PD Editorial: Time to bury twin tunnel water transfer

Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to drill two giant tunnels to divert water to Southern California and the Central Valley had one redeeming feature: restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

With the restoration plans drying up, there’s isn’t much to like about this plumbing project.

It’s hard to quarrel with environmental groups that denounce it as a water grab. Even the intended beneficiaries complain about the $17 billion price tag.

Only the governor seems enthusiastic about this legacy project.

“Civilization isn’t free, and it’s not cheap,” Brown said at a news conference last week in Oakland, where he unveiled the latest version of his water plan, the third in as many years. “Yes, this costs money. But compared to what? Compared to a stadium? This is the basis of human existence.”

OK, but that’s just as true in the delta as it is in the Central Valley farm belt or in the population centers of Southern California.

And, as Brown and his advisers know, the delta, the largest natural estuary on the West Coast, is suffering from the effects of the state’s last major effort to redirect the natural flow of water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers into San Francisco Bay.

Freshwater flows have been reduced by half, damaging farmland, increasing the incidence of saltwater intrusion and threatening the survival of smelt, salmon and other species.

Indeed, the tunnels were presented as a way to offset some of the ecological damage caused by the State Water Project while providing more water and more predictability to farmers and Southland residents.

But it’s hard to see how the delta would benefit from even less water flowing through. So it was no surprise when federal wildlife officials balked at the plan, saying the state hadn’t shown how it would benefit endangered species. To provide predictability, Brown wanted a 50-year promise from wildlife officials to keep the pumps running.

So he offered his latest plan. It retains the twin tunnels, each 40 feet in diameter and 30 miles long, which would divert Sacramento River water before it reaches the delta. But delta restoration has been scaled back from $8 billion and 153,000 acres, including 100,000 acres of wetlands, to $300 million and 30,000 acres.

The governor says his new plan is more realistic, but delta advocates see a sell-out and, without assurance that the pumps won’t be shut down to protect the delta, water interests see Brown’s plan as a costly gamble.

California’s drought, now in its fourth year, has focused attention on the state’s oversubscribed water-delivery system, its outdated water rights laws, its unregulated (and over-tapped) groundwater supplies and the transition from easy-to-fallow produce to thirsty almond and pistachio orchards in much of the Central Valley.

Brown could cement his legacy by dropping expensive, 20th century-style capital projects such as the twin tunnels (and high-speed rail) and focusing instead on bringing the state’s water management into the 21st century.