FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 11, 2025
MEDIA CONTACT:
Osha Meserve: (916) 455-7300
Tom Keeling: (209) 474-1818
Sacramento, CA — A Sacramento Judge has rejected another attempt by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to lift an injunction that blocks DWR from conducting geotechnical investigations DWR claims are essential to planning for the proposed Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). The court issued the injunction in June 2024 based on DWR’s admission that it had not complied with the 2009 Delta Reform Act as required by law.
DWR later sought an order modifying the injunction to allow it to proceed with a smaller subset of the planned geotechnical work. The court denied that request in 2024. DWR appealed, and that appeal is pending. DWR also attempted to demonstrate Delta Reform Act compliance by certifying a portion of the geotechnical work in a submission to the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC). That effort resulted in an opinion from the DSC to the effect that proceeding with the proposed work would not violate the Delta Reform Act.
Armed with the DSC’s opinion, DWR returned to the Superior Court in March 2025, again requesting that the injunction be modified or dissolved to allow drilling and other exploratory activities to proceed in the Delta. Petitioners – San Francisco Baykeeper, Restore the Delta, Delta counties and agencies, among others – vigorously opposed DWR’s motion.
On April 9, the trial court denied DWR’s request, explaining:
“[DWR] is now asking again for permission to proceed with some of the geotechnical work even though it has not yet certified the DCP. Proceeding in this manner would conflict with the terms of the preliminary injunction, as well as the legal analysis on which it is premised.”
The court declined to stay its injunction order based on reconsideration of the same issues now pending before the Court of Appeal, and it underscored DWR’s failure to comply with the Delta Reform Act:
“[A]lthough the geotechnical work will yield additional data that will provide further specificity to the project, [DWR] has not satisfactorily explained why any additional data and specificity is required to satisfy Delta Reform Act standard. . . . Given all the data, studies, explanations, and project specifications contained in the EIR, it would appear that [DWR] should already have the means to comply with injunction and proceed with the geotechnical work anytime it chooses by self-certifying the DCP as a whole.”
Attorneys Osha Meserve and Tom Keeling – who represent the Counties of San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Yolo, and Solano, among other agencies – observed: “DWR’s obstinate refusal to comply with California law and its squandering of public resources to avoid compliance with the injunction are unconscionable. Rather than attempting to resuscitate this zombie project, an ill-fated 19th-century approach to a 21st-century crisis in the Delta, DWR should pursue rational, cost-efficient and readily available solutions. Californians deserve much better that this environmentally destructive, legally deficient, and economically untenable tunnel project.” Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, explained: “After more than $700 million in expenditures on some form of the Delta Tunnel, DWR has nothing to show for it than a series of failed attempts to circumvent protections for the Delta and its communities. Enough is enough.”
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