by Bob Walsh
Governor Moonbeam, AKA Jerry Brown version 2.0, has officially downsized his attempt to steal huge amounts of water from the Delta to ship to his buddies in SoCal. It is sort of a "I still want to fuck you, but I will only fuck you a little bit" plan.
Moonbeam was unable to secure funding from participating (or more accurately non-participating) water agencies in order to fun the debacle. Not even close. He has therefore decided to scale the project back to one bore instead of two, in hopes that the Dept. of Water Resources can quack gullible water agencies into agreeing in advance to fund it. (They have not totally abandoned the second tunnel. It is now in an unspecified to be determined at a future date stage.)
The current project, known officially as California WaterFix and unofficially by other less polite names, would in theory cost barely $11 billion, where the double bore tunnel would cost about $16 billion. Let's see, Jerry's toy train has jumped hugely in cost and diminished hugely in performance assertions. I wonder if Jerry's tunnel will be any different. (Actually, I don't wonder at all. I know damn well it won't.)
Moonbeam is out at the end of this year and wants DESPERATELY to add this boondoggle to his legacy.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (which would be a huge beneficiary of this water theft) has already agreed to kick down $4 billion and could probably be coerced into going for $5. They have a total of $6.5 billion in commitments, but some of those are soft.
They seriously hope (or at least claim they hope) to get all the necessary permits and EIR bullshit and actually begin construction by the end of this year.
Major agricultural water users in the Fresno County and Kings County areas could have seen their water costs quadruple if they bought into this idiocy, which is why they have not.
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