On Dec. 8, 2023, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) released the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Delta Conveyance Project. Click here for the notice. Here is what water agencies and stakeholders had to say.
Baykeeper
The California Department of Water Resources today released the final environmental impact report for its proposed Delta Conveyance project. The Delta Conveyance is a tunnel that would divert water from the Sacramento River beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, denying critical freshwater flows to the Delta and San Francisco Bay.
In January, Baykeeper and allied fishing and conservation organizations filed extensive comments documenting major flaws with the latest iteration of the Delta tunnel. The state’s analysis and conclusions regarding impacts to native fish and Delta water quality failed to use the best available science, and misled the public about the likely harms arising from increased water diversions. The Final EIR failed to address those concerns.
State and federal agencies allow too much fresh water to be diverted from the Bay’s Central Valley tributaries to supply industrial agriculture and large cities. As a result, populations of native fish—including Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, longfin smelt, Delta smelt, green sturgeon, and white sturgeon—have declined dramatically throughout the Bay and its watershed. The Delta tunnel would exacerbate these declines. The unsustainable diversion of water jeopardizes economically and culturally important fisheries, as well as imperiled species. For example,California’s Chinook salmon fishery was closed in 2023, and will likely remain closed in 2024.
Baykeeper science director Jon Rosenfield, Ph.D. responded with the following statement:
“Governor Newsom’s multi-billion dollar Delta tunnel will divert excessive amounts of water from the Bay, and make matters worse for the fish and communities that depend on this ecosystem. The science clearly demonstrates that fish need increased river flows to survive, but state agencies are ignoring it.
California diverts more than half of the water flowing through Central Valley rivers to serve industrial agriculture and big cities. Because of excessive water diversions, the list of fish native to San Francisco Bay and its watershed that are verging on extinction continues to grow, and our fisheries are increasingly shut down.
“California can protect San Francisco Bay and its watershed, while still providing enough water for agriculture and cities to thrive. Instead, Newsom is continuing his campaign to divert yet more water, needlessly sacrificing California’s native fish, valuable fisheries, water quality, and the communities that depend on them.
“Chinook salmon, steelhead, longfin smelt and other fish that have thrived here for millenia cannot survive the Newsom administration’s assault on San Francisco Bay and its watershed. White Sturgeon, the Bay’s ultimate survivors, might not survive into the next generation because of neglect from state agencies that are supposed to protect our Bay and its fishes.”
California Water Research
Deirdre Des Jardins commented: “Like its predecessor, the WaterFix Project, the Delta Conveyance Project fails to consider or address the risks from accelerating climate change impacts to Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds and the Delta.
California Water Research worked with a coalition of environmental and fishing groups, including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Planning and Conservation League, Friends of the River, California Water Impact Network, Aqualliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and Restore the Delta to raise concerns about the urgent need to consider new best available science in planning the Delta Conveyance Project.
The comment letter was titled, Re: Supplemental Comments on Draft EIR was sent to the Department of Water Resource on November 21, 2023. The Department of Water Resources released the Final EIR without considering the concerns raised in the letter.
The comment letter drew on observations of accelerating climate change impacts and major new scientific research over the past year, including:
- Record land and ocean temperatures
- Accelerating Melting of Polar Ice Caps
- Weakening of Ocean Conveyor Belt
Key Concerns raised in the comment letter included:
- Inadequate Climate Change Analysis for Delta Conveyance Project: The comments raised concerns that if the EIR did not adequately analyze the risks of climate change in the Delta Conveyance Project’s Draft EIR, the project could become a stranded asset.
- Continuing Failure to Address Issues Found by State Auditor: The comments cite the 2022 California State Auditor’s report, which found that the Department of Water Resources systematically failed to adequately analyze climate change impacts on hydrologic condition
- Need for Revised Draft EIR: The comments stressed the need for a revised Draft EIR that fully analyzed the effects of accelerating climate change on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its watersheds and considered non-tunnel alternatives.
Californians for Water Security
With today’s release of the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the Governor’s Delta Conveyance Project (DCP) by the Department of Water Resources (DWR), organizations representing thousands of business and labor groups, water agencies, family farmers and others voiced their strong support for moving this project forward as quickly as possible. These groups say that updating California’s aging water infrastructure through the DCP is critical to protecting water security for two-thirds of Californians.
The proposed project has been refined, redesigned and rerouted as a result of public input and the Governor’s 2019 direction.
Businesses and labor groups across California say this project needs to move forward as quickly as possible to secure a reliable water supply.
Michael Quigley, CA Alliance for Jobs: “We represent more than 2,000 heavy construction companies and 80,000 union construction workers from Kern County to the Oregon border and strongly support the Delta Conveyance Project. This project will protect and create nearly one million jobs across California.”
