The January meeting of Metropolitan Water District’s One Water and Stewardship Committee included an informational update on the Delta Conveyance Project, which proposes to construct intake facilities in the North Delta to deliver water via a tunnel to existing infrastructure in the South Delta. The update was given by Nina Hawk, Chief of Bay-Delta Resources; Dee Bradshaw, Environmental Program Manager; and Jennifer Nevills, Principal Resource Specialist. The agenda item included an update on the final EIR, an updated timeline, and an analysis requested by Metropolitan on the reliability of the State Water Project beyond 2040.
Delta Conveyance Project Final EIR
The purpose of CEQA is to inform decision-makers and the public about the potential significant effects on the physical environment of a proposed project and methods to avoid or substantially reduce the significant environmental effects to the extent feasible.
The final EIR is 27,000+ pages long. It was to the public on December 8 and certified on December 21. DWR chose the Bethany alignment, which has two new 3000 cubic feet per second intakes in the North Delta and a 45-mile 140-170 feet below ground that connects to the Bethany Reservoir in the South Delta.
DWR also adopted the CEQA findings of fact, the mitigation monitoring and reporting program, and the statement of overriding considerations. DWR filed the Notice of Determination with the state Clearing House, starting a 30-day statute of limitation for CEQA litigation, which will close on Monday, January 22.
Dee Bradshaw described the Delta Conveyance Project as an essential climate adaptation project to update the State Water Project. A climate-resilient and reliable State Water Project is a core component of Metropolitan’s water supply portfolio, including supporting local water supply projects. Metropolitan’s infrastructure is designed and built to benefit from a climate-resilient and reliable State Water Project.
The draft EIR was released in July of 2022. During the 142-day comment period, DWR received 7300 individual comments from 729 letters and other communications from the public. The comments received covered a broad range of policy and environmental technical topics, including the reasonable range of alternatives, fish and aquatic resources, impact analysis, groundwater analysis, climate change, and impacts on tribal cultural resources.
While many comments to the draft EIR requested changes, in most cases, the environmental analysis was found to be sufficient, or the change requests were unsupported by the data, and therefore no changes were warranted. However, some changes and refinements were made to the proposed project description regarding the footprint and construction activities. Refinements were also made to clarify the operations of the proposed project.
The final EIR includes a new water quality mitigation measure, which requires implementing the July 2023 settlement agreement between Contra Costa Water District and DWR. The final EIR includes modeling refinements based on engineering clarifications and uses newer versions of analysis models. Resulting updates are provided in the air quality and greenhouse gases chapter and accompanying appendices.
Recirculation of the EIR is only required where significant new information, as defined by CEQA, is added to the EIR after public notices are given of the availability of the draft EIR for public review but prior to certification of the final EIR. As the CEQA lead agency, DWR found that these refinements did not trigger recirculation.
Project permitting timeline
DWR released and certified the final EIR as was anticipated in the project timeline; however, the final EIS, being prepared by the Army Corps, is expected in the upcoming months, with certification expected in the summer of 2024.
DWR has released and certified the final EIR. On the federal side, the Final EIS and certification are expected around the middle of this year.
For the federal endangered species processes, the biological assessment applications were submitted to the federal fishery agencies in November as part of the reinitiation of consultation on the long-term operations of the State Water Project and Central Valley Project.
“The combined application was something the federal fish agencies requested to help streamline their workload and manage staffing a bit,” said Ms. Bradshaw. “As a result, Delta Conveyance Project operations were included in the long-term operation applications as a programmatic element so that the agencies could weigh in on any jeopardy concerns. Ultimately, this programmatic look at operations will be merged with a product-level consultation for construction happening in parallel.”
For the California Endangered Species Act compliance, the Incidental Take Permit application is on track to be submitted to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in March or April of this year, with a final permit expected in late summer or early fall of 2024.
The process at the State Water Board for the petition for a change in the point of diversion is anticipated to take about two years. DWR estimates about a year for the petition and hearing process and a year for the state board to issue its order.
The process for consistency with the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Plan is anticipated to begin in late 2025 and wrap up in early to mid-2027. DWR and the Stewardship Council are currently engaged in early consultation to support that effort.
Ms. Bradshaw noted that other permitting efforts, such as the Clean Water Act 404 and 401 permits, are ongoing. Planning and permitting are expected to continue through 2027.
This year, significant deliverables related to cost and financing are expected, including an updated project cost estimate with the costs for the community benefits program, the approved project and project refinements, the updated planning timeline, and updated finance assumptions. Based on that updated project cost estimate, a statewide cost-benefit analysis will follow around the middle of this year.
State Water Project reliability beyond 2040
As part of Metropolitan’s comment letter on the draft EIR, Metropolitan requested additional analysis from DWR analyzing conditions with and without Delta conveyance at least 50 years into the future. Although DWR had included a qualitative discussion of future conditions beyond 2040 in the draft EIR, the associated modeling used for that analysis was unavailable. So, in response, DWR developed a technical memo complete with modeling results, looking specifically at those future conditions centered around 2070.
