by Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla
Tunnel Update
The California Department of Water Resources published the final Environmental Impact Report for the Delta Conveyance Project on December 8, 2023, and a Notice of Determination (NOD) on December 21, 2023. The NOD represents the final administrative published record for a proposed project by the lead agency, which in this case is the Department of Water Resources.
Before discussing what is next in the long permitting process for the proposed Delta Conveyance Project, let’s look at the backdrop in California.
California’s unhoused population is at an all-time high; and the state budget deficit has ballooned to $68 billion. We recently learned that there is a freeze on new state contracts. Even though unemployment is low, wages are up, and gas prices are lower than they have been in recent years, mostly due to post-pandemic federal strategies, California has major problems to solve, including water management in a changing climate. The Newsom Administration, however, is squandering money, time, and good will running a replay on the Delta Conveyance Project (also known as the peripheral canal, the chunnel, BDCP, CA WaterFix, the twin tunnels). Each version of this project over decades has been rejected by Californians at the polls and/or in the court of public opinion. Meanwhile, immediate solutions for the housing crisis, securing the energy grid against fire and for industrial electrification, upgrading flood management to match powerful ARK storms, and rapidly deploying drought management programs and projects throughout the state all move too slowly to transform the lives of Californians.
Knowing that most Californians reject this project, the Newsom Administration is working with the usual special interest groups – but this time they are co-opting Restore the Delta’s message to broadcast that the tunnel is an environmental justice project. This is “Californians for Water Security” redux – all being handled through a front group that does not publish its funding sources.
Perhaps the message co-opting we hear from state officials in public presentations has something to do with Restore the Delta being identified in a recent UC Davis survey (page 57) as the most trusted entity over all community based organizations, government agencies, and elected office holders regarding Delta issues. What the Newsom Administration fails to understand is that our message is grounded in science and cultural understanding and rooted in diverse communities – from Delta landowners to tribal communities, from urban environmental justice communities to leaders working for rural drinking water investment – from commercial and recreational fishing groups to Southern California ratepayer organizations.
In sharp contrast, Groundswell For Water – not to be confused with Groundswell.org, which does great work around solar energy advocacy – has built a bench of Southern California political leaders and clergy. They are out making presentations to Metropolitan Water District and others explaining how the Delta Conveyance Project will empower their environmental justice communities– echoing comments we hear from leaders for the State Water Contractors. However, they have no visible support from dozens of groups and tribes working in California water on behalf of a sustainable and just water future and have never provided a fact-based presentation at a government forum rooted in science or knowledge of California water policy.
There are dozens of groups that work with Restore the Delta and oppose the Delta Conveyance Project, but we want to remind our readers that Southern California groups like Sierra Club California (related chapters), Food and Water Watch, Southern California Watershed Alliance, CWIN, and Semillas have worked for decades to advance sustainability and resiliency in local water systems rather than supporting a Delta tunnel project. Why? Because they understand that struggling ratepayers, especially those from their environmental justice communities, will not see a drop of new water, but their water bills and property taxes will rise significantly. Plus, spending on the tunnel eliminates funding for local water system improvements that deliver multiple benefits from local jobs to improved recreation and drought resiliency throughout Southern California.
In this past week, we have heard from our trusted colleagues at Clean Water Action and the Leadership Council. The staff at these two fine organizations work daily to advance groundwater and drinking water protections for rural environmental justice communities throughout the state, but especially in the San Joaquin Valley. They do not support the Delta tunnel and will support our efforts as best as they can within their already heavy workloads.
Groundswell for Water parrots talking points we have heard from leadership at the California Resources Agency, DWR, the State Water Contractors, the Governor’s office, and even from State Water Resources Control Board members, even though they are supposed to be the unbiased regulators. In the minds of senior Newsom Administration officials and appointees, who consistently echo the State Water Contractors, those who use water exports are the only parties worthy of justice in California water management. It is a false narrative. Environmental justice for half the state is not environmental justice for all impacted communities in California. And when we consider that the Delta Conveyance Project in wet years will only produce 248,000 additional acre-feet of water, it will not create water justice for struggling Southern California or San Joaquin Valley water communities.
Getting the planning right
This is why the Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School sent a letter to US EPA on behalf of the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition (Buena Vista Rancheria, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Little Manila Rising, and Restore the Delta) reaffirming that our Title VI complaint, which has been accepted for investigation, and our petition for rulemaking for protective flow standards for the Delta must advance rapidly. One of our primary requests for relief to US EPA is that a completed Bay-Delta Plan must be set in place, with protective science-based standards for estuary health, before any tunnel or major infrastructure project advances.
