Sacramento – Governor Gavin Newsom said his administration is “moving aggressively” to continue groundwork for a giant tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to reroute the state’s water system.
“We have to move fast. Move fast,” Newsom told regulators during a speech Thursday at a conference hosted by the association. of California water agencies. “We all need to be held to a higher standard of accountability.”
California’s 40th governor took a chronological look at his water policies since taking office in 2019 and emphasized the need to continue his effort to modernize the state’s infrastructure for cities and farms in the future.
Newsom introduced the tunnel as a “climate adaptation project”, noting that climate change is projected to reduce the amount of water the state can deliver with its existing infrastructure.
With his term ending at the end of the year, Newsom acknowledged that he would soon “pass the baton” to the next governor on water policy. Democrat or Republican, that person could decide the fate of his signature water project.
“Delta conveyance, if we had it just last year, would have provided enough water to meet the needs of 9.8 million Californians for more than a year,” Newsom said. “We have to accomplish that.”
Water has been a focus of the Newsom administration since its first day in office, when the Governor took his Cabinet to Monterey Park Tract, a rural Central Valley community that lacked access to safe drinking water.
Described by Newsom as a “forever problem” in California, water policy is also one of the most politically contentious issues in the state.
The tunnel will create a second route to deliver water from new intakes on the Sacramento River to the south side of the Delta, where pumps send water to the State Water Project’s aqueducts.
The project is particularly bitter, reflecting geographical battles between North and South and the thorny battle between officials wanting to build the tunnel and environmentalists and delta residents seeking to protect the local ecosystem and their way of life.
Newsom and other supporters have said the tunnel would protect the state’s water system as climate change intensifies severe drought and flooding. Opponents call the project an expensive boondoggle, arguing it is not necessary and will destroy the Delta.
It has been beset by regulatory hurdles and other challenges for years.
The State Water Resources Control Board is considering a petition to the Newsom administration to amend the permit so water can be harnessed where the tunnel will be built.
Other complications have also occurred. In December a state appeals court rejected the state’s plan to finance the project, and in April the California Supreme Court declined to take the case. The state water resources department said it still plans to issue bonds to finance the project.
Other court challenges by Delta-area counties and environmental groups are also pending.
Whether the project will ultimately be built may depend on whether large water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, decide to participate and pay for its construction.
State officials have said the tunnel, called the Delta Conveyance Project, will ultimately be paid for by participating water agencies.
The state estimated in 2024 that the tunnel would cost $20.1 billion, while opponents say it could cost three to five times that much.
California has invested $11 billion in water infrastructure over the past seven years, Newsom said.
Reflecting on other parts of his water policies, the Democratic governor said he has prioritized securing funding to provide clean drinking water to more communities where Californians live with contaminated tap water.
He said that although progress has been made in bringing safe drinking water to more communities, there is still “much more work to be done.”
Newsom praised his administration’s investments in replenishing groundwater in the Central Valley and efforts to support plans to build the Sites Reservoir near Sacramento.
Newsom said the Sites Reservoir is important to the future of the state, and he indicated some frustration about the pace at which it is moving forward.
“We have to lay the groundwork on the sites,” he said. “If you can’t agree to off-stream investment in a climate-driven world, then we are as stupid as we want to be.”
He said his administration has also made progress on environmental projects, including restoring wetlands around the shrinking Salton Sea, removing dams on the Klamath River and developing a strategy to help salmon, which have suffered major declines in recent years.
Touching on issues that have generated heated debate, Newsom talked about a controversial plan for new water regulations in the Delta that rely on so-called voluntary agreements in which water agencies would contribute money for wetland habitat restoration projects and other measures.
Newsom described the approach, called the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program, as a solution to break away from traditional conflict-ridden regulatory approaches and improve the ecological health of the Delta.
“Vigilance has to be maintained on these voluntary agreements. At the risk, we go back to our old ways,” he said.
Environmental advocates argue that the proposed approach, which is widely supported by water agencies, would take too much water from the delta and endanger native fishes that are already in severe decline.
Newsom said climate change is increasing the number of extreme weather events in California and the state must prepare. He said his tenure included a severe drought from 2020-22, followed by extremely wet conditions in 2023, which led to the revival of Tulare Lake on thousands of acres of agricultural land.
He said the state needs to manage water differently as the effects of climate change have become apparent over the past several years: “The heat was getting too hot, dry lands were getting too dry, and wetlands were getting too wet.”
