$20 billion Delta tunnel plan wins endorsement from Silicon Valley’s largest water agency

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $20 billion plan to build a massive, 45-mile long tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to make it easier to move water from Northern California to Southern California won the endorsement of Silicon Valley’s largest water agency on Tuesday.

By a vote of 6-1, with director Rebecca Eisenberg dissenting, the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District approved spending $9.7 million for planning and geotechnical studies of the project, thus remaining as a partner.

The district, a government agency based in San Jose, is expected to vote by 2027 on whether to provide $650 million in construction funding for the plan, which is one of California’s most long-running and controversial water issues.

Supporters said Tuesday that the project, which would be overseen by the state Department of Water Resources and involve building a concrete pipe 36 feet wide to run roughly 150 feet under the marshes of the Delta, is key to improving Santa Clara County’s water reliability in the decades ahead.

“We need to be involved,” said Tony Estremera, chairman of the water district’s board. “We are doing every single thing that everybody has described as an alternative to this project… but what are we going to recycle if we don’t have water? What are we going to conserve if we don’t have water?”

Business groups and unions spoke in support.

“Opting out of this phase now will risk our region’s economic future by undermining water reliability and introducing uncertainty that could deter businesses from staying or growing here,” said Kristen Brown, vice president of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Opponents, led by the Sierra Club, said the project is too expensive, and threatens to remove too much fresh water from the Delta and San Francisco Bay, degrading water quality and harming endangered salmon, smelt and wildlife.

“For the last 50 years the state has pitched some sort of tunnel as a solution to water supply issues yet never has been able to come close to implementing any of them,” an attorney with San Francisco Baykeeper. “That’s because time and time again these projects are shown to be infeasible from an engineering standpoint, economically irresponsible and inconsistent with California law.”

With Tuesday’s vote, the Santa Clara Valley Water District became the 13th water agency to commit funding to continue with the project.

In December, the massive Metropolitan Water District of Southern California approved contributing $141 million. In the Bay Area, the Alameda County Water District in Fremont and Zone 7 Water Agency in Livermore also have provided funding. The state is seeking $300 million from 18 agencies which receive water from the State Water Project to fund planning and design of the tunnel, and eventually construction costs.

The idea has been around for decades.

In 1982, when former Gov. Jerry Brown was pushing it under the name “peripheral canal,” voters rejected it in a statewide ballot. At that time, it would have moved 22,000 cubic feet of water per per second. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger downsized it to 15,000 cfs, but still couldn’t get it passed. Brown shrunk it again to 9,000 cfs with two tunnels during his third and fourth terms, calling it the “California Water Fix.” But he left office in early 2019 without completing it.

Newsom downsized the project again when he took office six years ago to 6,000 cfs, and one tunnel.

His water staff says that with climate change, California needs the project more than ever because the state is experiencing huge, soaking atmospheric river storms, broken by longer droughts. During those wet periods it needs to move more water in big gulps to farms in the Central Valley and cities like San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego, to reduce shortages in dry years, they contend.

Carrie Buckman, an environmental program manager with the state Department of Water Resources, said Tuesday that in October 2021, the Sacramento area received 5 inches of rain suddenly in a few days. Much of that water could have been diverted into reservoirs with the tunnel, she said.

“Our current system is really not designed to capture those kinds of short term high intensity events, of which we expect to see more of in the future,” she said.

The plan is to take water from the Sacramento River about 15 miles south of Sacramento, near the town of Courtland, and move it through the huge tunnel to the massive State Water Project pumps near Tracy, reducing reliance on them.

In recent years, courts have ruled that the pumps must be turned down, or shut off temporarily, at certain times of the year when salmon, Delta smelt and other endangered fish swim near them, limiting pumping to farms and cities.

The tunnel plan is opposed by Delta counties, including Contra Costa, which see it as a Southern California water grab, and fishing and environmental groups, who say California should focus more on water recycling, conservation and stormwater capture instead of moving water hundreds of miles.