State says Delta tunnels cost study coming
WALNUT GROVE — A longawaited study on the costs and benefits of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Delta tunnels should be finished by next spring, a state official said Thursday after an independent audit concluded such a study should have already been done.
The tunnels have been in the planning stage for 11 years, but state officials have never completed a comprehensive analysis of whether the project pencils out financially. Such a study could answer basic questions like whether the tunnels will benefit the state as a whole and whether they should be built at all.
The state Department of Water Resources says it has been waiting for dozens of water districts from the Bay Area to San Diego to decide whether they’re willing to pay their share of the $17 billion project before tackling the broader issue of the costs and benefits. Some water districts have not yet made that decision.
“It’s a timing issue at this point,” said Cindy Messer, chief deputy director of DWR. “We’re just short of having the last critical information.”
The rest of the water districts are expected to act by early next year, Messer said. Pressed by Napa Sen. Bill Dodd as to whether the cost study could be done by the second quarter of 2018, Messer said, “I think we could commit to that, yes.”
Thursday’s discussion took place at a town hall meeting hosted by the new Delta Caucus, a coalition of state legislators who represent the region. The auditors who performed the recent critique presented their findings before a boisterous audience eager to see holes punched in a project that they generally despise.
“I’m a general contractor and I have never started a project not knowing what it will cost,” Assemblyman Jim Frazier of Oakley told state officials.
“My hat’s off to you for being able to do so,” he added facetiously.
Some large urban water agencies, like the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, have already agreed to pay their substantial share. Farmers have been more reluctant. The massive Westlands Water District west of Fresno voted in September not to participate in the tunnels, leading to speculation that officials might be forced to downsize the project from two tunnels to only one.
Messer said that while Westlands voted no, “there is still room in the resolution for continued dialogue.”
The audit, released earlier this fall, concluded that DWR had not demonstrated the financial viability of the project, despite the department’s own policy stating that an economic analysis is a “critical element” of any planning process.
The state started such an analysis in 2012, budgeting $434,000 for the work, only to have to cancel that job and start over when significant changes to the tunnels plan were announced in 2015. The additional cost: $356,000, according to the audit.
The auditors wrote that it is “essential” for the state to finish the analysis as soon as the other water agencies have weighed in.
“We will do that,” Messer said Thursday.
Auditors also found that the overall planning costs for the project had ballooned from $140 million to about $280 million, a number that drew whistles of amazement from Thursday’s decidedly anti-tunnels crowd. The auditors also found that the state bypassed the legally required competitive bidding process when hiring a new program manager, selecting a candidate who was not an engineer and thus did not meet the agency’s own qualifications. (State officials have denied breaking the law.)
“All I can say,” a seemingly flummoxed Frazier said after hearing all of those details, “is thank God for the state auditor’s office.”