Jennifer Barrera, California Chamber of Commerce: “Today’s release of the final environmental document is an important step forward in advancing this critical plan to protect California’s water supply. California’s economy relies on the success of its private sector businesses and agricultural operations which are dependent on stable, reliable water supplies. Improving California’s water system and its infrastructure through the Delta Conveyance Project is urgently needed and we appreciate the Governor’s leadership on this project.”
Rick Callender, NAACP California/Hawaii State Conference: “The NAACP CA/HI State Conference supports the Delta Conveyance Project because we need to act urgently to prepare California for the impacts of climate change. Millions of Californians receive much of our clean drinking water from this source, and we must work to ensure the safety of this vital water supply. Ensuring that California has the capacity to move and store water when it is abundant, to save it for when it is not, is a crucial climate adaptation strategy. We must act before it is too late.”
Joseph Cruz, California State Council of Laborers: “Representing 80,000 union members working in the heavy construction industry across the state, the California State Council of Laborers is proud to support the Delta Conveyance Project and its goal of helping meet California’s long-term water supply needs. By modernizing the state’s water delivery infrastructure, the DCP will create tens of thousands of jobs while protecting water supplies from major earthquakes, floods and other challenges.”
Tracy Hernandez, Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed): “BizFed has long been an enthusiastic mobilizer of support for the Delta Conveyance Project because the ports, hospitals, warehouses, energy hubs, transportation agencies, builders, restaurants, retailers, hotels and other businesses we unite are all dependent on the cost-effective flow of clean, safe water. We must shore up water resiliency – one of California’s most pressing issues – in order for Californians to thrive.”
Adrian Covert, Bay Area Council: “The Bay Area Council, representing 350 of the region’s largest employers, supports the Delta Conveyance Project because it is vital to our economy to protect this essential water source. Water reliability is absolutely paramount to the sustainability of California’s economy. Any period of time when water deliveries are interrupted, whether due to sea level rise, flood or earthquake, will have catastrophic impacts on California’s economy. The Delta Conveyance Project is absolutely necessary to prevent system failure!”
About Californians for Water Security
CWS is a growing coalition of more than 12,000 California citizens and more than 80 organizations representing business leaders, labor, family farmers, local governments, water experts, infrastructure groups, taxpayer associations, and others who support the plan to fix California’s broken water distribution system. The coalition is waging an active advertising, grassroots lobbying, social media and public advocacy campaign to support this important project to fix our aging water distribution infrastructure and improve water reliability and security throughout the state. For more information on Californians for Water Security, visit:www.watersecurityca.com
Food and Water Watch
California Director Chirag Bhakta issued the following statement: “The Delta Conveyance project is going to cost everyday Californians billions while mainly benefitting corporate agribusinesses and other powerful interests – it is the wrong strategy to address our state’s water crisis.
“Rather than building the expensive, destructive, and unnecessary Tunnel, Governor Newsom and the Department of Water Resources should rein in the water abuses by big agribusiness and fossil fuel corporations.
“Between 2017 and 2021, for example, the water used for tree nut acres increased by as much as could cover the indoor use over 85% of all Californians. Meanwhile, large almond titans make huge profits exporting these products – and our water – overseas. Oil corporations continue to apply for and are granted permits, despite their dirty product driving the climate and water crisis.
“Pouring billions of dollars into the Delta Tunnel won’t help our long term water situation and will also have a negative impact on the vital local wildlife habitat and further degrade the Delta’s water quality.”
Governor Gavin Newsom
“Climate change is threatening our access to clean drinking water, diminishing future supplies for millions of Californians – doing nothing is not an option. After the three driest years on record, we didn’t have the infrastructure to fully take advantage of an exceptionally wet year, which will become more and more critical as our weather whiplashes between extremes. This proposed project is essential to updating our water system for millions of Californians. This new approach, redesigned following community and environmental input, is how we can build a California of the future.”
Metropolitan Water District
Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, issues the following statement on the California Department of Water Resources’ release today of the final Environmental Impact Report for the Delta Conveyance Project.
“Today marks a significant milestone in our state’s effort to address the impacts that climate change is exacting on California’s water supply. The recent drought was a powerful indicator of just how vulnerable the State Water Project is – deliveries were so low last year that some Southern California communities could only get a fraction of the water they normally rely on. Preventing this from happening again will take bold action and a clear recognition of the challenges we face.
“The Delta Conveyance Project can be part of a balanced, holistic solution that includes capturing, conveying and storing water available during high flows, for use when it is dry. We look forward to reviewing the findings in the environmental documents released today, along with additional information that will be provided in the future, including a cost-benefit analysis. All of this will inform Metropolitan’s Board of Directors in determining how best to invest our resources in response to the changing climate. Metropolitan will further assess the DCP through its Climate Adaptation Master Plan for Water, which will guide all of our investments in infrastructure, conservation and new supplies in the years to come.
