State outlines plan for scaled-back giant water tunnel
SACRAMENTO — A new plan to reroute how water moves from wetter Northern California to drier Southern California would ferry some of it through a single, 45mile underground tunnel, wrapping around the state’s existing water delivery system and dumping it into the main aqueduct that flows south to vast swaths of farmland and millions of people.
The proposal released, Wednesday, would build one tunnel to take water from the Sacramento River, the state’s largest, to the California Aqueduct for delivery further south. It’s scaled back from the two-tunnel plan championed by former Gov. Jerry Brown and the latest iteration of a project that has been talked about and planned in some form, but never constructed, for about half a century.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom took office, in 2019, he ordered water officials to scrap the existing plan and start over. With one tunnel, the new proposal moves less water and aims to reduce harms to the environment. But most critics say the new route will still harm endangered species like salmon and people who rely on the water in the north.
The two sides have become so entrenched that the project’s fate will ultimately depend on whether Newsom or a future governor can muster the political will to push it through, said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow with the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California.
“This project is unlikely to be decided on its technical merits,” he said.
State water officials say a tunnel is badly needed to modernize the state’s water infrastructure in the face of climate change, which scientists say is likely to cause both prolonged droughts and major deluges of rain and snow. It would also better shield the state’s water supply from the risk of an earthquake that could cause levees to crumble and ocean salt water to flood into the system.
Though California is in the third year of a punishing drought, it saw record rainfall, last October, and another major dump of rain and snow, in December, some of which the state was unable to capture.
“Our water infrastructure was not built for that,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency.
The Department of Water Resources plan analyzes the effects of the project on the environment, residents, fish and farmland. Critics say it will harm communities in the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which rely on water that could instead be diverted to the tunnel.
Officials did not release a price tag. A prior estimate for a different single-tunnel route put it at about $16 billion. It would be paid for by water agencies that contract with the state to use it.
Still, even if the political support to build it is there, construction likely wouldn’t break ground, until at least 2028, and would take more than a decade, said Carrie Buckman, environmental program manager for the project.