CA Department of Resources dismisses its second validation action for Delta Tunnel funding
The centerpiece of the Delta Conveyance Project is a 45-mile long tunnel that would divert the Sacramento River at Hood before it flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Sacramento - While the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Governor Gavin Newsom continue to push forward with the Delta Conveyance Project, the ability to find financing for the project is in jeopardy after a recent court victory by Delta Tunnel opponents.
Following its failed attempt to obtain judicial approval of its first Delta Tunnel bond financing plan, DWR has now dismissed its second ‘Validation Action,’ by which it had sought judicial approval of its second Tunnel financing scheme, according to a statement from attorneys Roger Moore and Thomas Keeling:
“DWR’s first attempt began with its 2020 bond resolutions and a Validation Action to secure judicial approval for those resolutions. Delta Counties, cities, and public agencies, as well as public interest groups, opposed DWR’s first Validation Action, warning of major adverse economic and environmental consequences should the financing scheme be validated.
“Ruling against DWR in the first Validation Action, the trial court found that DWR had exceeded its delegated authority. DWR and its allies among the State Water Contractors appealed. In a unanimous Decision, the Court of Appeal later affirmed the judgment against DWR. (Department of Water Resources v. Metropolitan Water District of So. Calif., et al. (2025) 117 Cal.App.5th 751.)
“DWR then petitioned the California Supreme Court in an effort to overturn the Court of Appeal’s Decision. Last month, the Supreme Court, sitting en banc, denied DWR’s petition for review and its alternative request for depublication of the Decision.
“On May 19, 2026, DWR dismissed its second Validation Action, which had been filed during DWR’s appeal in its first Validation Action.
“DWR did not give a reason for dismissing the second Validation Action, but attorneys for prevailing counties and public agencies in the first Validation Action think the reason is clear.”
According to Thomas Keeling and Roger Moore, counsel for many of the Counties and agencies challenging DWR: “Dismissal of the second Validation Action reflects a recognition that the Court of Appeal’s Decision in the first Validation Action is most likely fatal to the second action. Dismissing the second action at this early juncture makes sense and, we hope, will avoid a further waste of public monies.”
“Failure to validate its bond financing schemes is just the latest in a long line of setbacks for the ill-fated proposed Delta Tunnel project – perhaps the largest rate-payer boondoggle in California history. We hope proponents of this project, the cost of which some studies show will approach $100 billion and which would not be operational until at least the mid-2040s if all goes to plan, will now seriously consider more readily available and less costly solutions to California’s water supply challenges,” Keeling and Moore concluded.
The centerpiece of the Delta Conveyance Project is a 45-mile long tunnel that would divert the Sacramento River at Hood before it flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast, to facilitate the delivery of more northern California water to corporate agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
The tunnel is opposed by a broad coalition of Tribes, fishing groups, Delta counties and water agencies, family farmers, environmental organizations and Southern California ratepayers because it would divert more water out of the Delta. They say the tunnel's construction would devastate Delta communities and farms, as well as hasten the extinction of spring and winter-run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and other fish species.
The testimony of DWR engineer Amardeep Singh last year revealed that the DCP will increase water deliveries from the Delta by 22% at a time when the estuary is in its biggest-ever ecological crisis. Moreover, during drought periods when fish are already strained by low flows and high temperatures, the Delta Tunnel would increase deliveries by 24%: static1.squarespace.com/…
Despite the setback from recent legal victories by tunnel opponents against the financing for the project, Governor Newsom, DWR and the State Water contractors continue to move forward in their campaign to advance the Delta Tunnel.
On May 7, Newsom spoke before members of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), doubling down on his commitment to the project. The annual event brings together water agencies from across the state.
