The first big change could significantly impact Delta water quality and in-Delta diversions: DWR is now proposing to use the new Delta tunnel in the summer months for water exports, which they indicate would likely reduce carriage losses for water transfers. Restoring the salmon fishery is clearly not a priority for the Department of Water Resources. Moreover, the suggested operations are worse for salmon than WaterFix.
The webinar presentation indicates that the agencies are proposing several changes in operations of the Delta tunnel compared to WaterFix, and these changes are grounded in wholly inadequate operational criteria. The project may have moved from two tunnels to one, but the operating conditions for water quality are getting worse. This of course would lead to more harmful algal blooms in the Delta. We are editing their notes to share with our followers, with a bit of color commentary otherwise, we wouldn’t be acting like ourselves. Colleagues from various organizations took an array of notes and shared the following with us. Last week, while our staff was away on leave, vacation, sick time, and other assorted in-Delta activities, DWR held a fisheries workshop on operations of the proposed Delta Conveyance Project. By Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla (with the help of friends)