20 years (see related video clip "How Much Water" here). For even more detailed analysis, please see Chapter 9. The main goal is to modernize a 50-
year-old water system that leaves Californians vulnerable to water shortages from court mandated decisions, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

There is no more stubborn myth than the unsupported allegation that the Delta levee system and thus Californians are vulnerable to water shortages of any significance from earthquakes and other natural disasters. 

The truth about the Delta levee system is that it has been much improved over the last 30 years and is now relatively robust for flood and earthquake loadings.

See the Economic Sustainability Plan of the Delta Protection Commission for details. In spite of this people like Jerry Meral, Karla’s boss, make ludicrous statements like this (to the Redding City Council): 

"If there is an earthquake and we have multiple island failures, then the sea water will come in and eventually the Delta becomes salty and you can’t export water, he said. “This is a serious consequence for the entire state of California. It would take a long time to repair the islands, pump them out and get fresh water going again. How long we don’t really know, we’ve never had a multi-island failure of this type. But certainly it would be more than 6 months and it could be up to three years. If enough failures occurred, it could be 10 years.”

No, it would most likely not be more than 6 months. 

The latest studies for the DWR conducted by RMA and Jack R. Benjamin & Associates indicate that even in a worse than worst case event, an undefined earthquake causing 50 levees breaches and 20 flooded islands, a scenario that has an annual probability of occurrence somewhere between 0.1 and 0.01 percent, the Delta would likely flush out within several months or six months at the most. 

In the case of levee failures in a major flood, the Delta will already be awash with fresh water and the demand for exports would in any case be low. And, see the next myth below for how many people might actually be affected by a temporary interruption in exports from the Delta.

Myth 2: This is a water grab for Southern California and San Joaquin Valley
farmers. The BDCP is designed to secure existing supplies of clean, affordable,
and reliable water to 25 million people from the Silicon Valley to San Diego, the
farmers who grow crops on 3 million acres of farmland, and the whole of the California
economy.

There are not 25 million people who rely on water exported from the South Delta. There 25 million people who obtain some portion of their water from Delta exports but, with the exception of Zone 7 of Alameda County, essentially all of the urban water districts that take some water from the Delta also have alternate sources of supply.

Myth 3: The BDCP will destroy the Delta’s environment. The current system is not
working for the environment or for California’s water users. The pumps in the south
Delta tend to pull channel flows backwards, killing two out of three fish in the area. The
new system would divert water from the north Delta when fish are migrating
near the south Delta pumps and would use state-of-the art fish screens.
Additionally, over 100,000 acres of wetlands and tidal marsh would be
protected or restored to improve conditions for wildlife and the natural environment.

Karla should have attended the symposium held at UC Davis earlier this year at which multiple speakers pointed out that creation or restoration of wetlands and tidal marsh in the wrong location does no good. 

It is likely that if water exports are limited by the bypass flow requirements that the Federal fish agencies want to impose, the BDCP may not significantly worsen the ecological system in the Delta, but it sure won’t improve it.  If it would, the BDCP would be able to produce a legitimate effects analysis to indicate that, but they can’t. 

What the BDCP can be guaranteed to do, however, is to destroy the character of the North Delta. And for what benefit? The people who should be most concerned by all this misdirection on the part of an official BDCP spokesperson, are the water agencies who will get no more water but will pay higher rates.

Myth 4: No one knows how much it will cost or who will pay for the BDCP. The state
and federal water contractors who receive water from the Central Valley
Project and the State Water Project would pay for infrastructure construction
and mitigation. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has estimated
that this will result in an additional cost to its ratepayers of approximately $5-6 per
household per month over a 10-year time frame. Most of the habitat restoration and
ecosystem improvements that provide a tangible benefit to the entire state would be
borne by state and federal taxpayers.

This is the point at which any reasonable person has to say “are you kidding?” 

