Water wonks say the proposal to speed the multibillion Delta tunnel project could rise again. ‘This is the zombie offspring of the zombie project,’ one opponent said.
By Rachel Becker, Cal Matters
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In a blow to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ambitions to replumb the Delta, California lawmakers once again punted on his plan to fast-track a deeply controversial $20 billion tunnel project that would funnel more water to the south.
Multiple sources in the Legislature say the clock has run out on a sweeping measure that would overhaul permitting, financing and other road blocks to the Delta tunnel project. The news comes as lawmakers and Newsom race to reach a megadeal that encompasses carbon trading, wildfire funding, energy transmission, and refinery issues. The governor’s office did not respond to CalMatters’ inquiry.
While supporters acknowledge the tunnel bill has hit a dead end for now, this isn’t the first time Newsom has tried to fast track the project. And water watchers expect that it won’t be the last.
“Even if action is delayed this year, the need for modern delta conveyance has never been greater,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, a staunch supporter of the bill, in a statement. “The need is urgent, the support is broad, and the time to move forward is now.”
Lawmakers representing Delta communities called the failure to fast-track the bill a relief. They have long said that building a tunnel to reroute water around the Delta would devastate communities, fish and local farms.
“It’s going to be incredibly disruptive to my communities,” state Sen. Jerry McNerney, a Democrat from Stockton, told CalMatters. “They made a good fight, but we just were too unified for them to have any progress.”
Assemblymember Lori Wilson, a Democrat from Suisun City, said no amount of compensation for Delta communities would make up for the project’s lasting harm.
“Once a short-sighted policy, always a short-sighted policy,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to stand strong and fight for the Delta and the communities who call it home.”
‘Let’s get this built’
The proposed tunnel, more formally known as the Delta Conveyance Project, would extend 45 miles from the Sacramento River to a reservoir near Livermore, bypassing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which serves as a critical hub for California’s water supply.
It’s the latest iteration of a decades-old plan to funnel water deliveries from Northern California around, rather than through, the Delta — with the goal of shoring up water supplies for 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of agriculture largely in the central and southern parts of the state.
Planning for the project remains underway, though it is fiercely opposed by conservationists, Tribes, Delta cities and counties, and the fishing industry.
They fear the loss of water supplies, environmental degradation and years of construction that they say will make some towns uninhabitable. The state’s own analysis warned that a Delta tunnel would put salmon at risk.
Newsom introduced the streamlining bill earlier this spring as a budget add-on, a strategy he’s used before that bypasses more extensive input from lawmakers.
“We’re done with barriers — our state needs to complete this project as soon as possible, so that we can better store and manage water to prepare for a hotter, drier future,” Newsom said May. “Let’s get this built.”
Stalled, but not dead
The tunnel bill aimed to flatten roadblocks related to land acquisition, water rights decisions, funding and litigation. Delta lawmakers pushed back against it, as well as Newsom’s strategy of using the budget process to shortcut deliberations.
“Drying out the north just to water the south doesn’t make it better at all, and it doesn’t make it fair,” Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, a Democrat from Elk Grove, said in May.
Lawmakers tabled decisions on the bills until later in the session, and the Newsom administration continued to push for both the tunnel and the streamlining effort.
Pierre, with the State Water Contractors, told CalMatters that the failure to fast track the project didn’t reflect Legislative opposition to the tunnel itself.
“We had vote cards that demonstrated the majority in both houses,” Pierre told CalMatters. “This was not a function of a lack of support for the bill.”
But McNerney said he thought the political cost for the administration became too high.
“I think the governor realized that he’s got other battles to fight,” McNerney said. “It’s just not worth taking that battle to the wall.”
Jon Rosenfield, science director with the San Francisco Baykeeper, said he hoped this was the last effort by the Newsom administration to “grease the skids” for a Delta tunnel.
But, he added, “This is the zombie offspring of the zombie project … You understand if I don’t necessarily believe that this is the end.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
