KM ANIK
24 UPDATE
26/10/2017
Country Bases California in US
Reported in BANGLADESH
California water officials were scratching their heads Wednesday over an Interior Department statement that the Trump administration does not support a massive California water delivery project that the federal government has helped plan.
Russell Newell, the department’s deputy communications director, told the Associated Press: “The Trump administration did not fund the project and chose to not move forward with it."
Known as California WaterFix, the $17-billion project involves construction of two giant tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and a new diversion point on the Sacramento River.
It would be owned and operated by the state and funded by the water districts that use it.The regional office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has stated several times that it has no authorization to help pay for project construction and is not seeking funding authority.
But the bureau has helped with planning and preparation of environmental documents. And irrigation districts that receive delta water from the federal Central Valley Project are potential tunnel customers.
It is unclear whether Newell was reiterating the reclamation agency’s previous funding position or making a broader statement that the administration was withdrawing any participation in planning and environmental reviews.Newell did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.
Bob Muir, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the project’s biggest backers, said he had “no idea” what to make of Newell’s remarks.
“We haven’t had any discussion with them regarding this position, and we would like to withhold comment until then,” Muir said.
Newell made his comments after five California Democratic House members requested a federal probe into previous Interior Department spending on the tunnel planning.Last month, a federal audit found that the department had left federal taxpayers on the hook for $50 million in planning expenses that should have been picked up by the project’s potential federal customers.Because the subsidy was not disclosed, Congress was unaware of the full extent of the reclamation bureau’s more than $84 million in expenditures on tunnel planning.
“The $84 million spent in taxpayers' money without disclosure to Congress and kept hidden from the public were decisions driven and executed by the Obama administration and that team,” Newell said.
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