Metropolitan Water District Withdraws Support for Full Funding of Delta Tunnels Project

The Delta Tunnels project would divert significant amounts of water from the Sacramento River before reaching the Delta, resulting in enormous harm to salmon and other fish species. Photo by Dan Bacher.

The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California on Monday said that it will no longer pursue its proposal to pay for the total construction costs of Governor Jerry Brown’s California WaterFix project.

Jeff Kightlinger, MWD general manager, explained in a board memo sent to the district’s board of directors Monday why the Southern California water district has changed its plans again by backing a “staged approach” to build two intake facilities and a single tunnel with the capacity of 6,000 cfs, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The giant Southern California water agency is one of the key supporters of Brown’s ever-changing project to build two giant water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Proponents claim the construction of the tunnels would further the coequal goals of water supply reliability and ecosystem, while opponents say the project would do neither — and instead destroy the Delta and West Coast fisheries and ecosystems by taking more water out of the Sacramento River before it reaches the estuary.

The  change in course took place during a meeting by Chairman Randy Record, Kightlinger and Assistant General Manager Roger Patterson with directors and staff from other State Water Project (SWP) and Central Valley Project (CVP) contractors, along with officials from the State of California and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) to discuss the WaterFix.

Kightlinger said the CVP representatives and USBR officials “expressed great appreciation” for the concepts that Metropolitan advanced to explore “alternative financing mechanisms” to construct the full 9,000 cfs WaterFix preferred alternative.

“Everyone concurred that the best approach for all of California’s water interests and the environment would be to build the full project in one stage as originally proposed,” the memo stated. “However, the majority of CVP contractors and USBR officials informed everyone that there still remained a number of internal institutional issues that first needed to be resolved among the CVP contractors before they could make a commitment to participate in the full 9,000 cfs project.”

“Based on that information, it was decided that the SWP contractors would proceed as proposed by the Brown Administration with a staged approach to build two intake facilities and a single tunnel with the capacity of 6,000 cfs. A third intake and second tunnel would follow in a later stage to eventually bring the project to its full capacity,” he stated.

Kightlinger said the SWP contractors and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) would continue to work with the CVP contractors and the USBR to “resolve issues and explore alternative financing mechanisms to expedite construction of the second stage.”

“The SWP contractors and participating CVP contractors will finance the entire first stage; however the door will remain open for other CVP contractors to participate on a larger scale in the first stage if there is interest,” said Kightlinger.

On Tuesday, April 10, Metropolitan's board will vote whether to officially participate in the first stage of the proposed California WaterFix project,  consisting of a single 6,000 cfs capacity tunnel with two intakes. The second 3,000 cfs tunnel with one intake would be subject to board approval at a later, undetermined date. 

Metropolitan estimates that its share of the first stage of the project is up to 47% or $5.2 billion. 

As opposition to the tunnel project builds among Southern California water ratepayers, consumer organizations, environmental justice groups and conservation organizations, you can expect a big turnout at this meeting.

MWD board meetings are webcast and open to the public. Meeting information will be posted on mwdh2o.com.

In response to MWD’s decision, the Brown administration said “the state will continue pursuing final permitting to allow construction of the project — whether full or built in stages” in a prepared statement.

Project opponents: No Surprise

Delta Tunnels opponents said they weren’t surprised by MWD’s move to not pay for the full cost of the Delta Tunnels. 

“We are not surprised by Metropolitan Water District's move to abandon the twin tunnels and lead a phased-in tunnel project instead,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD). ”Southern California water districts would have taken on an unacceptable debt load from the costs of both twin tunnels that would ultimately be felt by Southern California ratepayers.”

“This new project, however, will require revisions to the present Environmental Impact Report and changes to the water diversion change petition in front of the State Water Resources Control Board, as a 6,000 cfs export tunnel is quite different than two 4,500 cfs export tunnels in terms of construction and operations,” she stated.  

“Even more problematic, as we learned from documents we obtained in a recent Public Records Act request from MWD, the baseline in the recently published economic analysis for CA WaterFix was altered to achieve positive economic benefits for the first phased-in tunnel. Southern California ratepayers deserve the opportunity to examine the assumptions behind this doctored report,” she emphasized.

“In terms of single tunnel operations, these same PRA documents show that California WaterFix as a phased-in tunnel project—that primarily functions as a single tunnel project until the second one is built—increases water diversions in dry years, not a ‘big gulp’ during wet periods and ‘little sip’during dry periods as has been touted for the last five years,” she said.

Documents for PRA show how Delta will be mismanaged

Documents from the PRA (listed by MWDPRA number) reveal how the Delta will be mismanaged for MWD's water gain at the expense of the Delta’s health, according to Barrigan-Parrilla.

1. MWDPRA-SEJ0001576 – MWD General Manager Jeff Kightlinger said that the dry year yields could be 2-3 times current dry year diversions
2. MWDPRA-SEJ0001577 – MWD staff stated that even in dry years we get storm events, and WaterFix would increase diversions by 200,000 acre feet per storm event (3 storms = 600,000 AF) – “there is definitely more dry year yield with the tunnels than the current system”
3. MWDPRA-SEJ0001578 – MWD staff stating that the EIR analysis only looks at monthly averages and shows the same yield with and without Waterfix, and that the increased exports in dry years “won’t show up in the EIR monthly ops study.”
4. MWDPRA-SEJ0001584 – A Jeff Kightlinger email where he explains that he didn’t say 2 or 3 times as much diversions in dry years, but even in dry years there are storm events; in 2014-2015 there were 3 storms and WaterFix could have increased Delta exports by 800,000AF for both projects (which would be 200,000 AF of additional supply for MWD).

“After eleven years, and over a quarter of a billion dollars, the project description, operational details, and cost analysis are still sorely lacking. This isn't simply about the people of the Delta being opposed to the plan. It's about the State, and its sponsor MWD, failing to make an honest and accurate case for any tunnels that show,” Barrigan-Parrilla concluded.

In other Delta Tunnels News, Restore the Delta on Wednesday submitted a letter to the Delta Independent Science Board (DISB) and the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) calling DISB members to further improve and expand their scope of data processes. Specifically, Restore the Delta requested that the DISB “summarize and define the range of stakeholders in the Delta, and provide a public-friendly document that explains the potential threats and opportunities related to water quality monitoring and research completed by the DISB.”

Meanwhile, the State Water Resources Control Board is currently conducting evidentiary hearings on the petition by the California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to change the point of diversions for the Delta Tunnels project, in spite of a change in the project by the state and federal governments from the twin tunnels to a two phase project. The board has to date rejected the pile of recent motions by cities, counties, water agencies, conservation groups, fishing groups and farming organizations to stay the hearing.