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Trump Doesn’t Support Gov. Brown’s Sac River Tunnel Project

Trump Doesn’t Support Gov. Brown’s Sac River Tunnel Project

By 10:59 am Editor's Blog 0 Comments
Paul Hames / California Department of Water Resources

President Donald Trump announced he opposes Gov. Jerry Brown’s twin water tunnel project on the Sacramento River that was of great concern for the impact on salmon runs from the Pacific into the Sac River system.

Here’s the Los Angeles Times (via the AP) with more:

“The Trump administration did not fund the project and chose to not move forward with it,” Russell Newell, deputy communications director for the U.S. Interior Department, said in an email.

Asked if that meant the Trump administration did not support California’s tunnels project, Newell said yes.

Brown wants California water districts to pay $16 billion to build two, 35-mile-long tunnels to divert part of the state’s largest river, the Sacramento, to supply water to the San Francisco Bay Area and central and Southern California. The Obama administration backed the project, but the tunnels plan ran into its biggest obstacles yet last month, when two key water districts opted not to pay for it.

Conservationists have been skeptical of the plan due to the potential obstacles an already struggling king salmon run would have to get through during the spawning journey.
The Golden Gate Salmon Association‘s executive director John McManus had this to say about today’s salvo from Trump:
 “With today’s announcement, there’s an opportunity for Californians to now come together to plan a way forward that protects our valuable salmon runs and more reliably delivers water to the tens of millions in southern California and others.  For this to work, the State Water Resources Control Board first has to complete its work determining just how much water can be exported without destroying the environment.”

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