FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 20, 2025
Contact:
Stephanie Safdi, stephanie.safdi@YLSClinics.org
Sacramento, CA – A coalition of water advocates, Tribes, environmental justice organizations, and fishing organizations submitted a motion calling on the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to cancel the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) Change Petition for the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). The demand comes after DWR repeatedly failed to comply with mandatory orders to submit historical water use data necessary for evaluating the Change Petition’s potential impacts.
DWR’s Change Petition, filed in February 2024, seeks to modify its water rights permits to facilitate the proposed 45-mile-long underground tunnel, which would divert up to 6,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water from the Sacramento River. However, the Administrative Hearing Officer (AHO) has repeatedly ruled that DWR must submit supplemental data on its historical maximum water diversions prior to 2009 — critical information for determining whether DWR’s requested changes would initiate a new water right.
Despite being granted multiple extensions, DWR has failed to provide the required data. The AHO has underscored that this information is essential to ensuring the proposed project adheres to existing legal limitations and does not harm other legal water users. Yet, at a February 18, 2025 hearing, DWR admitted it had not submitted the bulk of the required supplemental information. When pressed, DWR’s counsel claimed the delays were due to difficulties in reviewing historical records — despite previously stating that the information was readily available.
“This is a clear case of stonewalling,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta. “DWR is trying to push forward a massive water project without proving it has the legal right to do so. The Water Board cannot let DWR skirt the law at the expense of Delta communities and the environment.”
On January 31, 2025, a coalition of protestors filed a Joint Motion demanding cancellation of the Change Petition under Water Code section 1701.4, arguing that DWR’s repeated failures to submit required data render its petition invalid. While the AHO determined that she lacked authority to cancel the petition, she reiterated that the missing data is “fundamental” to determining the project’s legality and potential impacts.
“The law is clear: The Board must cancel DWR’s change petition for the Delta Conveyance Project,” said Stephanie Prufer, student attorney, Yale Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic. “DWR has repeatedly failed to respond to the Administrative Hearing Officer’s request for information about its past use of water to operate the State Water Project. This information is necessary to ensure that the Delta Conveyance Project will not interfere with legal users of water, exceed the scope of DWR’s water rights, or otherwise impair the public interest. Because DWR has not shown good cause for its delays and because starting hearings without this information will prejudice DTEC and the other protestants and prevent a sound decision on DWR’s change petition, we are asking the Board to swiftly cancel these proceedings as the Water Code requires.”
“Because DWR has refused to provide information it was ordered to, and because its application for a water right to operate the proposed Delta Conveyance Project remains woefully incomplete, we’ve asked the State Board to do what California law requires: cancel DWR’s petition until it actually has the necessary information and moves forward in a way that is both legal and consistent the project DWR is proposing,” said Eric Buescher, Managing Attorney with San Francisco Baykeeper. “Failing to hold DWR to account gives it special treatment and status that contravenes California law and perpetuates the harms and inequities that California’s water management has caused to Tribes, ecosystems, and communities, especially in the Delta.”
The AHO also extended DWR’s deadline yet again, pushing the required data submission to May 27, 2025—after critical hearings on DWR’s case-in-chief. Protestants argue that there was no justification for this extension, and that the postponement undermines due process and enables DWR to continue evading scrutiny.
###