“Metropolitan is taking steps to reduce its reliance on the Delta, through increased conservation, water recycling and storage. Still, the water imported through the State Water Project will always be an essential component of Southern California’s supply. Ensuring its future reliability must be consistent with the state’s coequal goal of ecosystem restoration for the Delta. The finalization of the DCP EIR, along with a comprehensive mitigation plan, will help make sure the actions we take to protect our water supply are done in an environmentally responsible way.”
Restore the Delta
“Governor Newsom’s proposed Delta Tunnel, as outlined in this new EIR, is another failure of state water officials to imagine alternative approaches in a climate-impacted California. This is sadly just another Zombie version of the Peripheral Canal idea that was rejected by California votersway back in 1982. And DWR seems to have learned nothing since California Governor Brown’s Twin Tunnel (WaterFix) died in 2019.
“What is new is the claim that Newsom’s Tunnel is a climate project. But that argument is built on incomplete data and faulty analysis. The big pipe engineering solutions of the last century are no longer the way forward in California water’s climate-changed reality. We need more underground storage in agricultural regions and more regional stormwater collection and water recycling in our cities. The new Delta Tunnel plan was out of date for climate change science when it was released in July 2022. If completed in 2040 it will be obsolete then too.
“Meanwhile, California will have spent billions on a project the state will be unable to use as Delta water levels rise or when fish need that water for survival during drought years.
“Instead, we should invest in the resilience projects that reduce reliance on water exports from the Delta. Southern California has been leading the way with projects that increase efficiency, water recycling, and increase local self-sufficiency.”
- Think Regional, Act Local – Metropolitan Water District of Southern CA
- L.A. County aims to collect billions more gallons of local water by 2045, Los Angeles Times, 12/6/23
Tunnel will Have Profound Impacts on the San Francisco Bay-Delta
Reviewing the prior Draft EIR, Restore the Delta identified 17 significant and unavoidable impacts of the proposed Tunnel project on the environment. Among these impacts will be loss of prime agricultural farmland, loss of local non-tribal cultural resources, transportation and air quality impacts, and painful loss of tribal cultural resources. Restore the Delta will be checking to see if any further mitigation has been developed for these identified impacts.
The plan still largely ignores the project’s impacts on Delta urban environmental justice communities, and how construction will ruin small Delta farming towns, and the natural resources essential to the cultural and spiritual practices of Delta tribes.
It is clear from recent hearings at the State Water Resources Control Board that the voluntary agreements are DWR’s water operation plan during tunnel construction and for eventual operation of the tunnel. The tunnel, the voluntary agreements, and the Bay-Delta Plan are all modeled on historical data because the state is far behind in developing adequate climate water modeling for the future.
Should the state eventually be forced to adopt a scientifically credible update to Delta outflow and other Delta water quality objectives in the Bay-Delta Plan, the new tunnel, costing many tens of billions of dollars, will sit empty in dry years for Delta flows and fish restoration as required by law. Eventually, aridification will render the tunnel dry for long periods of time.
Federal EPA is Watching
In August of 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a decision accepting for investigation a civil rights complaint filed by a coalition of tribes and environmental justice organizations over the California State Water Resources Control Board’s discriminatory mismanagement of water quality in California’s San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed. One of the remedies requested by the coalition was that no Delta Tunnel should proceed without a completed Delta Plan in place first. Federal officials are watching the Tunnel planning closely because of this action. The State Water Board has still not completed the Bay-Delta plan and hearings are continuing.
- Delta water crisis linked to California’s racist past, tribes and activists say – Los Angeles Times, 5/26/22
- EPA to investigate California State Water Board for alleged civil rights violations – Los Angeles Times, 8/11/23
Save California Salmon
“The fact that the Delta Conveyance Project Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was released just weeks after approval of the plan to build the privately owned, 1.5 million acre-feet Sites Reservoir, demonstrates that both projects are connected water grabs that will allow Northern California’s rivers and water to be drained for water brokers,” explained Kasil Willie from Save California Salmon. “Thousands of residents from North state communities who depend on the Bay-Delta and connected rivers, including Tribal members, fishermen, and recreational interests, have fought these projects. Only water brokers and corporate interests supported them. Governor Newsom is selling us, and California’s environment, out to those who seek to privatize California’s rivers all the while claiming to be an environmental leader.”
Santa Clarita Valley Water
“It is important to recognize the essential role played by water sourced from the State Water Project in the overall supply portfolio that sustains our community. The State Water Project is a significant ongoing investment our community has made over decades,” said SCV Water General Manager Matt Stone. “The Delta Conveyance Project further reinforces this lifeline, and in conjunction with water storage and banking investments offers critical support during dry periods in our Valley. These vital initiatives ensure a reliable and resilient water supply, safeguarding our future and providing for the well-being of the people we serve in the Santa Clarita Valley. In the intricate dance of water management, these projects are the choreography that keeps our community flourishing and thriving.”
