In the latest battle in the California Water Wars, the Department of Water Resources released a statement today applauding the release of the Governor’s so-called “Delta Conveyance Accountability” Plan:
The Newsom Administration is committed to supporting local communities that could be impacted during construction of the Delta Conveyance Project. To acknowledge and address those impacts, today the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released an Accountability Action Plan which memorializes a series of actions that holds DWR accountable to the local community in a transparent, trackable and measurable way. In addition to targeted and strategic communication and support, the plan establishes a $200 million Community Benefits Program for areas near the construction sites.
The goal of the plan is to avoid, minimize, or offset potential impacts of project construction to residents, businesses, tribes, visitors to the Delta, and many others. The plan was developed, in part, to address concerns expressed in various community and public input forums during the planning process.
The Delta Conveyance Project is the most consequential water infrastructure project in recent California history, and will help ensure that the state can continue to provide water for people, businesses, and farmland throughout the state. The Delta Conveyance Project will upgrade the State Water Project, enabling California’s water managers to capture and move more water during high-flow atmospheric rivers to better endure dry seasons. The tunnel, a modernization of the infrastructure system that delivers water to millions of people, would improve California’s ability to take advantage of intense periods of rain and excess flows in the Sacramento River.
The process to begin construction of the current Delta Conveyance Project began in 2019 when Governor Newsom withdrew the previous “Water Fix” twin tunnels project and began a new environmental process to study a single-tunnel proposal. As in previous iterations of Delta conveyance, requirements for environmental analysis, public review and comment under CEQA and other permitting processes were completed, including extensive public outreach and more than 7,000 comments and responses.
DWR’s Accountability Action Plan follows best practices for how to ensure the local community can productively communicate with project representatives and monitor community commitments throughout the construction process.
With public transparency being its most important tenet, the plan seeks to facilitate awareness of the numerous available programs and commitments made and aims to foster assurance and trust among interested parties that DWR’s intent is comprehensive, earnest and binding.
Protecting Delta communities
The Delta Conveyance Accountability Action Plan has five key components:
Ombudsman Office: The Ombudsman Office will provide for a single point of contact to help ensure that construction-related concerns or grievances are efficiently and fairly addressed and project transparency is sustained.
Regulatory Mitigation: The Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program and other regulatory processes identify measures, commitments and best practices intended to avoid, minimize or offset potential environmental impacts within the project area.
Community Benefits Program: The Community Benefits Program—with a dedicated $200 million fund—will seek to deliver tangible, lasting and measurable benefits to communities nearest to, and most affected by, project construction activities.
Community Advisory Groups: One or more community advisory groups will engage community members in decision-making related to various items.
Project Communications: Information, Outreach, Engagement: A transparent, accessible, and proactive communication strategy will keep local communities informed about the project’s progress, impacts, schedule, and available resources, fostering trust and engagement through timely updates, community feedback channels, and clear, inclusive messaging.
What’s at stake
The Delta Conveyance Project would create much-needed and long-overdue improvements to the State Water Project, which provides water for 27 million people and 750,00 acres of farmland. It would allow the State Water Project to better capture high flows during storm events and move that water to where it’s needed in the San Joaquin Valley, Southern California, Bay Area, and Central Coast. It would also protect against earthquake risk.
The Governor will continue working to quickly advance these improvements to ensure that California is ready for a drier and hotter future, and its communities are safe and protected.”
Resources & Information
Today in response, advocates for Delta communities, tribes, and environmental justice denounced the Newsom Administration’s so-called “Delta Conveyance Accountability Action Plan” as “a hollow attempt to appease critics” while continuing to push forward a deeply flawed and harmful project:
Releasing an "Accountability Plan" at this stage is too little, too late. After proposing sweeping legal rollbacks to fast-track the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP) in June, the Administration is now offering half-truths and sidestepping legislative oversight. Accountability must begin in the planning phase — and by excluding communities from developing this plan, the Administration has made clear that its intent is to silence, not support, those most impacted by this $100 billion water tunnel.
The $200 million in funding touted by the Administration is not new, not additive, and represents a paltry offering to offset a massive project that will decimate Delta communities and a multi-billion-dollar regional economy for generations. Worse, the funding focuses only on communities near the construction zone, excluding downstream communities like Stockton that will suffer from degraded water quality and increased pollution burdens.
This announcement completely misses the mark on the core issue: California’s water system is outdated, overallocated, and dependent on an ecosystem that has been in crisis for years. Instead of pushing a 20th-century political pet project, the state should invest in modern, local water solutions that reduce reliance on imported surface water and protect communities from flooding.
By clinging to the narrative of "capturing" nonexistent excess water from the Sacramento River, the Newsom Administration is ignoring the true urgency of the Delta’s decline and the climate crisis that is threatening vulnerable communities. The plan’s focus on mitigation through an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that is still incomplete and fundamentally inadequate only reinforces this misguided approach. The EIR fails to fully assess or mitigate species, habitat, and ecosystem impacts — and relies on a flawed baseline that continues to drive Delta ecosystem collapse.
This announcement also comes alongside the Administration’s coordinated push to reform the Bay-Delta Plan and enable the Voluntary Agreements (VAs) — an unscientific scheme that excludes tribes and communities and, according to the Department of Water Resources itself, is necessary to make the DCP operational.
Ultimately, this is a distraction. While the Governor attempts to rebrand the tunnel and deflect criticism, his administration is simultaneously pushing trailer bills to override environmental protections, court rulings, and public opinion. This pattern of excluding communities and fast-tracking destructive policies has become all too familiar. No amount of PR spin can cover up the fact that the DCP is a deeply flawed project — built on outdated assumptions, ignoring science, and failing to protect the people and ecosystems of the Delta.
STATEMENTS FROM DELTA TRIBES AND ADVOCATES:
Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians:
“Delta tribes deserve a responsible and equitable approach to water management in the state that does not require jamming a tunnel through the Delta, destroying our ancestral homelands and waterways, or desecrating sacred sites and ancestral remains. Our culture and identities are intrinsically tied to the Delta. There is no price tag worth paying that would ever justify the harm done to us or the unquantifiable costs that Tribes and disadvantaged communities would ultimately bear.”
Gary Mulcahy, Governmental Liaison of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe:
“Where is the accountability for Governor Newsom who is once again circumventing law, when the people in the State of California have made it clear that they do not want a tunnel through the Delta. Newsom has designated Tribes as a special interest group, but his accountability plan doesn’t address the harm that Tribes will experience from the tunnel and the Voluntary Agreements for tribal beneficial uses and tribal cultural resources of the Delta watershed.”
Gloria E. Alonso Cruz, Environmental Justice Advocacy Coordinator, Little Manila Rising:
"The Delta Conveyance Project is a large-scale water diversion infrastructure that neglects the foreseen climate needs of recognized Disadvantaged Communities (DACs). These communities are interconnected by the waterways and cross multiple jurisdiction lines. The Project has failed to recognize this adequately, nor has it established long-overdue protections before proposing the project. Healthy ecosystems are necessary to cultivate healthy and thriving communities in California's largest estuary. As it stands, the project will only exacerbate current and future climate conditions in the most vulnerable portions of the Delta."
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director, Restore the Delta:
“Governor Newsom is putting lipstick on a pig. His $100 billion tunnel will harm tribes and communities from Sacramento all the way down to Los Angeles. Let’s not forget: the U.S. EPA is still investigating a Title VI civil rights complaint against the Newsom administration over how the Water Board continues to violate civil rights in all of these linked processes. Once again, this shows Newsom’s water plan is for billionaires, not for everyday people.”
