Hearing on Delta tunnels plan lunges forward
STOCKTON — State officials declined again Wednesday to delay a hearing that could lead to the issuance of a critical permit to build the governor’s $17 billion Delta tunnels.
Opponents had tried to stop the process, arguing that the recent announcement that the tunnels might be built in phases over a longer period of time means the project has changed and requires additional review and scrutiny.
But the water agency that will make the final decision refused to stop the hearing, saying Wednesday that it’s not yet clear whether the tunnels will indeed be built in phases or concurrently, as first planned.
A delay at this point, officials with the State Water Resources Control Board wrote, “would be both premature and needlessly disruptive.”
If indeed the decision is made to build the tunnels in phases, those details will be analyzed later in the process, the board officials wrote.
As a result of Wednesday’s decision, the hearing resumed Thursday in Sacramento based on the original two-tunnels plan, for which tunnels proponents still are billions of dollars short. A study of the claimed economic benefits of the project released by the state last week also is based only on the first tunnel.
Stockton attorney Thomas Keeling, who represents San Joaquin County in the ongoing hearing, said he wasn’t surprised by the board’s decision to move forward.
“But I’m profoundly disappointed,” he said. “It means the hearing is completely untethered from reality. It means our worst fears about the integrity of this process have been confirmed.”
Tunnels opponents, including Delta interests, local government agencies and environmental groups, earlier had asked for a delay in the hearing in order to investigate another issue — alleged illegal communications between state water board staffers and officials with the state Department of Water Resources. The water board is the agency that is supposed to independently judge the merits of the project, and DWR is the agency that wants to build it.
The water board declined that earlier request for delay, as well, and refused Wednesday to reconsider its judgment that the communications were legal.
“We continue to stand by the legal analysis in that ruling,” wrote the board officials who are presiding like judges over the tunnels hearing. They also are Brown appointees.
Doug Obegi, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Wednesday that the decision means that the extensive hearing — involving dozens of agencies, interest groups and the state government itself — is basically a waste of time and money.
“They’re going to drag all of us through this hearing for a project that doesn’t exist,” he said.
But if opponents don’t participate, they can’t challenge the outcome in court.
“This really is just about exhausting our remedies. It’s not about getting a favorable decision from the water board,” Obegi said, openly questioning the board’s ability to fairly judge the governor’s “pet project.”
The water board’s ruling says that moving forward now actually will be more efficient, because even if the tunnels are built in phases, much of the evidence related to the two-tunnels proposal still will need to be heard.