Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to accelerate his administration’s plan to build a $20-billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by short-cutting permitting for the project and limiting avenues for legal challenges.
Newsom urged the Legislature on Wednesday to adopt his plan to “fast-track” the tunnel, called the Delta Conveyance Project, as part of his revised May budget proposal.
“For too long, attempts to modernize our critical water infrastructure have stalled in endless red tape, burdened with unnecessary delay. We’re done with barriers,” Newsom said. “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. Let’s get this built.”
The tunnel would create a second route to transport water to the state’s pumping facilities on the south side of the Delta, where supplies enter the aqueducts of the State Water Project and are delivered to 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland.
Supporters of the plan, including water agencies in Southern California and Silicon Valley, say the state needs to build new infrastructure in the Delta to protect the water supply in the face of climate change and earthquake risks.
Opponents, including agencies in the Delta and environmental advocates, say the project is an expensive boondoggle that would harm the environment and communities, and that the state should pursue other alternatives.
“It’s a top-down push for an unaffordable, unnecessary tunnel that fails to solve the state’s real water challenges,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the group Restore the Delta.
She said the governor “wants to bypass the legal and public processes because the project doesn’t pass the economic or environmental standards Californians expect.”
Newsom, who is set to serve through 2026 and then leave office, is pushing to lay the groundwork for the project.
Newsom said his proposal would: simplify permitting by eliminating certain deadlines from water rights permits; narrow legal review to avoid delays from legal challenges; confirm that the state has authority to issue bonds to pay for the project, which would be repaid by water agencies; and accelerate state efforts to acquire land for construction.
Announcing the proposal, the governor’s office said that “while the project has received some necessary permits, its path forward is burdened by complicated regulatory frameworks and bureaucratic delays.”
The State Water Resources Control Board is currently considering a petition by the Newsom administration to amend water rights permits so that flows could be diverted from new points on the Sacramento River where the intakes of the 45-mile tunnel would be built.
The governor’s latest proposal was praised by water agencies including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which is currently spending about $142 million on the preliminary planning.
MWD General Manager Deven Upadhyay called Newsom’s proposal a “bold step” toward protecting water supplies, saying the approach would support completion of the planning work, reduce “regulatory and legal uncertainties,” and allow the MWD board to make an informed decision about whether to make a long-term investment to help foot the bill for construction.
Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, said the governor’s approach makes sense to address costly delays and upgrade essential infrastructure that is “in dire need of modernization.”
Environmental and fishing groups, however, called Newsom’s proposal a reckless attempt to bypass the existing legal process and make it harder for opponents to challenge the project over what they contend would be harmful effects on the Delta region and the environment.
Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Assn., a group that represents fishing communities, called Newsom’s proposal “an attack on the salmon fishing industry and the state’s biggest rivers.”
Commercial salmon fishing has been canceled for three consecutive years because of a decline in the Chinook salmon population. Artis said building the tunnel would represent a “nail in the coffin of California’s once mighty salmon runs.”
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