SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — State water officials say a controversial plan to build a tunnel to take water from the north end of California to its southern regions is worth the costs, risks and protests from environmental organizations.
Staff with the California Department of Water Resources said in a briefing Thursday that the “Delta Conveyance Project” to take water from the Sacramento River-San Joaquin Delta will now cost $20 billion, up from a $16 billion estimate reported in 2020. A new cost-benefit analysis found the tunnel will improve future water collection as the effects of climate change worsen, despite the high price tag.
The project already passed two key thresholds — the release of an environmental impact report and approval from the department.
David Sunding, an emeritus professor at University of California, Berkeley, who wrote the new cost analysis, said: “The project enables ongoing demands to be satisfied and water supply reliability to be maintained.”
The proposed 36-foot wide tunnel would run for about 45 miles along the eastern side of the delta, starting with two intakes about two miles south of Sacramento. Each intake facility would pump 3,000 cubic feet per second underneath delta islands, sloughs and levees. The water would then discharge into the Bethany Reservoir — the northern terminus of the California Aqueduct.
The state officials said that the project can address current problems as fishery-related regulations significantly constrain water exports from the south delta. They said that if the tunnel had been in operation now, an additional 909,000 acre-feet of water could have already been moved from the north.
Climate change and regulatory constraints drive the likelihood that water supplies will diminish over time, putting 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland at risk. By 2070, climate change and sea-level rise could cut state water deliveries by approximately 22%, or 546 thousand acre-feet per year.
According to the state, this puts the project's value in improving water supply reliability at more than $33.3 billion.
“It is vastly more efficient and economical to avoid declining supplies," Department of Water Resources director Karla Nemeth said. Water shortages, mandatory restrictions land fallowing and job loss all impact our state and local economies.”
The tunnel will also create 5,000 jobs and relieve pressure on groundwater supplies. Sunding noted the cheapest options for water conservation have already been put into place.
“The ones that remain tend to be more expensive than the ones adopted in the past,” he said. “Even without further deterioration in climate beyond 2025 the project still passes the cost-benefit test. It’s worth thinking about the cost of doing nothing.”
Sunding said that some risks of not undertaking the project include earthquake damage. Many of the delta’s 1,100 miles of levees date back to the 1800s and protect more than 600,000 residents and about 740,000 acres of land, and they're at risk of damage from major seismic activity.
The DCA, the joint powers authority comprised of local public water agencies handling project design and engineering, presented other recommendations for the state to potentially cut the project’s costs by about $1.2 billion. It recommends optimizing the Bethany Reservoir Pumping Plant to reduce construction and house equipment and piping more efficiently. The agency also said the state could consider using new tunnel boring technology to handle excavation and lining installation at the same time.
Nemeth said the project's draft implementation plan is set to publish later this year for community input. The Delta Stewardship Council, which oversees maintenance and improvement of the delta, is unlikely to make its own determinations until 2025.
That means the state can't settle all funding for the project until at least 2026, Nemeth said. A Sacramento County judge ruled this year that the state cannot issue bonds to fund construction because the Department of Water Resources lacks the legal authority to do so. But the state set aside about $200 million for the project’s Community Benefits Program, as a grant fund for job training, local business utilization and infrastructure.
Nemeth noted a number of environmental groups, congressmen and water agencies oppose the project. According to opponents, the tunnel will burden the delta, reduce its water quality and provide no additional water to customers in the south.
More than 7,000 people have commented on the project since 2020, recommending changes like avoiding forebays and barge landings; reducing pile driving; placing power underground when near sandhill crane habitat; and minimizing acreage needed to store tunnel material and the project footprint.
“We are working very intensely to settle out those protests with different parties,” Nemeth said.
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