By Tim Carmichael, President of California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance and Joe Cruz, Executive Director, California State Council of Laborers
California has long prided itself on progressive values — a place where innovation, environmental stewardship and forward-thinking policy coexist and complement one another. Yet a growing but all-too-familiar paradox is making that balance impossible: the environmental laws and regulatory bodies that protect our rivers and landscapes are now being used to block the very infrastructure needed to adapt to climate change, modernize, and build a livable, sustainable future.
It’s hard to miss the irony that the environmental movement is now standing in the way of many climate adaptation solutions.
The fact is climate extremes are changing how we need to manage current and future water resources. Californians are already experiencing rapid and intense weather swings from extreme drought to flooding. Our snowpack is declining and is definitely more variable as an increasing amount of our precipitation comes in the form of intense, flashier rainstorms. This combination of changes has led the state to predict a 10% overall loss of water supply in the next 15 years unless action is taken.
California’s 60-year-old State Water Project, is our state’s primary water delivery system and provides affordable, high-quality water to 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of agricultural land. It is at risk of failure and must be modernized. The critical need to protect California’s primary source of fresh water from climate extremes and potential disruption only gets more serious each year. Without engineering upgrades, the State Water Project infrastructure is in danger of becoming a stranded asset — leaving two-thirds of California without one of its largest, most reliable water sources.
The Delta Conveyance Project is an essential part of modernizing California’s water system. Yet, despite a heavily scrutinized and certified Environmental Impact Report, hundreds of public meetings, thousands of responses to comments, at least three rounds of engineering refinements that significantly reduced local impacts and cut the footprint by half its original size, lawsuits fly. Permits stall. Endless review and debate result in decades of delay and wasted money that ultimately impacts water affordability.
Pretending we can preserve the status quo or take decades to plan and analyze is a dangerous fantasy.
When the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was created in 1970, it was a landmark law, giving the public a right to demand a true evaluation of the environmental impacts of large projects. Today, the CEQA process is regularly used to stall or even block all types of new construction especially large infrastructure projects. Too many projects die on the vine, not because they aren’t viable, well-funded, and supported, but because they are mired in decades of costly environmental planning, regulatory review and litigation. Thoughtful environmental review and mitigating environmental impacts are critical and should be part of rapidly building new clean energy production and distribution, flood protection, and water supply infrastructure which California must have to adapt to a changing climate.
A growing and diverse coalition of farmers, business groups, labor, local government, public safety advocates, conservationists, taxpayer groups and citizens are trying to change this risky course. We applaud recent actions by Governor Newsom and state legislators to streamline CEQA and other regulatory processes for important infrastructure projects. Now we call on them to apply those same policies and leadership to the Delta Conveyance Project by supporting Governor Newsom’s trailer bill that will help move this essential project forward. With the end of the Legislative session looming, we are running out of time.
California must adapt to climate change and our State’s leaders need to prepare for the future by quickly approving and building new water infrastructure that is more reliable and resilient.
The alternative scenario is very bleak and will be very, very dry.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Maven’s Notebook.
