Calif. water district rejects tunnel plan
Vote may doom project supported by governor
FRESNO, Calif. — Agroupof powerful California farmers pulled their support Tuesday from a pair of massive, $16 billion tunnels that would have re-engineered the state’s water system in a decisive move that dealt a major blow to the project pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The board of the Westlands Water District, the nation’s largest supplier of irrigation water to farms, voted to withdraw its participation from the project after more than an hour of tense discussions and comments from farmers who overwhelmingly concluded it was too expensive.
After the vote, John Laird, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, said the aging water infrastructure must be modernized.
“Failing to act puts future water supply reliability at risk,” he said in a statement. “This vote, while disappointing, in no way signals the end” of the project known as Waterfix.
Tuesday’s vote leaves the project’s future in peril, potentially heightening a longstanding feud between typically dry Southern and Northern California, where much of the state’s water originates.
Before the 7-1 vote in Fresno, Westlands general manager Thomas Birmingham had urged board members to support the tunnels on the condition that federal officials spread the cost more broadly.
“This thing dies,” Birmingham told the board about the decision. “The project will be over.”
The vote was the first among several large water districts that have already spent more than $200 million on planning for the tunnels but have not committed to shouldering their share of the construction costs.
The tunnels project calls for building two 35-mile-long tunnels east of San Francisco to deliver water from the Sacramento River mostly to farms and cities in central and Southern California.
Backers say the tunnels will stabilize delta flows, bolster endangered fish and ensure a reliable water supply. Critics say the project will drain Northern California dry and further harm native fish.
William Bourdeau, executive vice president at Harris Farms and a Westlands board member, said the economics of the project didn’t pencil out and it came with no guarantee it would produce consistent water supplies years from now.
“We would be obligating hundreds of family farms,” Bourdeau said outside the meeting. “That doesn’t make economic sense.”
Rather than putting the responsibility on the districts that stand to benefit from the tunnels, Bourdeau said the federal government needs to play a leading role as it did decades ago when it built the current complex of dams and canals.
The Westlands agency provides irrigation water to 1,000 square miles in the San Joaquin Valley, some of the nation’s richest farmland.
Opponents representing delta farmers considered the Westlands vote a good day for California.
They’d prefer seeing money spent on capturing Californian’s storm runoff and replacing leaky toilets to ease the demand for delta water.
“The sooner we can get Gov.
Brown to put an end to pushing California Waterfix, the sooner we can get to solutions for California water,” said Barbara Barrigan-parrilla, executive director for Restore the Delta.
Brown is pressing to secure the project before he leaves office next year. Calls and emails to the governor’s press office seeking comment Tuesday were not immediately returned.