Will any of these committee members benefit from this project?

I trust the common, educated person over a bureaucrat any day.

The new Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge was supposed to cost $1 Billion, and the total cost is now somewhere between $7-8 Billion – yet there was no added capacity, and the RFP didn’t specify it be designed with considerations per terrorism (i.e., a potential attack).

A common sense person like a Bob Fry might have noted that a Bay Bridge retrofit would cost only $1 Billion. With that kind of savings, maybe the Bay Area could have funded BART encircling the Bay (San Jose), adding Marin to the system, and more.

Also, your article neglects the fact that delaying the surface water project for a year would cost another $17.7 million. You can read about it here:
http://www.wdcwa.com/images/uploadsdoc/AlternativeScheduleScenariosTM_120311.pdf

1. I’m pretty sure the motivation for a new water source comes not from drinking water concerns, but discharge concerns: too much salt (sodium chloride) is discharged into the Sacramento River by Woodland and Davis for current or future standards. My question is, where exactly do Woodland and Davis discharge? I’m thinking at very different places. Davis wastewater probably ends up in Putah Creek, which drains into the Yolo Bypass, which hits the Sac R. near Rio Vista….just a very few miles from saline, brackish water anyway!

2. If my understanding above is reasonably accurate it leads to the 2nd question: Why are we spending hundreds of millions of dollars for a marginal improvement of just a few miles? These standards are developed by the California State Water Resources Control Board, a state government agency, perhaps in obedience to the U.S. EPA, another government agency. Can common sense prevail here? It makes no sense to use several hundred million scarce dollars on something that offers marginal improvement to a short stretch of river.

3. Another benefit given for this is “better” water quality. Really? What is the raw water quality of our groundwater and the proposed Sac R. water? Guessing a bit again, I’m thinking Sac R water has a lot more organic/toxic load (pesticides, herbicides, upstream waste discharge) than our groundwater. Less calcium/magnesium ions which cause hardness, no doubt, but how much treatment will the raw Sac water require to remove all the contaminants certainly present in it?

4. Another supposed benefit is additional quantity of water. How realistic is that? How long could current or proposed deeper wells last? I’ve heard that Sac R. water will not be available to us during the summer….peak demand months. True? Just what will the cost work out for each source on a cubic-foot basis?

I’d really like to see the City of Davis address these questions instead of sending us propganda advertising in the mail proclaiming the virtues and none of the problems with the proposed water project.

Not sure whether the plan will withstand a legal challenge. The attorneys may become just as confused and disoriented by the multiple documents as the voters.