CALIFORNIA HAS ONE of the most ambitious and highly engineered water delivery systems on the planet, and it’s being eyed for a new extension. The Delta Conveyance Project is Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposal for a 45-mile underground tube that would tap fresh water from its source in the north and carry it beneath a vast wetland to users in the south.
The Delta is the exchange point for half of California’s water supply, and the tunnel is an extension of the State Water Project, which was built in the 1960s. It’s a 700-mile maze of aqueducts and canals that sends Delta water from the Bay Area down to farms and cities in Central and Southern California.
This is a local story about a global issue, the future of water. In a three-part series of field reports and podcasts, Bay City News reporter Ruth Dusseault looks at the tunnel’s stakeholders, its engineering challenges, and explores the preindustrial Delta and its future restoration.
Ruth is joined by Felicia Marcus, the Landreth Visiting Fellow in Stanford’s Water in the West program and former chair of the California Water Resources Control Board.
PART 1: TAKING ON WATER — WHAT’S AT STAKE
This first episode highlights the political tensions surrounding California’s Delta Conveyance Tunnel. Stakeholders, including cities, farmers, tribes, and environmentalists, have formed unlikely alliances. Proponents argue the tunnel is vital for securing water for the state, but critics fear it could disrupt long-standing water rights, favoring Southern California’s urban areas over the Delta’s environment and agriculture. The issue reflects the broader struggle over water resources in California, complicated by climate change and population growth.
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PART 2: ON THE CUTTING EDGE — BEHIND THE TECH
If permits are granted, funding is secured, lawsuits are overcome and five years of preparatory infrastructure completed, then construction on the tunnel will commence in 2035. This second episode offers an in-depth look at what the tunnel is and the logistics of its construction through an interview with Steve Minassian, chief engineer for the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority. Minassian describes the process, locations and implications of the operation using four tunnel boring machines.
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PART 3: LOOKING BACK — SAVING THE LOST DELTA
Restoring the Delta in a way that will save water requires a look back at its preindustrial state, to a time before the region was transformed by gold mining and agriculture. Chuck Bonham, head of California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, advocates for reconnecting rivers with floodplains. This episode focuses on restoration efforts using western scientific management. It asks whether that management can be enhanced by traditional ecological knowledge sustained for centuries by indigenous Delta communities.
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This series is a production of Bay City News, presented in collaboration with Climate One and Northern California Public Media. For more on this story and other news in the Greater Bay Area, visit localnewsmatters.org.
Special thanks
Dan Rosenheim, Kat Rowlands, Jonathan Westerling, Monica Campbell, Marco Werman, Katharine Meiszkowski, Kurt, Max, Quinn and Nick Wenner.
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