Newsom in Fight to advance the plans for a 20 billion dollars Delta water tunnel

The battle as to whether California should build a $ 20 billion water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta increases, Governor Gavin Newsom who pushes to lay the foundations for the project before the expiration of his mandate and state water regulators, considering granting key authorization.

The State Water Resources Control Board began to hold a series of hearings on a petition in the Newsom administration to modify the water rights permits so that the flows can be diverted from the new points on the Sacramento river where the contributions of the 45 miles tunnel would be built.

The process has been held in recent weeks because the Newsom and Water Administration agencies have pushed back the way in which managers of the board manage parts of the process, and, as opponents have urged the council not to comply with political pressure.

Speaking Thursday during a virtual hearing, the lawyer general of the State Department of Water Resources, Ann Carroll, presented the case of the Newsom administration for the tunnel, calling it one of the “most important climate adaptation projects in California”.

“The changes in precipitation change in more rain, less snow and a limited capacity to capture and move water,” said Carroll. “The ability to capture high flows when available is essential to adapt to an evolving climate.”

Supporters of the plan, called Delta transportation projectSay that the state must urgently build new infrastructure in the Delta to protect water supply in the face of climate change and the risks of earthquake. Large aquatic agencies in southern California support the project by providing initial funding for work planning.

Opponents, including Northern California agencies, environmental defenders and native tribes, argue that the project is an expensive boondoggy that would harm the environment, fish species and communities, and that the state should pursue other alternatives. They argued that the main beneficiaries would be the interests of development in Southern California and the agricultural landowners in the southern valley of San Joaquin.

The tunnel would create a second route to transport water to the state pumping installations on the southern side of the Delta, where supplies enter the aqueducts of the State Water Project and are delivered to 27 million people and 750,000 acres of agricultural land.

Newsom made his field for the project in a February 18 letter to the State Water Commission, saying: “The prosperity of California depends on it.” He noted that the last two governors of California, Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, also supported the previous iterations of the concept to modernize the state water system.

Six years ago, Newsom announced that he was Reduction of Brown’s proposal for a twin tunnel And rather called for a unique redrawn tunnel. Now, he said, the current proposal “has been carefully refined to protect the environment, fisheries, ecosystems, water quality and water supply”.

During a hearing of the State Senate subcommittee Thursday, the director of water resources, Karla Nemeth, answered critical questions from the legislators on costs and the environmental effects of the project.

Nemeth described the existing system as an asset that “begins to really underperform” and said that the tunnel, if it existed now, could have captured more water during the storms in the last three years. State representatives estimated that climate change could reduce the average supplies available in the water project by water by up to 23% Over the next 20 years, and Nemeth said that the construction of the tunnel would improve the decline and restore around 16% of this loss of supply.

The news pack of the Newsom administration is examined by Nicole Kuenzi, who heads the independent office of the administrative hearings of the State Water Board. State officials pleaded against some of the Kuenzi Initial hillswhich included the request of historical data on the quantity of water which had been previously diverted under the rights and by considering questions such as the approval of the project would be in the public interest.

Nemeth published a statement Directed to Kuenzi on March 24, saying that the question of whether the use of water is in the public interest does not apply and would only apply if the petition was for a new right of water.

“Above all, the Legislative Assembly has already determined that the state water project was in the public interest, and Governor Newsom clearly indicated that this project was of the utmost importance for current and future Californians,” Németh wrote. “Unfortunately, the administrative hearings office confused petitions and has fundamentally widened the scope of this hearing.”

To say that this could lead to expensive delays, Nemeth urged Kuenzi to “structure an audience process which results in a final decision of the Full State Water Board before the end of 2026” – shortly before the end of Newsom’s second term.

Opponents of the project – including environmental groups, tribes and representatives of several counties in northern California who depend on the Delta water – replied in a letter Exhort the council to clarify that political interference will not influence the result.

“The Council must emphasize its own independence and the independence of its hearing agents,” they wrote. “The loss of this independence, or even the appearance it is lost, would undermine the credibility of the board of directors and its mission.”

Osha Messerve, a lawyer who signed the letter in the name of the Costa Costa counties and Solano and other local agencies, said that the integrity of the council is at stake, as well as the confidence and confidence of the public in the process.

There are at least seven judicial cases contesting the project in the process of being in court or on appeal, and Meserve is involved in most of them. She said that the construction of the tunnel “would destroy farms, rural communities and the environment, all at an incredibly expensive cost”.

Opponents say that the tunnel would threaten the species of native fish that are already Major suffering population reductions. They said that the state should rather strengthen water supplies by improving aging dikes in the delta and investing more in recycle wastewater,, Capture rainwater locally and make other improvements to Use water more efficiently.

As part of the campaign against the project, the non -profit group restores the Delta last month Results of a state -scale survey Of 649 registered voters showing that when he initially questioned the project, 46% said they were in favor and that 24% were opposed, 29% uncertain. But after these same people were presented with arguments on both sides of the debate, the opposite people increased to 58%, while 34% were in favor and 8% were undecided.

The February survey, which declared a margin of error of 4 percentage points, also revealed that 62% said that they would prefer to invest in “the development of local water supply to ensure that Californian communities are more resilient and better prepared to combat threats of fires, droughts and floods”.

“The state must abandon this obsolete project that he has kept alive for decades,” said Barbara Barrigan-Carrilla, Executive Director of Restore The Delta. “People reject expensive megaprojects like the Delta tunnel.”

However, many leaders of major aquatic agencies in southern California have supported the project, considering it as a viable option to improve the reliability of northern California supplies.

In December, the Metropolitan Water District Board of Directors in Southern California voted to spend 141.6 million dollars For a large part of the preliminary planning work. The district, which delivers water for 19 million people, should not decide to invest in the construction of the tunnel until 2027.

MWD managers and other agencies who are members of state water entrepreneurs said they disagreed with some of the hearing agent’s recent decisions, which he said, could compromise the hearings calendar in the coming months and cause expensive delays.

In a Letter to the Board of Directors19 Water managers wrote: “For each day behind in the construction of this critical project, the cost of the project increases by more than a million dollars.”

Current hearings are not the only related problem before the board of directors. In January, the Newsom administration deposited distinct petitions Seeking to prolong the time of water rights permits until 2085.

Chandra Chilmakuri, deputy director general of state water entrepreneurs for water policy, said that the extension of the period is another case and should be managed separately. If he was considered to be part of the current process, he said, it could still delay approval.

He said that the managers of the water agencies hope that the Council will make a decision on the modification of water rights permits as soon as possible.

“It is very important to maintain the calendar,” said Chilmakuri.

State plans call for starting construction at the end of 2029 and Finish the tunnel in 2042.