Major Southern California water supplier approves spending $141.6 million on Delta tunnel project
LOS ANGELES – A major Southern California water supplier voted Tuesday to approve a motion to help move forward a project that would tunnel water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Southern California.
Members of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California approved allocating $141.6 million for the planning and preconstruction of the Delta Conveyance Project.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California passes the motion - they will give the state $141 million for more planning costs of the Delta Conveyance Project. @CBSSacramento
— Madisen Keavy (@madisenkeavy) December 10, 2024
The California Department of Water Resources requested $300 million from potential participants in order to continue advancing the project, with the MWD being asked to cover almost half the costs.
The $141.6 million the MWD approved would be distributed over the next three years, with almost $75 million coming in the 2026-2027 fiscal year.
Earlier this year, a California judge said a law did not give the state permission to borrow billions of dollars needed for the project.
In 2020, the project was estimated to cost about $16 billion, but it increased to $20.1 billion in 2023.
What is the Delta Conveyance Project?
The Delta Conveyance Project, which Gov. Gavin Newsom backs, aims to modernize water infrastructure in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The DWR says it will make improvements to how water is captured and moved in California during wet years so that it can be used during dry years, all via a tunnel system.
The DWR says the project would restore the reliability of the State Water Project and make sure water clean and affordable water is provided to 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland.
The tunnel would have two intakes in the north delta with fish screens. It would be about 45 miles and connect to a pumping plant that connects the tunnel to the Bethany Reservoir on the California Aqueduct.
The tunnel would sit about 100-130 feet underground and be earthquake-resilient, the DWR says.
If the Delta Conveyance Project had been in place during the wet 2021-2022 winter, the DWR says the project would have captured enough water to supply 2.5 million people or nearly 850,000 households for one year.
Environmental agencies filed a lawsuit in January seeking the project's approval and environmental impact report to be set aside. They claim that the project, if approved, would have "severe and irreversible adverse effects" on the Bay-Delta system, saying it would reduce flows in the Sacramento River and harm endangered and threatened fish species.