Wednesday, January 17, 2018

JERRY'S TOY TUNNEL SHRINKING

by Bob Walsh

Jerry Brown, governor of the formerly great state of California. likes to think BIG. His favorite project, his toy train, is still moving, or maybe staggering, forward despite clear legal problems with funding and planning. However, in the next few years, you will be able to take a sort-of high-speed train between Buttcrack and South Buttcrack in the Central Valley. Isn't that special?

Jerry also wants to build two HUGE tunnels to steal water from the Delta in NorCal and ship it to SoCal so his buddies can keep their lawns and golf courses green. Trouble is, the way the law is written, this new project, a VERY EXPENSIVE project, is required to be paid for by the users. Many of who see it for the white elephant it is and want nothing to do with it. And have said so.

So now Jerry is scaling back. He is now pimping for a much smaller single-bore tunnel to steal dramatically less water. Jerry is hoping to get some farm districts to sign on. So far NOT ONE Central Valley irritation district has signed up for the project. Not one. The Central Valley people are part of a federal structure and they can therefore give the finger to Jerry with a certain degree of impunity.

Right now the Dept. of Water Resources is trying to decide on whether or not to push the one tunnel project. I guess they are doing that when they aren't out shopping for asbestos shorts to keep from getting their butts cooked over the Oroville debacle.

Within the next four weeks they are, at least in theory, supposed to make a sort-of final decision on which plan they will push for and see what they can get. Hopefully they get a tunnel bore shoved up their ass, but that's just me.

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