In its most far-reaching decision in more than 50 years, Silicon Valley’s largest water provider will vote Tuesday on whether to embrace or reject Gov. Jerry Brown’ s $17 billion plan to build two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District, based in San Jose, is considering contributing at least $620 million to the project — more than $1 billion when financing costs are included. The vote could shape whether the project is ever built or if it is reduced in size.
On Monday, following lobbying from Brown’s top aides and the governor himself, it appeared that a majority of board members was leaning toward supporting a smaller project, with one tunnel, at potentially half the cost. That could send the project back to the drawing board.
“The project has to be sized correctly. Right now it’s too big and too expensive,” said Gary Kremen, a member of the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s board. “The two tunnels project is too much.”
The meeting will be webcast live at 1 p.m. Tuesday. The tunnels plan is one of Brown’s two legacy projects, the other being high speed rail.
A week ago, on Oct. 9, Brown quietly came to Santa Clara to meet with 20 Silicon Valley CEOs to urge passage of the project. The meeting, hosted by San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York at Levi’s Stadium, also included two members of the Santa Clara Valley Water District board, chairman John Varela and Dick Santos. Participants said Brown applied pressure, but both Varela and Santos said they were worried about the high costs.
“We’re going to be making sure the taxpayer is not on the hook,” Santos said Monday.
Under a plan first proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a decade ago, Brown is proposing to build two concrete tunnels, each 40 feet high and 35 miles long, under the Delta, the vast network of sloughs and wetlands between San Francisco Bay and Sacramento, which is a linchpin of water supplies for two-thirds of California’s residents and millions of acres of farmland.
Supporters say the project, which Brown has dubbed the “WaterFix,” will improve drinking water reliability for cities from San Jose to San Diego by taking freshwater from the Sacramento River south of Sacramento near the community of Courtland, and delivering it to giant state and federal pumps near Tracy. That, they say, would better armor the state’s water system against earthquakes, but also would reduce reliance on those pumps, which judges have ordered to be slowed or stopped at times when endangered fish such as salmon and smelt are near them.
“At least 40 percent of our water comes through the Delta,” said Mike Mielke, senior vice president for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a San Jose-based coalition of businesses, non-profits and other large employers that supports the project. “The status quo in the Delta is unsustainable. We can’t simply rely on local sources.”
Critics, however, call the project an expensive water grab by Southern California cities and San Joaquin Valley farmers that could saddle Santa Clara County residents with higher water bills and property tax hikes they wouldn’t be guaranteed to vote on under a loophole in Proposition 13.
“It’s a new century. We view the tunnels as a 20th century solution to a 21st century problem,” said Tim Stroshane, a policy analyst with Restore the Delta, a Stockton group opposing the plan.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District provides water and flood protection to 1.9 million people from Palo Alto to Gilroy. The last time it made a decision of this magnitude was in 1962, when its board members voted to import water from the Delta into the county through the construction of the South Bay Aqueduct. That extra water allowed the growth of Silicon Valley — a farming region known until that time for heavily over-drafted groundwater.
Stroshane said cities should invest instead in recycled water, new reservoirs, capturing stormwater, and conservation — such as expanded rebates for removing lawns and old toilets. He noted the project’s planners have said it will deliver the same amount of water as is now exported from the Delta — no more — and that much of the Delta water goes now to large farms in the San Joaquin Valley that export almonds and other water-intensive crops.
Last week the project was endorsed by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water to 19 million people. It offered $4 billion toward the costs. Another large district, Westlands Water District in Fresno, however, pulled out last month, leaving the question of who would pay its $3 billion share.
A report by California state auditor Elaine Howle on Oct. 5 said the project suffered from “significant cost increases and delays.” It noted that the state Department of Water Resources “has not completed either an economic or financial analysis to demonstrate the financial viability.”
Santos said he is leaning toward supporting a plan put forward Friday afternoon by three of the water district’s seven members — Kremen, Barbara Keegan and Tony Estremera — that would support one tunnel, with fewer intakes and less overall capacity, at a cost that Kremen estimates could be half of the governor’s proposal.
That concept received a boost in recent days when the idea was endorsed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and then reinforced by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
“Two big, 40-foot-wide tunnels? Running 150 feet underground for 35 miles?” Feinstein said in an interview in the Los Angeles Times. “When I look at that and see what it would take to get down to them if something happens, there has to be all these shafts. It’s awfully hard for me to see this is the way to go.”
“Why do you need 80 feet of diameter in tunnels?” Feinstein added.
Brown administration officials say the dual tunnels are needed for redundancy, in case something happens to one. The one-tunnel idea, in concept, has won support as far back as 2013 from San Diego, Contra Costa Water District, East Bay Municipal Utility District and some environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council.
On Monday, California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird hinted that the administration may be willing to change the project.
“Once we know which contractors are interested in joining WaterFix,” Laird said, “the state will meet with participating contractors to discuss the specifics of the project and how best to optimize it to meet their needs.”
Jonas Minton, a senior water policy adviser for the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group in Sacramento, said he supports the district’s proposed one-tunnel compromise.
“It appears to be a good faith effort to find something that might work,” Minton said, “offered in a way that does not disrespect the governor.”
