Gov. Newsom’s Attempt to Fast-Track Delta Tunnel Project Rejected by Legislature, Again

The California Legislature just killed the Delta Tunnel project, again, by refusing to do anything on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pet project.

“A Coalition Stops Trailer Bills Threatening the Bay-Delta and Communities Now advancing real water solutions rooted in creating local jobs, affordability for rate payers, and watershed restoration, they’re also calling for an end to the tunnel,” Restore the Delta posted to X.

“Tribes, environmental justice organizations, fishing groups, conservation advocates, and Delta communities successfully stopped a package of Delta trailer bills that would have had disastrous consequences for the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary,” Restore the Delta said Thursday. “The proposed trailer bills would have given unlimited bonding authority to the Department of Water Resources for the Delta Conveyance Project, fast tracking of DCP construction, elimination of administrative record access, and elimination of public participation for the so-called ‘Healthy Rivers and Landscapes’ Program, also known as the ‘voluntary agreements,’ an effort to place more water in the Delta tunnel.”

There really aren’t that many in the state who want this destructive project, including the Democrat politicians who represent the region.

Calmatters reports:

“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.”

It remains curious why the Delta Tunnel(s) project was ever considered when California voters have approved more than $35 billion in water bonds over the years, the most recent in 2014 to build two new reservoirs – the Sites Reservoir, and the Temperance Flat Reservoir. As Ed Ring wrote last week for the Globe:

The question of whether there would be enough water in the Sacramento River to fill Sites came up in  2022. As reported on 8/28/2022 in the San Francisco Chronicle, “California’s largest reservoir in nearly 50 years may be derailed by water shortages.” When this article came out, I had a look at the USGS data for CFS water volume for the Sacramento River around Colusa, which is roughly where the water for Sites will be sourced. As we may recall, 2022 was a very dry year. Here is how I summarized the data at the time:

“If one-fifth of the Sacramento River’s flow upstream at Colusa had been diverted, and only during the seven mostly dry months from October 2021 through April 2022, the massive 1.5 million acre foot Sites Reservoir could have been filled nearly half way to capacity. In just one season, during a drought.”

In 2019, shortly after taking office, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he did not support former Gov. Jerry Brown’s $19 billion plan to build two massive tunnels under the San Joaquin River Delta. He said he was a one-tunnel guy. “In his first State of the State speech, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he will significantly refashion former Gov. Jerry Brown’s pet projects, including the mismanaged High Speed Rail project, and the Delta Tunnels project will be downsized to one tunnel,” the Globe reported.

Newsom resurrected the massive tunnel project – with only one tunnel, which many consistently say will still destroy the Delta.

The Restore the Delta coalition continues:

“This win marks a turning point for the coalition, which has spent decades working to protect Delta flows, fisheries, water-based economies, and communities against the proposed 45-mile-long, six-story-wide water tunnel.

The coalition is now advancing new water plans for California rooted in local job creation, sustainability, affordability for ratepayers, and the restoration of the Delta and the state’s watersheds. Advocates are calling for an immediate end to the $1 million-per-day DCP planning process, funded by ratepayers and taxpayers, and a return to fact-based Delta water management—rather than secretive deals between the state and water districts. These backroom agreements have already cost hundreds of millions of dollars and are unenforceable with a federal administration that is operating Delta pumps according to its own plans.”

The original two-tunnels plan

“Some of our favorite wineries, and all of the Delta agriculture could end up under water and/or the land rendered useless if Gov. Jerry Brown’s unnecessary Delta Tunnels project is actually built,” I wrote in 2018. “I met with several Delta farmers who’ve been involved in the Delta Tunnels fight since the beginning. According to these growers, when the Department of Water Resources and water contractors morphed the Bay Delta Conservation Plan into ‘WaterFix,’ they dropped the habit restoration façade to just go after the water.”

Here’s the back story and history of the Delta Tunnels

In May 2019, the Department of Water Resources withdrew its permit application before the State Water Resources Control Board for the twin tunnels project, known as the California WaterFix, and submitted notice to begin planning for a single tunnel conveyance project, the Globe reported.

Gov. Jerry Brown tried repeatedly over the decades to create a Delta “conveyance.” Yet voters rejected Gov. Brown’s 1982 plan to build the “peripheral canal” through the Delta during his first turn as governor. That was to be an above ground waterway that would convey water from north to southern California. Voters killed the plan in 1982, dealing Brown and his family’s legacy a major blow. But that didn’t stop the backers.

The Department of Water Resources pursued a new environmental review and planning process for a single tunnel solution to modernize Delta conveyance,” the California Department of Water Resources reported in 2019. “This fresh approach is consistent with the Governor’s recent executive order directing state agencies to develop a portfolio of statewide water actions and investments. Modernizing Delta conveyance paired with complementary projects that improve water recycling, recharge depleted groundwater reserves, strengthen existing levee protections and improve Delta water quality, is critical to building a resilient water supply for California’s communities and economy,” so said the Water Resources board.

The historic California Delta is formed by the confluence of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, two of the state’s largest rivers. Delta agriculture includes livestock, specialty crops such as asparagus, pears, and wine grapes, and various table vegetables and feed crops.

Over 80% of the Delta’s 553,687 acres is in agriculture, of which 75% is classified as Prime Farmland. By comparison, only 18 percent of the state’s agricultural land is classified as Prime Farmland. Additionally, there are 60 islands surrounded by levees, most used for farming.

By the time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in 2003 to replace recalled Governor Gray Davis, water groups were back in the Capitol working with Schwarzenegger on their north-to-south water scheme. However, Schwarzenegger didn’t go public with it until nearly the end of his second term – but he was obsessed with the word “conveyance.” When Jerry Brown was elected for his third term, he ran with it in 2011 now claiming the tunnels were needed to protect the Delta Smelt, a non-indigenous fish.

“To protect smelt from water pumps, government regulators have flushed 1.4 trillion gallons of water into the San Francisco Bay since 2008,” Wall Street Journal columnist Allysia Finley wrote in 2015. “That would have been enough to sustain 6.4 million Californians for six years.”

“In California, it takes about 1.1 gallons of water to grow an almond; 1.28 gallons to flush a toilet; and 34 gallons to produce an ounce of marijuana,” Finley wrote.

Since then, California Gov. Jerry Brown and Newsom legalized marijuana growing, despite that the pot crops use exponentially more water than growing food, fruit or nuts, I reported.

In the California Central Valley, much of America’s breadbasket has been reduced to a dustbowl by destructive leftist politics which shut off water to farmers. It appears that California lawmakers don’t want the historic Delta Region to be next.