Compared to the 2040-centered scenario used in the draft EIR and the final EIR, the 2070 median scenario is hotter and drier. It uses a 3.5-foot sea level rise at Golden Gate instead of the 1.8 feet in the 2040 analysis. Overall, it shows a more compressed winter runoff season with less snow and more rain, resulting in increased runoff variability. As a result, compared to the 2040-centered scenario, the 2070 look shows more significant reductions in state water project supplies.
The x-axis shows 2020 existing conditions (for the purposes of this analysis, with the Delta Conveyance Project in place), the 2040 climate scenario with 1.8 feet of sea level rise, and the technical memo’s analysis for the 2070 climate scenario with 3.5 feet of sea level rise.
“Without the Delta Conveyance Project in place, the 2070 scenario shows reductions in State Water Project supplies beyond the 2040 scenarios, so approximately 650,000 acre-feet are lower than those 2020 existing conditions,” said Ms. Nevills. “With the Delta Conveyance Project, supplies still decline over time due to climate change, but the change compared to current conditions is much smaller – about 200,000 acre-feet, rather than 650,000 acre-feet. So, in other words, the Delta conveyance project provides roughly 200,000 acre-feet less than current conditions, but 450,000 acre-feet of additional supply reliability on average, without Delta convenience in the long term.”
“So without the Delta conveyance project, supplies continued to decline due to a hotter and drier future with longer drought periods, more rain, and less snow. And with the Delta Conveyance Project, the decline in state water project reliability is slowed because the Delta Conveyance Project can capture high flows during the shorter and more intense runoff events.”
Next steps
The CEQA and NEPA are nearly complete, so the big takeaway today is that major milestones have been hit on the planning side, said Nina Hawk. The project is starting to evolve into the more substantive permitting portions of development, which will undergo many public processes defining how operations will occur and solidifying benefits related to the project.
Planning costs have been funded by Metropolitan and other state water contractors participating in the project; that funding extends through 2025. By the end of 2025, DWR will need certainty on continued funding to complete the process.
The upcoming project cost estimate will be critical; Ms. Hawk said such an estimate couldn’t be done until the environmental documents were complete. After the project cost estimate, a cost-benefit analysis will be prepared. Ms. Hawk clarified that the cost-benefit analysis is specific to the statewide benefits of this project and will include layers of information to better understand how this project performs statewide. An economic analysis of the State Water Project was provided by the state and released in December. While it differs from this project’s cost-benefit analysis, it is still highly relevant.
Funding for construction won’t be needed until closer to the end of the permitting processes, currently expected to be in mid-2027.
“Some state water contractors, given the momentum of the final EIR, are looking to bring to their boards resolutions of support and continued funding on their own accord, given that they see the project has made substantive headway and would like to see the project continue to move forward with expedience given the nature of the importance of state water project to their agencies,” said Ms. Hawk.
Discussion
During the discussion period, Slide 16 was a topic of discussion. Somewhat confusing was the label “2020 Existing Conditions”, which for the purposes of this analysis, is analyzed as if the project were already in place. Deven Upadhyay, Assistant General Manager, said the graphic is one way of capturing the benefits of this project. “We’re going to see, in the next six months, several things that come out that capture the cost of the project, and then you can mesh those two up and see whether this thing is a reasonable deal or not.”
“We told DWR when they released the draft EIR that looking at effects in 2040 wasn’t long enough; that’s like the beginning of when this project would be online,” continued Mr. Upadhyay. “So go out further in time and tell us what it looks like. If you look at the situation without DCP, this paints a picture of the declining reliability of the State Water Project and the reliability of flows we would see largely because of the rising sea level. As the seas get higher, dealing with salinity in the Delta gets harder and harder. So, you’re going to see lower and lower amounts that you can pump from the south of Delta. So this graphic then shows you that with this design for the Delta Conveyance Project, it improves, although it’s still declining over time. That will be important for us to evaluate is if you’re still seeing declines over time, but to a degree 450,000 acre-feet in 2070, you’re better able to manage than the current system that’s in place right now.”
Director Fong Sakai asked about the 450,000 acre-feet deficit. Is that for the entire state, not just Metropolitan?
“That’s correct,” said Nina Hawk.
“So what we would be short would probably be about half of that,” added Ms. Nevills.
“Our current planning investment is 47.2%. So assuming if the board advanced in the project, approximately half,” said Ms. Hawk.
Director Fong Sakai noted that Slide 3 states the decision-making on the tunnels will be delivered by the CAMP4 (Climate Adaptation Master Plan) process, but she hasn’t seen where in the report how that’s going to happen. “I’d like some clarification as to how that process will happen. May we ask General Manager Hagekhalil for staff to bring us a specific timeline and when the board will be asked to take action, not only on this potential project, but also on the other potential projects? So the tunnel, Sites reservoir, the voluntary agreements, and how all of that will be addressed together in the CAMP 4 process before we take positions on the potential projects.”
General Manager Adel Hagekhalil agreed. “We’ll bring that holistic approach. And we’ll give you at least the timelines of the VAs, Sites, and the Delta Conveyance Project.”
“Because I think we need to look at them all together rather than in a piecemeal fashion,” said Director Fong-Sakai.
