Letter from Sacramento: Californians to Newsom’s Tunnel: No Way!

Governor Gavin Newsom is having one of the toughest stretches of his political life. 

Being governor the last two years as the effects of climate change drive the largest and most deadly wildfires in California’s history has not been easy. Add to that a pandemic and life at the top looks pretty miserable. 

Then bring out the state’s extreme right-wing activists wielding a recall drive that starts gaining momentum and, well, oy. 

Hovering behind these big events, are smaller but still significant missteps by the governor himself that have not ended well. Take his water policy.

The governor has tried to follow the lead of his predecessor, former Governor Jerry Brown, and build his policy around a centerpiece that doesn’t make sense to most environmentalists. (Spoiler alert: A new survey suggests it doesn’t make sense to voters either.)

Newsom has embraced the notion of building a giant tunnel to drain and divert water from the rivers that flow into the San Francisco Bay-Delta before that water reaches the delta. It’s the latest in a many-decades-long push by big water users, including giant, wealthy agricultural corporations, to get more water out of the Northern California water system than is environmentally sustainable.

The Bay-Delta spans about 1,100 square miles where the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems meet the San Francisco Bay complex. It’s the largest estuary on the west coast of North America and boasts about 750 different wildlife and plant species, including salmon. A tunnel will certainly destroy the already struggling Bay-Delta ecosystem.

Sierra Club California opposes Newsom’s tunnel idea and actions Newsom has taken to try to accelerate the tunnel’s planning process. Those actions include slowing down a critical rulemaking about water flows in the rivers that feed the Delta, slow-walking opposition to former President Trump’s science-defying determination that a tunnel wouldn’t hurt the Delta ecosystem, and asking the courts to allow the state to float bonds to pick up a huge portion of the tab for the tunnel.

Now new polling suggests that the public is with us.

We recently commissioned a research firm to develop and conduct a public opinion survey to measure public attitudes toward the tunnel. The firm queried about 600 voters through a combination of online and telephone surveys. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points. 

The results found that a significant number of people around the state have not heard about or know very little about the tunnel and so didn’t have an opinion at the outset of the poll. A plurality of just 38 percent of all voters questioned supported the tunnel at the outset.

Those results changed dramatically as people learned more. Participants were presented with arguments supporting the tunnel and arguments opposing the tunnel, then more arguments supporting, and more counter arguments. 

The result: Strong majorities oppose the tunnel. 

A lot of interesting details about tunnel opposition emerged and you can find some of those in the summary memo about the results. But two things are especially worth noting.

First, no matter which part of the state people live in, they are concerned about the high price tag of the tunnel (at least $16 billion). They also are concerned that climate change and drought might make the tunnel essentially useless.

Earlier this month, the Delta Stewardship Council, a state agency, released its draft of the first volume of its report about climate adaptation and the Delta. The report notes that climate change will significantly reduce river flows off the Sierra snowpack and into the delta. In other words--our words--there won’t be water to capture upstream of the delta to send elsewhere in a climate changed world. Better to invest in local and regional projects to reduce, conserve and recycle.

Second, and personally most encouraging to me, is that the survey shows that Californians in every part of the state are concerned about the tunnel’s effect on the Bay-Delta ecosystem and wildlife. It’s more than just a cliche that Californians appreciate the natural world and the need to preserve it. 

The governor is on the wrong path on the tunnel. He still has time to turn around and take a different route. He ought to if he wants to respond to the public and the public interest. 

Newsom can forge a better water policy that doesn’t follow Jerry Brown’s misguided tunnel approach. He would be wise to start taking more counsel from the environmental groups the public looks to for guidance.

Sincerely,