SCV Water continues to rely on the State Water Project to provide needed water supplies for the region. In an average year, about half of the Santa Clarita Valley’s water is imported, primarily through the State Water Project. The Agency is excited to see California reach this important milestone to modernize the state’s aging Delta infrastructure, accommodate new climate extremes and ensure reliable supplies are available for all SCV Water customers.
The Agency looks forward to seeing this Final EIR certified so the modernization work can begin that will carry the State Water Project into the next century.
State Water Contractors
Jennifer Pierre, General Manager of the State Water Contractors, commented: “We applaud DWR for advancing the Delta Conveyance Project with the release of the Final EIR and for reaching this critical point in the project’s development. The proposed project is a crucial part of the state’s Water Resilience Portfolio and protects the state against future water supply losses caused by climate-driven weather extremes, sea level rise and earthquakes.
The State Water Contractors and local public water agencies throughout the state have been hard at work building and strengthening local projects and water supplies to serve their customers – all of which rely on foundational water from the SWP. Building local water supply resiliency requires the consistent and stable delivery of SWP water to support recycling, groundwater management, storage and conservation. There is no choosing between the Delta Conveyance Project and additional local supply projects – California can and must do both.
The Delta Conveyance Project represents a golden opportunity to increase the SWP’s ability to move and store water when it’s wet for use when it’s dry and will allow us to be more flexible in response to the state’s changing hydrological conditions. The proposed project is the right approach at the right time to modernize the SWP’s 60-year-old Delta infrastructure, and the Final EIR clearly shows that the project has been downsized, refined, and redesigned to avoid and reduce local impacts and address environmental concerns.
We look forward to seeing the Final EIR certified. We can no longer afford to let this project be delayed any further. Our climate reality requires that we build and adapt, and the Delta Conveyance Project is one of the best opportunities we will ever have to get that done for California.”
Southern California Water Coalition
Charley Wilson, Executive Director, commented: “I am thrilled to see a significant milestone in California’s journey towards water resilience: the release of the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the Delta Conveyance Project by the California Department of Water Resources on December 8, 2023.
Let’s face it, California’s weather has been throwing us some wild curveballs lately—intense storms, droughts that seem to drag on forever, rising sea levels, and other climate surprises. It’s clear that we need to step up our game when it comes to water management.
The Delta Conveyance Project is the state’s best answer to these challenges. Our 52-year-old State Water Project, which provides clean water for millions and supports our economy, needs improvements. It’s aging, and it’s vulnerable to climate-driven threats.
Not making upgrades to the State Water Project is like living in a home with a leaky roof during a rainstorm or driving on a freeway full of potholes. It’s a recipe for disaster, and it’s time we fix the infrastructure that sustains us.
But this project isn’t just about staying up-to-date; it’s about seizing opportunities. Imagine if we’d had this system in place during those heavy rains in January 2023—the state could have captured and moved a whopping 228,000 acre-feet of water. That is enough for about 2.3 million people in a year.
But as Southern Californians, we are not just looking out for our water supply. We’re also committed to protecting and enhancing the Delta ecosystem as part of these upgrades. It’s a ‘yes/and’ approach. Building the Delta Conveyance Project will happen as the state and water agencies are developing local and regional water supplies, banking water underground, and supporting native fish and wildlife.
No more procrastinating; we can’t afford to delay any longer. The Delta Conveyance Project isn’t just an infrastructure project; it’s an investment in our future. Let’s get the ball rolling, approve it, and start construction.
Valley Water (Santa Clara Valley Water District)
On Dec. 8, 2023, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) reached a significant milestone by releasing the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Valley Water will review the final EIR and use it as one of many pieces of information to help inform our decision-making process.
“Amid the intensified storms and prolonged droughts of climate change, water supply reliability is more critical than ever,” Valley Water Board Chair John L. Varela said. “We are pleased the final EIR has been completed. This environmental document is important for our agency to continue evaluating the Delta Conveyance Project, which provides low-cost imported supplies and keeps water affordable for disadvantaged communities.”
On April 12, 2022, the Valley Water Board of Directors voted to continue our agency’s support of the Delta Conveyance Project by providing about $6.9 million for our remaining share of the preliminary environmental review, planning, and design costs. However, additional funding commitments will be needed to advance the Delta Conveyance Project through the design and construction phases.
Valley Water’s Board of Directors will decide whether to participate in the project after the environmental review, preliminary planning and permitting process is complete. Valley Water also is anticipating an update on the project’s cost estimate and benefit analysis. At that point, the Board of Directors will have more information and be in a better position to decide whether to participate in the project.
Currently, Santa Clara County relies on water imported through the Delta for about 40% of its water supply. … Continue reading the rest of this press release.
