C-WIN's Response to Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Assn letter on BDCP

Check out Dan Bacher's article on IndyBay at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/04/16/18754274.php and Maven's Notbook here.

For Immediate Release

4/16/14

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Sustainable Water Advocates See Eye-to-Eye

Crushing Expense of Bay Delta Conservation Plan Lambasted

Politics can make for unusual bedfellows, but so can drought.  California’s water scarcity is being used by the Brown administration to push its so-called Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), a hyper-ambitious public works project that would convey water from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta to south state corporate farms and municipalities via a pair of massive subterranean tunnels.

The BDCP would cost upward of $100 billion, would do nothing to increase drought water supplies to southern California, and would devastate the Bay-Delta ecosystem, the richest estuary on the west coast of the continental United States. The California Water Impact Network and allied organizations oppose the project because of its ruinous expense, horrendous environmental impacts, and ultimate inadequacy in addressing California’s long-term water dilemma.

We therefore welcome the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association into our alliance. Equitable water distribution advocates and conservative taxpayer protection associations do not always agree on the issues.  But in this case, we are in full accord. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association recently issued a statement expressing concern that the BDCP doesn’t adequately address the profound fiscal impacts of the project, and decrying indications that the fiscal burden for the scheme will fall on already beleaguered taxpayers and property owners.

Further, the association notes, the BDCP seems the latest in a series of ill-conceived state projects that fail to meet established goals but burden residents with ever-spiraling tax bills:

“…In recent years, California has undertaken several infrastructure projects which were poorly planned and executed,” the organization stated.  “High Speed Rail and the Bay Bridge fiasco are but two examples.  Our concern is that the BDCP may well be plagued with similar challenges…”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

“C-WIN is looking forward to working with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and any other group of concerned citizens in the campaign to stop the BDCP,” said Carolee Krieger, the executive director of C-WIN. “This fight transcends the usual political divisions. It’s about the responsible use of taxpayer money, and it’s about making government accountable to the people – all the people.”

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Contacts:

Tom Stokely, Media Contact 530-926-9727

Carolee Krieger, Executive Director 805-969-0824

The letter can be found at: http://mavensnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/HJTA-Letter-BDCP-Impacts-on-CA-Taxpayers-4-11-14-1.pdf