You’d think that with all the well deserved bad press heaped on the High Speed Rail debacle that Governor Brown would be a little more circumspect about mega-infrastructure projects which, presumably, he wishes to be the cornerstone of his legacy. Unfortunately, it appears that his legacy may be that of an inflexible politician who has saddled California with projects that are financially suspect and downright wasteful.
His latest adventure is the pursuit of the “Twin Tunnels,” a massively expensive water conveyance project. This project, part of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), envisions two large tunnels 40 feet in diameter to take water from the Sacramento River and send it to the southern part of the San Joaquin delta to be connected with both the California Water Project and the Central Valley Project.
Not in dispute here is the notion that both water conveyance and ecological protection for the Delta are very important. Californians of all political stripes would agree with that. But just as all Californians would agree that transportation infrastructure needs to be improved, more and more citizens realize they were sold a bill of goods with High Speed Rail. The point here is that there is a right way to build things and a wrong way.
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