BDCP Comment Library

Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Public Comment Library

The future of the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed is at stake!

In December of 2013, 40,000+ pages of documents advocating for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP)—Delta Water Tunnels—were issued by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the form of a draft Plan and draft Environment Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (draft EIR/EIS) for public review and comment. The public comment period closed July 29, 2014.

Around December 13th, the BDCP agencies decided to stop posting any and all comments on the website. This decision blocked any meaningful and timely dialogue about the BDCP. The public was left with only one side of the story, the 40,000+ pages of pro-BDCP Water Tunnels and advocacy.

DWR and Reclamation engaged in suppression of public speech. Friends of the River obtained the suppressed comments from the government agencies by making demand for them under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Originally, Friends of the River posted in this public comment library all comments submitted by public agencies and organizations including those from project supporters as well as project opponents.

As an unintended result of a change in the Friends of the River website, our BDCP public comment library disappeared. A volunteer has stepped forward to reconstruct our BDCP public comment library including all critical comments from public agencies and organizations that she was able to find. Because of the extensive workload involved, comments supporting the Water Tunnels have not been included this time around. That side of the story is told in the 40,000+ pages of pro-Water Tunnels advocacy turned out by DWR and Reclamation. This public comment library is the only place where there is a collection of informed comments by public agencies and organizations made in 2014 telling the truth about the environmental and economic destruction threatened by the Water Tunnels project. (Finally, on April 30, 2015, the State and Federal BDCP agencies transformed the BDCP into the "California Water Fix." Because of the bad publicity over their suppression of the public comments made on the BDCP, the Tunnels agencies did post RDEIR/SDEIS public comments after the October 30, 2015 close of the Water Fix comment period. Those comments can be found on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) website, by going to RDEIR/SDEIS public review at the top, and then dropping down from that to RDEIR/SDEIS public comments.)

NOTE: All comments open as pdf documents - click to open, right to save.

Agency, Organizational, Scientific Comments (in order submitted)