Even the construction cost is not known at the point. How can it be when the plan is only in draft form, and not final? I believe that engineering is said to be only at the 10 percent level. And, at least some of the CVP and SWP Contractors who will have to pay the tab, are openly expressing doubts about whether they can pay for even the current estimate. 

I guess Karla is saying don’t worry, but as an engineer with 40 years experience on large civil engineering projects, including the New East Bay Bridge, I say “be afraid!” 

And as for state and federal taxpayers being willing to pay for restoration of an ecosystem that has degraded for multiple reasons, but with excessive exports in dry years without doubt being a major contributor, “hell, no!”

Myth 5: There is no cost-benefit analysis and no evaluation of alternative
options. There is a cost-benefit analysis and an evaluation of alternative
options. The BDCP Chapter 9: Alternatives to Take tests different alternatives, in part
to determine if alternatives would be economically feasible. Appendix 9A provides a
detailed evaluation of the benefits of the proposed project to participating water
agencies. A Statewide Economic Impact Study looks at the economic impacts of the
BDCP on various interest groups, including Delta farmers, commercial fishing interests,
recreational Delta interests, and others.

This is total misdirection. No serious alternatives study, including alternate points of diversion, has ever been conducted. 

The Statewide Economic Impact Study is not a cost-benefit analysis that comes close to complying with the DWR’s own guidelines for cost-benefit analyses and some of its assumptions have been seriously challenged by reputable economists such as Jeff Michael and Rod Smith. See their blogs for further details.

Myth 6: No one knows how the BDCP operations will be governed. Section 3.4.1.4 of
the Draft Plan states that operation of the new and existing water conveyance
facilities would be managed to specific criteria, and that flow criteria would be
applied month by month based on water year type, and would always include a required
amount of Sacramento River flow before water could be diverted.

This is just ludicrous! 

There is an on-going fight over the BDCP operations would be governed in the now unlikely event that it ever goes forward, and the State Water Board is still years away from making critical rulings that will impact the operation of the BDCP.

Myth 7: There is no clear science being used for the Bay Delta Conservation
Plan. Fishery scientists acknowledge areas of debate and uncertainty regarding the best
ways to sustain Delta fish. The BDCP deals with this scientific uncertainty by
creating a rigorous Decision Tree (See Chapter 3, Section 3.4.1.4.4) process for
scientists to evaluate and refine operational criteria in a structured,
transparent, and collaborative way.

This is even more ludicrous! 

The uncertainty cannot be eliminated by some administrative process. It can only be narrowed by meaningful long-term observations and refined modelling. This is where the CVP and the SWP Contractors should be very afraid, unless they are sure that they can short-circuit the transparent and collaborative process. 

I can guarantee that a structured, transparent and collaborative process that attempts to be more refined in its prognostication of the life expectancies of listed species will veer off in the conservative direction, like the infamous DRMS study for instance, and given that the proposal to operate with dual points of extraction in the South and North Delta appears to be at best a push in terms of its benefits to listed species, more conservative analyses will inevitably lead to more restrictions being placed on exports.

San Joaquin Valley farmers cannot be expected to understand this and it is appalling that both their leaders and State officials continue to give them false hope that the BDCP will somehow improve their lot, when it won’t. The Decision Tree is simply a part of Jerry Meral’s deal-making style. As long as Jerry is looking for a deal, not a solution, there will be no solution.

Myth 8: The BDCP process has not been transparent or open to the public. The BDCP
was developed with input from state and federal agencies and independent scientists
after more than 600 public meetings and stakeholder briefings. All of the more than
3,000 documents are posted online in an unprecedented commitment to public
access and government transparency. In 2011, a working draft BDCP was released.
In 2012, administrative drafts of the BDCP and Environmental Impact
Report/Environmental Impact Statement were released. Since then, the proposed
project was significantly revised in response to stakeholder involvement.

This is just laughable! 

Posting voluminous documents online when they are deliberately constructed to be impenetrable, is not being transparent or open. 

