A half century after building the largest water-delivery system in America, California officials say they now realize they put their giant straws to capture Delta water in the wrong place.
Last week, state and federal water project operators opened the case to win permission for a fix — construction of three diversion points near Sacramento tied to twin underground tunnels to shunt Delta water for 25 million people throughout the state.
Not surprisingly, the hearing before the state water board rekindled old wounds and produced two sharply different portrayals of what the proposed $17 billion California WaterFix would do for the state’s deeply troubled plumbing system.
Critics in Northern California call the plan a water grab destined to harm the Delta environment, fish and farmers. The 700-square-mile mile region of rivers and sloughs will end up with dirtier, saltier water with more toxic algae, while very little will be done to improve overall water supplies, they say.
“The whole ecosystem of the Delta is going to be damaged,” Contra Costa County Supervisor Karen Mitchoff of Concord said after testifying last week. “This will deprive the Delta of fresh water flows and threaten water quality, fish and farming. It’s the wrong way to go, and it won’t produce a single extra drop of water.”
But state and federal water project managers see the plan as a long overdue upgrade to provide more stability to Delta water supplies now routinely interrupted by regulatory orders to help protect fish.
Delta water is shipped far and wide to San Jose, Livermore, Fremont, Los Angeles, San Diego and many other communities.
Water from the Sacramento, San Joaquin and other rivers currently meanders through a maze of Delta channels until it is pumped near Tracy into the state aqueduct that goes to Los Angeles. The new diversion points would allow the water to flow by gravity into two underground tunnels under the Delta to the Tracy pumps.
Adding the new diversion points will reduce the many ills caused by southern Delta pumps that suck up wild fish, disrupt fish-migration routes and hurt food supplies. The giant pumps near Tracy are so powerful they cause water to flow uphill in some waterways.
“The existing infrastructure does not work well — not for the ecosystem or people,” said John Laird, secretary of the California Resources Agency. “If we could build the project again, we would put the intakes in a difference place.”
Laird said giving the state a second option to divert Sacramento River water from Courtland near Sacramento would reduce harm to fish.
State officials say they do not plan to take more Delta water but change where it is taken.
The state water board hearings are being held this year and in 2017 to determine the impact of the new diversion points.
State and federal officials have argued no harm would occur. But some Delta boaters, farmers and fishermen disagree.
Kathleen Updegraff, a marina operator in Courtland, said Delta water quality will suffer from more seawater intrusion, toxic algae and pollutants when the high-quality Sacramento River is shipped south instead of allowed to flow through the Delta.
“The tunnels will hurt fish,” she said “The boaters will go elsewhere.”
The Bay Institute, an environmental group, contends it’s premature to plan the new diversion points because the state has failed to upgrade its Delta water quality standards to require greater freshwater flows through the region to help declining wild fish.
“Simply moving the diversion point does not solve the problem,” said Gary Bobker, director of the Bay Institute Rivers and Delta program. “If we continue to increase water diversions from the Delta or just maintain them, we will continue to see a downward spiral of fish.”
Until the state makes clear how it would operate the tunnels, it’s impossible to judge the impact of the project, he said.
One large association for federal water users worries that the California WaterFix project may not be able to deliver enough to make it worth it for farmers to pay their share. Water users are paying for the project.
“We still can’t tell how much water we will get and, therefore, how much it it’s going to cost our members,” said Jason Peltier, executive director of the San Luis Delta Water Authority.
Peltier said he is concerned that state and federal resource managers have focused so heavily on water flow as a cause of fish problems that they haven’t done enough to look at other causes such as invasive species, sewage and toxic pollution.
The state water board presiding over the new water-diversion points includes five members appointed by the governor.
To build the twin tunnels, water officials also will need the approval of state and federal fish and wildlife regulators that have jurisdiction over endangered species.
The tunnels could be sidetracked by a November ballot measure that would require voter approval for projects that require the state to borrow more than $2 million, as is the likely case with the twin tunnels.
Contact Denis Cuff at 925-943-8267. Follow him at Twitter.com/deniscuff or facebook.com/denis.cuff.
