Colossal arrogance in tunnels project

The way environmental activists in California’s Delta region tell it, there is no part of government in this state more arrogant than the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The huge MWD, supplier of water to the majority of the state’s populace, is certainly acting the part as it pushes for a project Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to make an irreversible fait accomplibefore he leaves office (presumably for the last time) at the end of this year.

That’s the so-called “California Waterfix” or Twin Tunnels project to bring Northern California river water to San Joaquin Valley farms and urban Southern California via gigantic culverts running around and through the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers east of San Francisco Bay. ( Another desired Brown legacy is the troubled bullet train.)

No one claims the tunnels project would produce much more water than now comes from the same rivers. But Brown and other supporters assert it would make supplies steadier and more reliable.

His administration and other project backers only lately renamed this the Waterfix because that sounds more positive than tunnels. But environmentalists led by the group Restore the Delta see it not as a fix, but a problem which could deprive the Delta and its fish of much fresh water they now get.

After substantial lobbying by Brown, the MWD’S governing board without a public vote this summer committed millions of its customers to pay a large share of the project’s costs. About the only recourse customers might have would be voting out many of the myriad city council members and county supervisors who make up that board. This is highly unlikely, so added water charges for millions of customers are pretty much assured.

It’s much the same in the San Jose-based Santa Clara Valley Water District, whose much smaller board voted narrowly also to help pay