Holding public meetings at which Jerry Meral is unfailingly courteous, but evades answering questions and makes false promises, is not being open and transparent. I have followed the BDCP process closely since 2008 and the words that I would use to describe it are secretive and inept. 

The earlier working drafts of the BDCP were not so much revised in response to stakeholder involvement as they were revised in an attempt to make an unworkable scheme work. 

I was present at a meeting of the old BDCP “steering committee” on July 28, 2010, when it became evident that the then proposed scheme would not work because the applicants could not guarantee that listed species would not face jeopardy, and I believe that it still
true today.

So, no incidental take permits and $200 million down the drain. The CVP and SWP Contractors should be very, very afraid, and should not take any comfort from this further attempt at obfuscation.

Our One Word Definition of the Delta - Cornerstone

On November 28, 2011 Delta Stewardship Council Chairman, Phil Isenberg visited North Delta CARES.  In the course of the evening, Mr. Isenberg used the word 'rural' to describe the Delta and challenged us to define the Delta in our own words...

If was from that challenge this blog took its name California 'Cornerstone' from the words of Ms. Nicole Suard, Esq. and Managing Partner of Snug Harbor Resorts, LLC:

If we must pick just one word to describe the Delta, it should be “Cornerstone”

We, the Delta region collectively are:

The Cornerstone of California’s agricultural economy, with 80% of California's Class 1 Prime Soils located within the boundaries of the North Delta Water Agency,

The Cornerstone of California’s water supply resource,

The causeway for many important fish species like salmon, as well as the international Pacific Flyway including up to 700 diverse terrestrial and aquatic species,

The Prime northern California freshwater recreation area with 700+ navigable miles of freshwater rivers and sloughs to explore and recreate in,

And an emerging world class wine grape Appellation.

We, along with the San Francisco Bay, are the cornerstone of California’s history.  As the first major population areas were in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento with thriving communities along the transportation routes…the Sacramento River, her tributaries, and the San Joaquin River.

The Delta region and Bay Area are also the cornerstone of the natural gas industry of California, and becoming the cornerstone of the wind turbine industry.

And last but most certainly not the least, up until 2013, has been the cornerstone of state politics in Sacramento.

Delta Stewardship Council to Hear Adverse Impacts in BDCP EIR/EIS Thursday, December 19, 2013

 

From Melinda Terry, Executive Director, North Delta Water Agency:

 

FYI – In case you missed it, Agenda Item #14 of the Delta Stewardship Council’s agenda this Thursday, December 19^th is a presentation of the adverse impacts in the BDCP EIR/EIS. 

Here is a link to the agenda:  http://deltacouncil.ca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/packet_agenda_11.pdf

And a link to the cover letter about the overall plan for the day:  http://deltacouncil.ca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/2013-12-09%20Cover%20Letter%20v1.pdf

There are 750 adverse impacts identified in the EIR/EIS – everything from Agriculture to Water Quality -- 48 of them are categorized as “Significant and Unavoidable” which means they will not be mitigated or remediated to a level of insignificance.

Here is the link to the DSC staff document outlining Agenda Item #14’s discussion of BDCP impacts:  http://deltacouncil.ca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Item_14_2.pdf

So if you want to make sure the DSC is aware of impacts that may matter to you such as non-navigable waterways/channels due to cofferdams and  river barge facilities, noise and vibration from daily steel pile driving, loss of running water in home due to dewatering activities, increase in response times for emergency vehicles due the increased construction traffic volume, degradation of water quality at your agriculture or municipal water intake, risk of sink holes/subsidence that may pose risk to levee stability – then you will want to show up and testify at the hearing. 

Hopefully the DSC will take this opportunity to explain to the public, particularly Delta residents how they plan to fulfill their statutory responsibility to protect Delta As Place, which you can offer your views as well.

Be sure to tell Delta residents about this important discussion and encourage them to attend as I know I missed people on the list, so am counting on all of you to spread the word. 

See you then, Melinda