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Ca $25 billion water conveyance project11/13/2023 It looks like it is more environmentally favorable and will have less impact on the Delta communities.” “Now it looks like it is a better approach. Newsom changed it to one tunnel from two,” said Tony Estremera, a board member of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. He ordered new studies on a smaller version. Newsom took office in early 2019 and dropped the two-tunnel project. Then it reversed course a year later on a 4-3 vote and agreed to support the two-tunnel plan and contribute up to $650 million toward it after L.A.’s Metropolitan Water District increased its contributions and Brown lobbied hard. In 2017, the district’s board unanimously endorsed a one-tunnel plan. The Santa Clara Valley Water District, which provides water to 2 million people in Santa Clara County and draws 40% of its water from the Delta, was divided over the plan. But the twin tunnels stalled after some Central Valley farmers - most notably the board of the powerful Westlands Water District in Fresno - said the costs were too high and they would not help pay. And Brown continued to refine and advocate for it during his final years in office. Arnold Schwarzenegger rekindled the idea. Voters defeated it in a 1982 statewide ballot measure.įormer Gov. The project is certain to face lawsuits and other major hurdles, as similar proposals have over the past 40 years.īrown pushed a similar plan called the “peripheral canal” during his first stint as governor. Construction is expected to take 12 years, she said. Project planners hope to break ground by 2028 or 2029, said Carrie Buckman, an environmental program manger with the state Department of Water Resources. It will be open for public comment until Oct. On Wednesday, the project’s 3,000-page draft environmental impact report was released. “How much water are you pumping? How much water are you leaving behind for the environment? The devil is in the details.” “How often are you pumping?” said Doug Obegi, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. They worry it could take too much fresh water from the Delta and harm already endangered fish such as salmon and Delta smelt, along with other wildlife and water quality. Opponents, who in the past have included environmental groups and leaders of Delta communities, including Contra Costa County, have called earlier versions of the project a water grab for Southern California and big agribusiness. “Delta conveyance remains a really important backbone of our modernization.” “It’s critical that we’re actually able to move the water during the wet periods to store it for the dry periods,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the state’s Natural Resources Agency. The price tag: About $16 billion, not far from the $19 billion estimate for Brown’s twin tunnels in 2018 but with one-third less water-carrying capacity. The idea is that in wet years, it would take water from the Sacramento River, about 17 miles south of Sacramento near the town of Courtland, and pipe it to the enormous State Water Project pumps near Tracy.īy moving the water underground, water managers would avoid pumping limits that are put in place sometimes under state and federal law to protect endangered salmon and other fish, allowing them to more easily send it to farms and cities from Silicon Valley to Fresno to Los Angeles. The tunnel would be 45 miles long and 39 feet high, buried deep under the Delta’s wetlands and marshes. On Wednesday, Newsom’s administration released details of the new plan, which calls for building one tunnel instead of two. Now a slimmed-down version of the project - one of the most contentious water issues in California since the early 1980s - is back. Gavin Newsom killed plans by his predecessor, Jerry Brown, to build two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to more easily move water south. Three years ago, amid shaky political support and uncertain funding, Gov.
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