Delta Caucus Calls on Legislature to Once Again Reject Newsom's Plan to Fast-Track Delta Tunnel

Sacramento — In all of my years of journalism and activism, I can’t remember a single public works project that is as strongly opposed by such a diverse coalition, ranging from Tribes to family farmers, from environmentalists to Southern California ratepayers, as the Delta Conveyance Project. 

In Yogi Berra’s immortal words, “It’s deja vu all over again” as Governor Gavin Newsom continues his seemingly endless battle to get the Delta Tunnel built, despite such massive opposition, including the five Delta Counties and many prominent California legislators.

And once again, the California Legislative Delta Caucus on August 6 had to urge leaders of the California Senate and Assembly to reject Gov. Gavin Newsom’s renewed effort to fast-track the salmon-killing Delta Tunnel Project.

“The governor on Wednesday renewed his request that the Legislature approve his fast-tracking proposal before the end of this year’s Legislative session in September. In June, the Legislature rejected the governor’s attempt to include the fast-tracking plan in the state budge,” according to a press release from the California Legislative Delta Caucus.

On the same day, the governor also proposed to create a $200 million “community benefits” plan for Delta communities that “will be severely impacted by the 45-mile-long, $20 billion-plus water tunnel, should it ever be built,” the Caucus reported.

“The Legislature rightly rejected the governor’s ill-conceived plan to fast-track the Delta Tunnel Project in June and should reject it again,” said Delta Caucus co-chairs, Senator Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, and Assemblywoman Lori D. Wilson, D-Suisun City. “Delta communities that will be devastated by this unaffordable and unnecessary project cannot be bought off with $200 million.”

“In fact, no amount of money can compensate for the destruction of thousands of acres of prime farmland and the loss of fisheries and historic tribal resources,” McNerney and Wilson observed. “We once again call on California to abandon the tunnel project boondoggle and instead pursue less costly and destructive alternatives, including fortifying Delta levees and increasing water recycling, water efficiency, and groundwater storage.”

McNerney and Wilson said Gov. Newsom’s proposal to fast-track the Delta Tunnel Project would “effectively eliminate environmental and judicial review of the project, while giving the state a blank check to float bonds to pay for the water tunnel.”

“Building the Delta tunnel is expected to take at least 15 years, meaning that much of the Delta region and its 500,000 residents will be at ground zero of a giant construction project for nearly a generation. The project will require massive amounts of earth-moving because the 36-foot-wide tunnel will be 100 to 130 feet underground,” they noted.

The tunnel project is opposed by every city and community in the Delta region and the broad bipartisan coalition against the tunnel fast-tracking plan includes more than 100 legislators; cities, counties, and public agencies; good government groups; environmental and tribal organizations; and nonprofits and local businesses, according to the Caucus.

The Delta Caucus is a 15-member bipartisan group of legislators dedicated to safeguarding the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest and most important estuary on the West Coast.

A coalition of Tribes and environmental justice groups also slammed Newsom's 'Accountability Plan' for the Delta Tunnel, saying it was “too Little, too late': www.dailykos.com/… 

“Where is the accountability for Governor Newsom who is once again circumventing law, when the people in the State  of California have made it clear that they do not want a tunnel through the Delta,” said Gary Mulcahy, Governmental Liaison of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “Newsom has designated Tribes as a special interest group, but his accountability plan doesn’t address the harm that Tribes will experience from the tunnel and the Voluntary Agreements for tribal beneficial uses and tribal cultural resources of the Delta watershed.”

The Governor’s campaign to fast-track the Delta Tunnel, along with Sites Reservoir and the Big Ag-pushed voluntary agreements, would seal the doom of Sacramento winter, spring and fall-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon, white sturgeon, Sacramento split tail and longfin smelt.

The Delta smelt is already functionally extinct in the wild with the current massive exports of Delta water to Big Ag oligarchs in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California water brokers. No Delta smelt have been found in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl Survey for 7 years.

Yet the Governor Gavin Newson wants to make things even worse for the Bay-Delta ecosystem by increasing Delta exports when what is urgently needed for imperiled fish and wildlife to recover is less Delta water exports!  

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has claimed that the tunnel will not increase deliveries from the Delta. But the testimony of DWR engineer Amardeep Singh reveals that the DCP will increase water deliveries from the Delta by 22%, according to an analysis by the California Water Impact Network.

“DCP operation will not decrease water supply for Central Valley Project (CVP) contractors and will increase water supply for SWP Table A contractors by 22 percent,” he states on page 2 of his testimony.

Then on page 20 of his testimony, Singh again clearly states, “Finally, DCP operation will not decrease water supply for CVP contractors and will increase water supply for SWP Table A contractors by 22 percent.”

Moreover, during drought periods when fish are already strained by low flows and high temperatures, the DCP would increase deliveries by 24%: static1.squarespace.com/… 

Meanwhile, the California Water Impact Network has submitted written testimony and a detailed report to a hearing of the State Water Resources Control Board blasting Governor Newsom’s proposed Delta Conveyance Project (DCP) for being “overvalued, under-analyzed and a massive blow to ratepayers and the environment.”  

In 2024, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) estimated the cost of the project, also known as the Delta Tunnel, at $20.1 billion in undiscounted 2023 dollars. Water agencies and their ratepayers that receive water from the State Water Project (SWP) are supposed to pay for the project costs.

But economic experts reveal that the real costs, if the tunnel was built, would add up to many times that estimate. In reality, the Delta Tunnel could cost anywhere from $60 to over $100 billion.

“Our testimony and full report were prepared by ECOnorthwest, a leading environmental economics research firm, and it documents how the DCP simply doesn’t pencil out,” said Carolee Krieger, C-WIN’s executive director. “ECONorthwest estimates that if it ends up getting built, the DCP could cost anywhere from $60 to over $100 billion.”

That is 3-5 times higher than the approximately $20 billion that the Department of Water Resources has been falsely claiming.

“Like the MAGA budget, the DCP represents a massive transfer of money from working Americans to powerful corporations and wealthy plutocrats,” said Max Gomberg, a senior policy advisor and board member for the California Water Impact Network. “The DCP will basically exist to provide guaranteed revenues for Southern California water agencies and to maximize profits for almond and pistachio producers in Kern County, with most of the costs borne by Southern California ratepayers and taxpayers. Their children and grandchildren will still be paying the interest and operating costs of this massive boondoggle decades from now.” 

Read the full testimony and report.

Finally, as Restore the Delta has pointed out, the Delta Tunnel doesn’t make any economic sense for agriculture — the industry that is supposed to benefit from the project.

“According to the California Department of Water Resources' 2024 analysis, agricultural water users would pay $6.213 billion but only receive $2.42 billion in benefits,” Restore the Delta reported. “That’s a benefit-cost ratio of just 0.39, which is a major financial loss.”

“Case-in-chief testimony from Dr. Jeffrey Michael of the University of Montana, representing the five Delta counties, confirms that this economic imbalance makes the project financially unworkable for agricultural users. Like past failures such as California WaterFix, the Delta Conveyance Project risks collapsing under its own costs. Restore the Delta, alongside scientific and economic experts, continues to pose a fight against a tunnel backed by Governor Newsom, that would harm the Delta's farming economy and livelihoods,” the group concluded.