Flawed New Report Calls Delta Tunnel Project “Sustainable” But Overlooks Huge Costs and Destruction It Will Cause

Leaders of the California Legislative Delta Caucus on Tuesday noted that a deeply flawed new report on California water strategies touts the Delta Tunnel Project as “sustainable” yet overlooks the massive, unaffordable costs of the project and the widespread destruction it will cause.

The Delta Tunnel Project is estimated to cost at least $20 billion, and likely much more, and will decimate thousands of acres of prime farmland and environmental habitat, along with historic, cultural, and tribal resources. Yet those facts are ignored in the new report, produced by the California Department of Water Resources and touted by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“The claim that an extremely costly and environmentally destructive project is ‘sustainable’ and an ‘effective’ water strategy is false. In fact, the opposite is true,” said Delta Caucus Co-Chairs Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, and Assemblywoman Lori D. Wilson, D-Suisun City. “There are far more affordable alternatives to the tunnel project that are much better for the environment, including increasing water recycling and groundwater storage. We need investments that shore up the Delta’s water supply, not ones that damage one ecosystem to benefit another. Yet the administration’s new report effectively disregards these sustainable strategies while ignoring the tunnel’s huge costs and the destruction it will cause. The simple truth is: The Delta Tunnel Project is entirely unnecessary and unaffordable.”

Earlier this month, the Delta Caucus called on the Legislature to once again reject the governor’s proposal to fast-track the Delta Tunnel Project after he renewed his call to approve it. In June, the Legislature rejected the governor’s attempt to include the fast-tracking plan in the state budget.

Building the 45-mile-long tunnel is expected to take at least 15 years, meaning that much of the Delta region and its 500,000 residents will be at ground zero of a giant construction project for nearly a generation. The project will require massive amounts of earth-moving because the 36-foot-wide tunnel will be 100 to 130 feet underground.

The tunnel project is opposed by every city and community in the Delta region, and the broad bipartisan coalition against the tunnel fast-tracking plan includes more than 100 legislators, cities, counties, and public agencies; good government groups; environmental and tribal organizations; and nonprofits and local businesses.

The Delta Caucus is a bipartisan group of legislators dedicated to safeguarding the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest and most important estuary on the West Coast.

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