From our letter:
Proceeding to lock in this massive new State Water Project infrastructure all but guarantees that water quality standard updates will not be based on ecological needs for increased flows and the welfare of Delta tribes and communities but instead on privately negotiated water deals between the State and beneficiaries of State Water Project diversions. As Complainants explained in their filing with EPA a year ago, protective water quality standards must be established before the State considers and approves new appropriation, storage, and diversion of further Bay-Delta flows. Otherwise, the new infrastructure projects will be based on outdated and inadequate water quality standards, and approval of the projects could predetermine outcomes of Bay-Delta water quality standard update, rendering ongoing public processes a paper exercise.
The Newsom Administration, like the Brown Administration, and Schwarzenegger, Davis, etc. have the order of operations backwards. The Bay-Delta Plan, along with a state water inventory of supply and demand, must be completed before wasting money and more time on wasteful infrastructure planning.
The Newsom Administration has executed a water plan with the usual suspects, reusing propaganda techniques and stale ideas, rather than developing a water management plan for broad flood protection with the type of large-scale floodplain restoration in the Central Valley that could heal our water systems and provide relief in dry years. The Newsom Administration lacks original thinking and moral courage regarding California water management.
Metropolitan Water District leaders have said publicly that 85 percent of their water exports from the Delta will not come from the tunnel, but the existing pumps, and they are investing heavily in local water projects for water security.
DWR, however, uses State Water Contractor polling to sell the project, which has always been questionable, because it never delivers facts around true costs and real benefits. Issues around housing, public safety, solving homelessness, expanding the electric grid, preventing wildfires, paying state scientists an equitable wage, dealing with the budget deficit, and advancing best protections against climate change impacts all linger underfunded and unresolved.
But the State Water Contractors instead created a faux groundswell to prop up the same-old expensive, wasteful water solutions for Governor Newsom so that he can appear to be tackling climate change.
What does this stale strategy mean mathematically?
The $15 billion price tag for the tunnel is based on 2018-19 dollars. The project needs independent economic analysis from expert economists beyond our kitchen-table calculations, but we can take an educated guess at the real costs.
Construction inflation has ranged from 5% to 12% over the last 5 years. While inflation is dropping presently, let’s assume the project starts at $20 billion in 2024. With interest for 40-year bonds, the project will double in price to $40 billion. That is a minimum. The repayment schedule would be roughly $1 billion per year – for no water in many years and only 248,000 additional acre-feet of water in wet years. That works out to somewhere around $4,200 per acre-foot of water in a wet year for this small amount of additional water.
Construction and permitting – minus litigation, and yes, there will be litigation – pushes completion of the project out over the anticipated 20-year completion period for operation. However, we will strap state budgets and water district resources so severely that there will neither be enough funding for the many billions of dollars of required flood infrastructure needed through the Central Valley and along California’s coastline to mitigate against flood and sea level rise, nor for funding the thousand or so restoration and urban water projects that will secure our water future. Forget funding all the other necessary, non-water concerns listed above.
The Newsom Administration has accomplished nothing in planning for a resilient and sustainable water future.
Governor Newsom, however, will have appeased special interests who will support his Presidential aspirations by advancing the Delta tunnel. He will point to building climate infrastructure that is shiny and cool looking on paper, but that will destroy the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.
The real future
We will not be deterred. We will ensure that a just and resilient water future advances for the Delta and our local communities, as well as our neighbors throughout California. There is so much to be done with the next generation of water leaders. We will continue pushing forward with restoration projects and science-based monitoring of our waterways, for better solutions in policy forums, through administrative processes, through communications, and when needed litigation.
We believe in the rightness of our work, our people, and the beauty of the estuary and California’s rivers. Empty platitudes built on bad ideas from those who hold power cannot stop or co-opt the movement. We will not fall into despair, panic, or worse, grow apathetic. We hope you will join us in simply continuing to do the work by showing up, sending letters, and staying engaged. And never forget, we are so fortunate to be able to advance what is just, positive, and solution-oriented for the future of the Delta, healthy communities, and all Californians.
Onward together!
As the end of 2023 approaches, we thank you for your continued financial support of our work. As the fight over the Delta tunnel is ramping up, we need to secure additional resources for the challenges ahead in 2024. Please make a tax-deductible contribution by year-end to support our work in opposition to the Delta tunnel. You can donate here, or mail a check along with this form to 2616 Pacific Ave #4296, Stockton, CA 95204.
We wish you and your family good health, prosperity, and peace in 2024.