Like a brain-eating zombie that never dies, the Delta Tunnel project keeps rising from the dead, despite massive opposition from the people of California
In the latest episode in the revival of this undead project by the Newsom Administration, the Californian Department of Water Resources (DWR) on Feb. 22 submitted a Change in Point of Diversion Petition for the Delta Conveyance Project to the State Water Resources Control Board.
In her letter to the Water Board accompanying the petition, DWR Director Karla Nemeth stated, “Specifically, the petition seeks to add two points of diversion and rediversion to the water rights for the State Water Project (SWP) necessary for the construction and operation of new SWP water diversion and conveyance facilities. The Project is a critical element of a broader State effort to protect the reliability of statewide water supplies from earthquakes and weather-driven climate extremes.”
“The proposed new points of diversion include two intakes (Intakes B and C) located along the Sacramento River eastern bank between Freeport and the Sacramento River confluence with Sutter Slough, each with a maximum capacity of 3,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) (up to a combined maximum rate of 6,000 cfs). Intakes B and C would be 1,574 and 1,528 feet in length along the riverbank, respectively, and would include state-of-the-art cylindrical tee fish screens, intake structures, sedimentation basins, sediment drying lagoons, flow control structures, intake outlet channel and intake outlet shaft, embankments, and other appurtenant structures,” Nemeth said.
However, environmental groups disagreed strongly with DWR’s rosy assessment of the project. They note that the tunnel will divert large volumes of water out of the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary, even though state scientists recognize more water is needed for the recovery of the state’s iconic Chinook salmon and steelhead populations. They also point out that the water will instead go to industrial agricultural operations and water agencies south of the Delta and outside of the watershed.
“Governor Newsom recently released a ‘salmon strategy’ to restore the state’s imperiled salmon fishery, but his plan fails to provide a science-based solution for the state’s largest salmon runs, which spawn in the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed,” according to a statement from the San Francisco Baykeeper. “Instead, Newsom’s ‘strategy” calls for urban and agricultural water districts to reduce their water use voluntarily, and provides no safeguards for Bay-Delta water flows.”
Baykeeper and a number of other environmental, tribal, community, and government entities have filed multiple lawsuits to stop the Delta Tunnel project. The California State Water Resources Control Board - responsible for maintaining the health of the state’s waterways — has the authority either to issue or deny the agency’s permit application, according to the Baykeeper.
“Governor Newsom is on a fast track to drive Bay-Delta salmon populations into extinction,” said San Francisco Baykeeper managing attorney Eric Buescher. “Most scientists recognize that the Delta tunnel will accelerate the salmon’s decline. And, Newsom’s so-called ‘salmon strategy’ fails to provide any protections for these iconic fish in the Bay’s watershed, or for the people who depend on them.”
"Governor Newsom’s Delta tunnel would harm all of the communities that depend on the Bay and its tributary rivers, degrade the Bay's water quality, and further decimate ecosystems that are already in crisis. Yet, the governor is hell-bent on sending more of the Bay’s fresh water to unsustainable industrial agriculture and to big cities outside of the watershed,” Buescher stated.
“If the California State Water Resources Control Board follows its mission to protect the health of California’s waterways, it will have no choice but to deny Governor Newsom’s destructive project,” he argued.
New DWR petition faces scrutiny over discriminatory practices in Delta management
The Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition also slammed DWR’s submission of the petition, pointing out that it was submitted despite the SWRCB being under investigation by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a Title VI Civil Rights complaint.
The complaint, filed by the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition (DTEC), comprised of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Buena Vista Rancheria, Restore the Delta, and Little Manila Rising, was accepted by the EPA in August 2022.
“The complaint outlines the SWRCB’s discriminatory mismanagement of water quality in the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed as well as the disparate impacts of the state’s failure to regulate the Delta watershed on the surrounding community. Notably, it requests the completion of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan before the SWRCB considers the change in the point of diversion for the Delta tunnel,” the DTEC said in a statement.
The EPA accepted DTEC Coalition's complaint for investigation, engaging with DTEC and the SWRCB in two related processes for resolution.
“The DWR petition proposes two points of diversion and rediversion to water rights for construction of the tunnel, however, it fails to disclose the Title VI Civil Rights complaint and the current investigation,” the Coalition said.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, expressed disappointment with DWR's filing with the State Water Board.
