Public comment ends 4/17 5PM PST!! This is our time to make a change. Public comments are so important and they actually truly make a difference.
You can develop your own letter or we have a sample letter here for you to send!
MORE COMPREHENSIVE INFO ON HERE: http://www.restorethedelta.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Final-Save-the-SF-Bay-Delta-HandOut-combined-with-A-Better-Solution.pdf
Email to DeltaConveyanceScoping@water.ca.gov
SUBJECT: Request to Seriously Reconsider the Delta Conveyance Tunnel Project
BODY:
Dear the California Department of Water Resources,
—greetings—
My name is [______] and I am an [___any type of affiliation you would like to share if you want___]. I am writing this email in strong opposition to the Delta Conveyance project. This damaging project should be terminated immediately as its construction and operation will drive the Chinook Salmon to extinction, with over a hundred species following, devastating the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, local fisheries, and the beautiful ecosystem we currently have and need.
This tunnel project will have a tremendous impact on the livelihood and culture of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, a matrilineal Wintu-speaking community who are indigenous to the Winnemem, or McCloud River. The Chinook Salmon are an essential part of the cultural traditions of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, who takes care of the Salmon’s land and is deeply and spiritually connected to the Chinook Salmon (Julie Bongers).
“As native people, we rely on the river and the salmon as part of our traditional heritage. We cannot afford to let anything further erode our river systems,” testified Robbins, an advisor for Water Protectors Club (fishsniffer.com)
As the Department of Water Resources, it is to your mission to protect these natural resources, water, river, Salmon, and listen and learn from the communities most impacted by your proposed project.
Moreover, the environmental disruption to the region will be irreversible as even just the construction and operation of the tunnel will “degrade the water quality for Delta farms, subsist-ence anglers, providers of urban drinking water (including Stockton, Antioch, and other cities), residents playing and swimming in Delta channels, and an increase in deadly toxic algal blooms” (Restore the Delta, Impact Report).
Restore the Delta put together a report detailing the impacts of this Proposed Water Project named The Fate of the Delta. The report stated “[the tunnel project] will impact human uses of water for farms, subsistence fishing, urban drinking water supplies, and urban water rates, each of which will place disproportionate, undue burdens on Delta EJ communities” (Restore the Delta, Impact Report). It is the Department of Water Resource’s responsibility to serve communities with non-toxic and pure water, not risk residents life with algea blooms.
Finally, this project will endanger the Chinook salmon, which is a keystone species that for a millennia have been providing nutrients for the soils and nourishing a hundred species that depended on them (Julie Bongers).
Some of the species that depend on the Chinook Salmon are: Black bears, Grizzly Bears, and American badgers, Water shrews, Ringtail cats and Long-tailed weasels, Harbor seals, Great blue herons, and Great egrets, Bald eagles, orcas, and ravens, wolves, North American River otters, ermine, fox, martens, bobcats, ducks, pumas, ‘coons, and sharks (California Mammals). These species are crucial to California wildlife and waterways, without them the biodiversity of California will plummet and drive more extinction.
The delta tunnel will heavily contribute towards the extinction of Chinook salmon, most importantly, last year, only 0.1% of the salmon came back! Much of the species living in the area require salmon to continue living and therefore their extinction will change the ecosystem in the region. The species that depend on the Salmons are all currently starving.
Please reconsider this project as its irreversible damages will be detrimental to the ecosystems in the Sacramento Region, McCloud River, Trinity River, and the Delta. We understand that we are currently in a PANDEMIC and you also have other people to take care of, which is why we need this project to HALT immediately because it concerns the well-being of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, especially so during this time. Please protect your people in California, especially the most vulnerable.
Respectfully,
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