Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion California Delta WaterFix tunnels are in trouble over a threat to triple water costs and a federal probe of $84.8 million in illegal payments.
The board of the Fresno-based Westlands Water District, America’s largest water supplier, voted 7 to 1 on September 19 to pull out their $4.5 billion, 26 percent participation in the $17 billion WaterFix, which planned to build two 40-foot wide tunnels stretching for 35 miles to protect fish and divert water from the Sacramento River to the California aqueducts that service the San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California cities.
The move followed a July 17 presentation by Goldman Sachs to the Westlands Water District titled, “California WaterFix Financing Strategies.” Goldman apparently estimated that to finance the project, the average cost of water exports from the Delta could rise by $260 per acre foot by 2033. That is two to three times the price paid to the Bureau of Reclamation this year.
The U.S. Department of Interior Inspector General also issued an audit that found that during the Obama administration, federal Bureau of Reclamation financial assistance agreements with the State of California’s Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) did not “fully disclose to Congress and other stakeholders the $84.8 million cost of its participation in the BDCP efforts, including its subsidizing of the Federal Central Valley Project (CVP) water contractors’ share of BDCP costs.”
The Inspector General also found the Bureau of Reclamation was never reimbursed for $50 million of advanced payments and improperly paid $34.8 million of the contractors’ costs through June 30, 2016. The IG stated that the Bureau of Reclamation submitted “inaccurate annual Calfed Bay-Delta certified financial reports” and “the actions it took to fund BDCP planning costs were neither transparent nor consistent with the ‘beneficiaries pay’ principle underlying Reclamation Law.”
The IG referred the matter to the “Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget for resolution,” a step that may lead to a U.S. Justice Department civil or criminal referral.
The Associated Press obtained documents on September 18 that reveal that the legal language governing California’s biggest water project in half a century has been tweaked so that the tunnels are now just an “update,” rather than a new project. That way every one of the 29 water districts that receive water from the existing California State Water Project will be jointly responsible to pay for the tunnels.
A Harris Farms’ Executive Vice President and Westlands board member told AP that there is no guarantee that the project will consistently increase future water supplies and that “obligating hundreds of family farms” to pay for the tunnels doesn’t make economic sense.
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District will vote on continuing as a $4 billion WaterFix investor, and the Santa Clara Valley Water District will also vote on its $2 billion participation. It is estimated that the project will cost residential water users about $3 to $4 a month. But that assumes an on-time completion, and that the project performs as advertised.
This article was originally published by Brietbart.com/california
The bad part is that nobody who lives in CA would expect any different. A bungled bureaucratic mess that f**ks the consumer/taxpayer is all Jerry Brown/ CA Democrats are good at lately, besides raping your rights and giving criminals more.
Water, California water, from rain to watershed, to lakes and streams, to ground water, to crops. And right now water is the new gold in California because most of the rain fall and snow melt flows back out to the ocean.
Until Gov. Brown and his Brown Shirt legislature fixes the water problem in the agricultural belt of California there is no other fix.
His tunnels will provide no increase in benefit to any Californian other than damage to the environment throughout the delta. Only benefit is that SoCal lawns will never experience a drought again. Browns favorite money source?
Dams, Dams, and more Dams, California needs them, the Nation needs them and the World too.
Brown will excuse any environmental impact on the high speed rail but not on dams.
Brown is not a friend of the California Citizen, after all we are all “Freeloaders”!
Does it seem like what ever Jerry MOONBEAM Brown does it is to drive up the taxes of the remaining LEGAL CA citizens so that the corrupt CA government gets ever richer. The TUNNELS hide stuff -don’t they? They try to hide the corruption all over this state of insanity and we know they will fail like so many of the really STUPID ideas from the LEFT!
Jerry Brown knows very well about geo water (geowaterintl.com) because his father ordered the capping of the several wells supplying this water that were drilled during his administration. This water is found in abundance and is extremely pure and therefore healthy. It comes up from the rock underground but drilling it would still be more economical than what is being done now, and the widespread supply would be enormous. Instead we have drought while this administration is sending billions of water out to sea for senseless reasons. This water is also referred to as primary water.
This is exactly what you get when you have a state that has been taken over by Democrates who allow and encourage ILLEGAL activities from protecting Illegal mexican gang members to deceiving the California taxpayers with the bill for supporting their ILLEGAL MEXICAN voting base…Democrates SUCK……Most corrupt state in the union…
My name is Michael B. Unfried. I am not a politician, but I am going to run for Governor of California. And as the next Governor of California, I will put a stop to all special interest funding. People are more important that a few little fish.
Lying,cheating,stealing and hiding the truth are the hallmarks of the communist/socialist cartel that makes up the current regime in California.The more absurd their results of past policies only makes them double down on more failed policies for today.I can only think that anyone with any sense of equilibrium would be sick to their stomach with all the irreparable damage they have visited on this once “great place to live”.
There is nothing that Moonbeam can’t turn to “brown”.
Jerry Brown is the gift that keeps on giving, only in a very destructive way.
Obama’s taking the water away from farmers to protect a 3″ fish whose population has gone down any how, was pure evil. But Brown’s “plan” is pure stupidity. Glad I don’t live in that hot mess of a state.
Jerry Brown is ruining California over his rash decisions. Stop him from destroying this state with his over costly decisions.
FORGET IT BUNCH OF PHONEY CROOKS