The California Department of Water Resources has released its final environmental impact report for the proposed Delta Conveyance Project, signifying the last step mandated by the state before the report’s certification and the controversial project’s possible approval.
Also known as the Delta Tunnel, among other various names over the decades, the current version of the project would construct two water intakes in the North Delta and one underground tunnel. The system — with an estimated price tag of somewhere between $16 billion to $40 billion — would pull water from the Delta and connect it to the Bethany Reservoir on the California Aqueduct, before delivering it to homes and farms in Central and Southern California.
Proponents say the Delta Conveyance Project will modernize the state’s aging system, which is not equipped to capture water amid climate change conditions and is currently at the mercy of possible earthquakes.
“Climate change is threatening our access to clean drinking water, diminishing future supplies for millions of Californians — doing nothing is not an option,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “This project is essential to updating our water system for millions of Californians.”
But opponents, including tribal nations and environmentalists, have raised numerous issues with its design, such as the impact to the Delta’s ecosystem, businesses, and urban and cultural communities.
‘A hotter, drier future’
During a news conference this past Friday that coincided with the final EIR’s release, California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot explained that since 2020, when Newsom called for the development of a comprehensive water plan, the state has experienced the driest three-year period due to accelerating climate impacts.
“Scientists have told us that we will likely lose about 10 percent of California’s water supply by 2040 as a result of hotter temperatures,” Crowfoot said. “And so, for that reason last summer, last August, we released, on behalf of the governor, the water supply strategy for a hotter, drier future. And that took this broad water resilience portfolio and distilled it to specifically what actions — what targets — we need to meet to actually supplant this 10 percent loss of water and adapt to these accelerating climate, intense weather swings.”
Crowfoot went on to explain that the current water system largely depends on snowpack from the Sierra Nevada melting into the Sacramento and San Joaquin water systems, whose rivers push water through the Delta. Some of the water goes out the Golden Gate and into the ocean, but some is collected for the State Water Project, which includes the Oroville Reservoir, the California Aqueduct and a system of decades-old levees and pumps in the Delta.
“This system is responsible for a significant portion of water supplies for communities in the Bay Area, in the Central Valley, and throughout Southern California,” Crowfoot continued. “Now very clearly, we need to diversify our water supplies.”
Due to climate change, Crowfoot said the state will get more and more of its water from winter storms and atmospheric rivers, and the current system is not built to capture water in that way.
“We lost the opportunity to capture hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water over the last couple of years, because this dated system of levees and pumps doesn’t allow us to capture the swell of water when we need it,” he said.
He also said it is important to note that the Delta is under earthquake risk — the U.S. Geological Survey identified a 76 percent chance that over the next 30 years, there will be an earthquake of at least 6.9 on the Richter scale, impacting the Delta and possibly disrupting water supply for 27 million Californians.
“I’m not speaking hyperbole when I say if that happens, that will be the largest catastrophe in any water system in America,” Crowfoot said.
Critics say plan falls flat
Graham Bradner, executive director for the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority — a joint powers authority formed by the 16 participating public water agencies — said the new tunnel is a modern design that takes into account the current understanding of seismicity in the Delta. In addition, he said the tunnel’s depth of about 140 to 170 feet below ground would be deeper than any anticipated liquefaction, which occurs when sediments near the ground surface lose their strength in response to shaking.
While a news release from the DWR stated that the final EIR responds to the substantive comments on the draft EIR during a 142-day period — during which the agency received more than 700 letters and 7,000 individual comments — many opponents say the updated plan still falls flat.
San Francisco Baykeeper science director Jon Rosenfield said the current diversion of water has already had a significant impact on the fish native to the San Francisco Bay and its watershed, with the list of species on the verge of extinction continuing to grow.
“[Gov. Gavin Newsom is] now dancing hand-in-hand with water districts on the aching backs of the fishing industry, California residents, and the environment by trying to build one of the biggest salmon-killing projects in state history.“
Scott Artis, Golden State Salmon Association
“Gov. Newsom’s multi-billion-dollar Delta tunnel will divert excessive amounts of water from the Bay and make matters worse for the fish and communities that depend on this ecosystem. The science clearly demonstrates that fish need increased river flows to survive, but state agencies are ignoring it,” Rosenfield said.
“California can protect San Francisco Bay and its watershed, while still providing enough water for agriculture and cities to thrive. Instead, Newsom is continuing his campaign to divert yet more water, needlessly sacrificing California’s native fish, valuable fisheries, water quality, and the communities that depend on them,” he said.
Golden State Salmon Association executive director Scott Artis said Newsom further mismanaged river systems during the drought, negatively impacting the salmon industry.
“Having spent five years blocking new state flow protections for salmon, he’s now dancing hand-in-hand with water districts on the aching backs of the fishing industry, California residents, and the environment by trying to build one of the biggest salmon-killing projects in state history,” Artis said. “We don’t need a 1950s-style water project to help California meet 21st century water needs — especially one that looks like an extinction plan for salmon.”
Environmental and social justice concerns
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the group Restore the Delta, said the state agencies’ argument that the tunnel is a climate project was built on incomplete data and faulty analysis. She also raised social justice issues associated with its construction near urban communities and called for an investment in resilience projects that reduce reliance on water exports from the Delta.
“The big pipe engineering solutions of the last century are no longer the way forward in California water’s climate-changed reality,” Barrigan-Parrilla said. “We need more underground storage in agricultural regions and more regional stormwater collection and water recycling in our cities. … The plan still largely ignores the project’s impacts on Delta urban environmental justice communities and how construction will ruin small Delta farming towns.”
In regard to underground storage, Crowfoot said it’s an “and not an or” situation, saying this project will help diversify the state’s water supplies, which includes recharging groundwater during wet years. He further noted that the redesign of the project includes investments to address impacts to urban communities like Stockton to protect their drinking water.
DWR director Karla Nemeth offered the example of the DWR providing an $80 million grant, irrespective of the project, to help the city of Antioch address issues with sea level rising on the western edge of the Delta, adding that they are also working with water colleagues in Contra Costa County to mitigate water quality effects.
“I don’t want to give it short shrift. I do empathize with the intensity of the opposition to this project for many, many years and many iterations. I believe that this project is the right size given all of California’s concerns. I think it stimulates ongoing investment and the necessity to continue to reduce reliance on the Delta over time,” Nemeth said.
“But opposition to it seems to be kind of the one thing that is uniting communities, urban and agricultural, in the Delta. And there’s a lot of work we need to do together, separate from the project to secure those water supplies to address long-term water quality concerns that folks have,” she said.
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