She stated, "DWR, speaking on behalf of the State Water Resources Control Board's actions while our petition for relief is under investigation with the US EPA, reveals the lack of proper regulatory distance between the Newsom Administration's pro-tunnel agenda and State regulators tasked with protecting and considering impacts on all water users and related parties throughout the state."
Barrigan-Parrilla pointed out that DWR has “overlooked significant concerns of Delta environmental justice communities and tribes in its Environmental Impact Report for the project. This is especially concerning given DWR's claim that the tunnel will address water challenges for all environmental justice communities and tribes, revealing the divide and conquer tactics being used by the Newsom Administration. Barrigan-Parilla also highlighted the State Water Resource Control Board's failure to complete and implement a Bay-Delta Plan that addresses the documented needs of Delta tribes and environmental justice communities.”
"The Newsom Administration's handling of Delta management is riddled with discriminatory practices. We are extremely disappointed in the Governor's leadership in California water, which contradicts the image that he cultivates as a social justice leader," concluded Barrigan-Parrilla.
The SWRCB is set to review the petition and will follow with a public notice detailing their public review process, according to DTEC.
Delta Smelt is functionally extinct in the wild, salmon runs collapse
The petition was submitted as the San Francisco Bay-Delta Ecosystem suffers from its worst-ever ecological crisis.
For the sixth year in a row, no Delta Smelt were collected in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl (FMWT) Survey in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta from September through December 2023.
Once the most abundant species in the entire estuary, the Delta Smelt has declined to the point that it has become functionally extinct in the wild. The 2 to 3 inch fish, found only in the Delta, is an “indicator species” that shows the relative health of the San Francisco Bay/Delta ecosystem.
“No Delta Smelt were collected at any stations from September through December,” reported Taylor Rohlin, Environmental Scientist for the CDFW Bay Delta Region, in a memo published on Jan. 25. “The 2023 September-December index (0) is tied with 2018-2022 as the lowest index in FMWT history.”
Meanwhile, the other pelagic species collected in the survey — striped bass, Longfin Smelt, Sacramento Splittail and thread fin shad — continued their dramatic decline since 1967 when the State Water Project went into effect. Only the American shad shows a less precipitous decline. The graphs in the CDFW memo graphically illustrate how dramatic the declines in fish populations have been over the years: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/…
Between 1967 and 2020, the state’s Fall Midwater Trawl abundance indices for striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, splittail and threadfin shad have declined by 99.7, 100, 99.96, 67.9, 100, and 95%, respectively, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
Salmon fishing season was closed last year on the ocean waters of California and in all of the state’s rivers, due to the low numbers of returning fall-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento and Klamath Rivers.
Endangered Sacramento River spring and winter-run Chinook continue their march towards extinction. The spawning escapement of Sacramento River Spring Chinooks (SRSC) in 2023 totaled 1,479 fish (jacks and adults), with an estimated return of 106 to upper Sacramento River tributaries and the remaining 1,391 fish returning to the Feather River Hatchery.
The return to Butte Creek of just 100 fish was the lowest ever. In 2021, an estimated 19,773 out of the more than 21,580 fish total that returned to spawn in the Butte County stream perished before spawning
Nor did the winter run, listed under the state and federal Endangered Species Act, do well. Spawner escapement of endangered Sacramento River Winter Chinook (SRWC) in 2023 was estimated to be 2,447 adults and 54 jacks, according to the Review.
A group of us, including the late conservationist and Fish Sniffer magazine publisher Hal Bonslett, successfully pushed the state and federal governments to list the winter run under the state and federal Endangered Species Acts starting in 1990-91 because we were so alarmed that the fish population had crashed to 2,000 fish.
Then in 1992 the run declined to less than 200 fish. Even after Shasta Dam was built, the winter run escapement to the Sacramento River was 117,000 in 1969!
Now we are back to approximately the same low number of winter-run Chinooks that spurred us to push for the listing of the fish as endangered under state and federal law over 30 years ago.
This demonstrates why the Winnemem Wintu Tribe's plan to build a fishway to enable the winter run Chinooks to again spawn in the McCloud River above Shasta Reservoir is so important! For the past two years, the Winnemem and the U.S. and state governments have worked together in a program reintroducing winter Chinooks to their native habitat in the McCloud River above Shasta Reservoir.