Newsom establishes welcome new course on Delta water issues
Gov. Gavin Newsom set a welcome new course on California water issues Thursday when he officially killed the $19 billion Delta twin tunnels project.
What a relief.
One of the state’s biggest long-term challenge is securing a reliable source of water for residents, businesses and farmers without destroying the environment. The problem is further exacerbated by the anticipated impacts of climate change.
We never understood former Gov. Jerry Brown’s stubborn support of the twin-tunnels effort, which involved digging the equivalent of a 10lane freeway, 150 feet underground. Nor could we fathom why the Santa Clara Valley Water District board voted to support the project, knowing that the governor had essentially turned the boondoggle over to Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District to run.
It threatened to be the biggest water grab in state history. It didn’t pencil out financially. It didn’t pass muster with scientists studying the Delta’s health. And, worst of all, it wouldn’t add a drop of new water to the state’s supply.
Instead, the Newsom administration said Thursday that the governor will embrace a more-sustainable water policy that emphasizes conservation and creation of new supplies of renewable water. He also wants to fix the fragile Delta levees and explore the merits of a cheaper, single Delta tunnel.
“A smaller project, coordinated with a wide variety of actions to strengthen existing levee protections, protect Delta water quality, recharge depleted groundwater reserves and strengthen local water supplies across the state will build California’s water supply resilience,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said in a statement released Thursday.
It’s a welcome, major policy shift that presents its own set of political challenges.
The Newsom administration’s statement didn’t spell out the specifics of how big the single tunnel might be or how it would be operated. Nor has he detailed how much water should flow through the Delta. Newsom is asking the secretaries of the California Natural Resources Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Food and Agriculture to prepare a “water resilience portfolio that meets the needs of California’s communities, economy and environment through the 21st century.”
The agencies should heed scientific studies of the Delta that point toward the need for a greater emphasis on maintaining the health of the Delta and the rivers and streams that feed into what is the largest estuary west of the Mississippi.
The goal of a single Delta tunnel should focus on the “big gulp, little sip” approach that allows the state to capture greater water exports during wet years while reducing diversions during dry years in order to better protect fish and wildlife. The state can take the savings from not building two tunnels and instead invest in innovative storage, recycling and conservation projects throughout the state.
California’s population is expected to grow to 60 million by 2050, a 50 percent increase from the current population of 40 million. The state can best meet its future needs by heeding the governor’s call for a coordinated, broad-based plan that embraces efficiency, water recycling and other local water supply projects that reduce reliance on the Delta.