The city sent a letter today to Gov. Jerry Brown in advance of his expected peripheral canal announcement in a couple of weeks.
“As the largest city in the center of the San Joaquin Delta, we are shocked that you would plan to announce the building of a tunnel or canal around the Delta without addressing the four critical issues of social and economic cost-benefit, water quality following construction, water availability and supply variations, and the public trust uses of water,” says the letter, signed by Mayor Ann Johnston.
She says the project will decrease land values, reduce agricultural production and threaten habitat conservation plans that are already in place.
“Just a reminder — the issues that made the Peripheral Canal a bad idea in 1982 have not been resolved,” the letter concludes. “What was a bad idea then is still a bad idea.”
