CALIFORNIA Governor Jerry Brown’s administration is overhauling its proposal for a controversial tunnel project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, despite public doubts on whether water exporters can meet the stringent federal conditions for operating the system over a 50-year period.
The $25-billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan is intended to lessen the environmental harm of delta water exports, by restoring about 100,000 acres of delta fish and wildlife habitat. Two massive tunnels built under the delta would carry Sacramento River water from a new diversion point to existing pumping facilities that fill southbound aqueducts.
A major goal of the plan is to gain a 50-year environmental permit for delta exports that would ease the endangered species restrictions, which have cut delta deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley growers and the urban Southland.
However, state water officials have concluded that the federal requirements for such long-term approvals are too difficult for water exporters to meet.
“We are considering a lot of different ways of proceeding with the program,” said Mark Cowin, director of the state Department of Water Resources, not providing details.
Sources familiar with the state discussions said that the department will likely separate the habitat restoration component from the tunnel proposal, and pursue shorter-term operating permits for the new diversion facilities and existing pumping operations. Although the Bay Delta plan included restoration money, it is unclear how the separate efforts for restoring the project would be funded or carried out.
While the changes would not affect tunnel construction, they have nonetheless raised concerns that restoration work could fall by the wayside. The expected revisions could also make the whole project less attractive to urban water and agricultural irrigation districts that have promised to pick up the roughly $15-billion for construction costs.
While official changes are still being worked out, the state will move ahead with plans to both build the tunnels and restore delta habitat, Cowin said.
“I’m as committed to improving delta conveyance and making the other necessary improvements to the delta…as I’ve ever been,” he continued.
The tunnel proposal, in the planning stages for nearly nine years, predates Gov. Brown’s administration. But it is a variation of a doomed peripheral canal project Brown supported during his second term. In 1982, voters killed that proposal, which called for the construction of a large canal to carry Sacramento River water around the delta to export pumps.
Proponents say the new diversion point and tunnels would reduce harmful environment impacts of the pumping operations, which draw directly from the south delta, and kills delta smelt and migrating salmon. The powerful pumps reverse the direction of delta waterways, and have altered natural hydrologic cycles.
Backers of the tunnel project say that easing pumping restrictions would allow more water to be sent south of the delta in wet years, boosting drought reserves in the Southland and San Joaquin Valley.
Agricultural and urban water districts, the major drivers of the long-awaited project, were betting that a 50-year permit that would stabilize delta deliveries that have been restricted by increasingly stringent protections for endangered fish.
In addition, reverting to shorter-term approvals would leave future water deliveries vulnerable to cuts associated with a change in permit conditions—raising questions of whether the project is worth money to districts that have promised to pay for the tunnel project.
“We don’t really know what the permitting will be 10 years from now, 15 years from now,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which would cover a portion of the tunnels’ cost. “That’s the challenge in making sure it’s a sound investment.”
To obtain the 50-year permit, the state and water exporters would have to commit to conditionally maintaining outflows of fresh water from the delta to the ocean. They could either pay upstream diverters to release water that would flow through the delta, or reduce water exports overall.
“If we jettison the 50-year permit term,” said Cowin, “we may wind up having to put those kinds of assets on the table over time. But we don’t have to do it up front.”
While supported by the largest urban water and irrigation districts in California, the tunnel project is also opposed by delta residents and environmentalists arguing it will lead to greater exports at the expense of the delta habitat.
“Once again, the promise of mitigation and restoration in the delta is taking a back seat,” said Patricia Schifferle, director of the Pacific Advocates, an environmental group. “One cannot trust that the mitigation will actually get done.”
(With reports from Los Angeles Times)
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(LA Weekend April 11-14, 2015 Sec. A pg.8)
