I completely love the fact that no matter how old and how professional we get, the professional plans and papers we produce still read like authors ran out of time at the end and slapped a last page of text together. We are doomed to write college papers for our whole lives. I assume that’s why ACWA’s “Finance” section is laughably short. Here’s what it says.
Paragraph 1, pg 48: People have to like the Plan to pay the costs of meeting the co-equal goals. The bond might pass. BDCP would pay for some stuff too if the Delta Plan includes BDCP.
Actions and Recommendations, pg 48:
Near term:
- People have to like the plan if they’re expected to pay for it (people = their own districts).
- The bond might pass. If it does, the Council should write some instructions for passing out bond money. If it doesn’t, the Council should come up with a Finance Plan.
- Ecosystem restoration stuff should be paid for by everyone, from the General Fund or G.O. bonds, like the 2012 bond that might pass.
- The Council shouldn’t cost us much. Go ahead and pay for that out of the General Fund.
Medium term:
- The Delta Stewardship Council should come up with real specific Finance Plans, in five years.
You guys, this is the entire Finance section of the ACWA plan. If you think I’m joking, read pages 48-49 for yourself.
Poor Professor Michael. He pines for a finance plan that has, like, finances in it. He has futile hopes for a plan with several conveyance and restoration alternatives all costed out. He would like to compare those costs to the anticipated amount of water that would be delivered with that conveyance. He would like to compare them to the opportunity cost. He would like to dig in, critique estimates and assumptions. Oh that crazy dreamer. There’s no sign of a Delta Plan, alternate or not, that has numbers in it.
I’ll give a more holistic critique of ACWA’s whole plan soon, but no. The rest of ACWA’s Alternate Delta Plan is no more substantive. It is a fine positioning effort for trying to fend off a Delta Plan that might change the status quo, but it is not a substantive plan that is worth serious consideration. They did not come up with a game-changer.
On the public record 
I’m chuckling because yesterday I struggled through the 4th staff draft of the Delta Plan and thought the same thing – it reads like an undergraduate paper. Better written than the ACWA alternate plan, to be sure, but not focused – just trotting out all this stuff they think they know. And why does a “plan” need so many academic references? I rest my case.