Delta communities call the plan a water grab that would devastate one of the country\u2019s largest estuaries and destroy towns, wildlife and generational farms.<\/a> State officials and major water suppliers say it\u2019s necessary to safeguard water for two-thirds of Californians against the threats of climate change and natural disasters. <\/p>\n Tasked with refereeing the fight, a state agency called the Delta Stewardship Council weighed opponents\u2019 many challenges to the project and last month voted 6-to-1<\/a> to require the Department of Water Resources to address just two of them. <\/p>\n Newsom declared victory,<\/a> saying \u201cwe are closer than ever to seeing this important piece of infrastructure completed.\u201d <\/p>\n Maybe closer than ever, California water watchers say, but still far from complete. Far bigger obstacles loom: court rulings that have upended California\u2019s financing plans, critical water rights decisions still to come from state regulators, and water agencies that have yet to decide whether the tunnel\u2019s water will be worth the cost. <\/p>\n \u201cThese are all existential,\u201d said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. \u201cYou\u2019ve got some pretty tough hurdles ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n A dying Delta<\/p>\n The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is the heart of California\u2019s nature-defying water systems, where state and federal pumps send Northern California river water coursing to cities and farms in the lower half of the state. <\/p>\n The Delta is collapsing under the strain<\/a> \u2014 racked by algal blooms, degraded water quality and fish species spiraling toward extinction. Residents, environmentalists and the fishing industry<\/a> fear that diverting freshwater through a tunnel will push it over the edge. <\/p>\n Voters beat back<\/a> the first-generation tunnel \u2014 a peripheral canal \u2014 in the 1980s, during Gov. Jerry Brown\u2019s first stint as governor. But governor after governor has continued the push.<\/a> The canal eventually became the twin tunnels that became Newsom\u2019s Delta Conveyance Project, which remains mired in planning. <\/p>\n Carrie Buckman, environmental program manager for the tunnel project at the Department of Water Resources, is optimistic that construction could start as soon as 2029 and would last around 13 years.<\/p>\n But with Newsom in his last year as governor,<\/a> the clock is ticking. And the region\u2019s residents continue in limbo \u2014 bracing for a project that would carve through their communities, farms and waterways. <\/p>\n \u201cNobody seems to care about the people out here on the ground,\u201d said Duane Martin Jr., a third-generation cattleman in the Delta.<\/p>\n Duane Martin stands on April 22 near the Sacramento County pasture, southwest of Elk Grove, where he has grazed cattle for 20 years, and where California water managers plan to build a major construction complex for the Delta tunnel.<\/p>\n (Miguel Gutierrez Jr. \/ CalMatters)<\/p>\n Martin steered his pickup down country roads, along the orchards and pastures of Sacramento County. Great egrets strutted the edges of fields to snatch small, struggling creatures from the grass, and red-winged blackbirds clung to golden stalks of mustard. <\/p>\n Martin worries for his cattle operation. His father was a cattleman. His grandfather was a cattleman. Now a father himself, his daughters\u2019 cattle graze in the pasture outside his home. <\/p>\n He\u2019s outraged by the prospect of the truck traffic, the noise, the churn of the concrete batch plant and the roughly 200-acre pile of tunnel muck planned for land where he\u2019s been grazing cattle for decades. <\/p>\n But more than that, he said, gruff beneath his Stetson, \u201cIt\u2019s the community that they\u2019re going to impact \u2014 those of us that have lived here most of our lives.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to change the Delta area forever.\u201d <\/p>\n Martin, a third-generation cattleman, bought his first cows when he was 10 with money he borrowed from his grandfather. Now, his daughters\u2019 cattle graze in the pasture outside his Delta home.<\/p>\n (Miguel Gutierrez Jr. \/ CalMatters)<\/p>\n An unending water war<\/p>\n The Delta\u2019s vulnerability is real: levees are at risk of crumbling under age, earthquakes and climate-fueled storms; sea level rise threatens to flood the system with too much saltwater. <\/p>\n For Buckman, it\u2019s simple: As climate change makes California\u2019s swings from wet to dry more extreme, \u201cIt\u2019s about water supply.\u201d<\/p>\n Mount, like the water suppliers supporting the project, believes construction is inevitable. \u201cIf you don\u2019t build it in this generation, you\u2019ll build it in the next,\u201d he said. \u201cBuild a tunnel, or start a very painful process of really cutting back on water supplies from the Delta.\u201d <\/p>\n The costs are high; around $20.1 billion<\/a> by the Department of Water Resources\u2019 estimate, $60 billion to more than $100 billion,<\/a> by an economic assessment commissioned by opponents. <\/p>\n California doesn\u2019t yet have a way to pay for it. State water managers planned to issue revenue bonds, to be paid back by water agencies receiving water from the tunnel \u2014 and their customers. <\/p>\n But a trial court said that the water code did not give the Water Resources \u201ccarte blanche to do as it wishes\u201d and the financing plan \u201cexceeded its delegated authority.\u201d The Third District Court of Appeal agreed, and in April, the California Supreme Court refused to review the case.<\/a> <\/p>\n Buckman said that the department still plans to issue bonds and is figuring out its next steps. <\/p>\n As yet, no water agency has committed to paying for a tunnel \u2014 and no agency likely will, until the department can finance it, according to Kelley Taber, an attorney representing tunnel opponents. <\/p>\n The federal government and the powerful irrigation districts it supplies have already opted out, Buckman said.<\/p>\n The Delta community of Isleton, visible from the banks of the Sacramento River, on April 1, 2025.<\/p>\n (Miguel Gutierrez Jr. \/ CalMatters)<\/p>\n \u201cAg, at large, cannot afford to pay for large infrastructure projects,\u201d said Jennifer Pierre, general manager for the State Water Contractors, an association of public water agencies that receive water from California\u2019s massive delivery system, the State Water Project. But she said the costs don\u2019t diminish the need. <\/p>\n That leaves the bulk of the bill with urban water suppliers and their customers. <\/p>\n Metropolitan Water District, the Southern California water import giant that supplies half the state\u2019s population, is already paying nearly half the tunnel\u2019s planning costs \u2014 but it\u2019s also heavily investing<\/a> in local recycled water supplies. <\/p>\n Its board isn\u2019t expected to vote on whether to shoulder much of the tunnel\u2019s construction costs until 2027.<\/a> No construction commitment before then means no commitment before a new governor takes office.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, major water rights questions remain unresolved. <\/p>\n State regulators are holding hearings<\/a> that could last through the summer about whether to allow the Department of Water Resources to divert Sacramento River water into the proposed tunnel intakes. <\/p>\n Newsom has advocated for a Delta tunnel<\/a> since his first days as governor. Four Newsom appointees sit on the seven-member Delta Stewardship Council that just advanced the tunnel project, minus a couple of speed bumps. He has also championed unsuccessful legislative fixes to financing and other roadblocks.<\/a> <\/p>\n The question is whether the next governor will continue the push. Pierre said they must \u2014 the need for the tunnel is clear. <\/p>\n Mount isn\u2019t as sure. It will depend on the next governor\u2019s priorities \u2014 and who they put in key leadership positions. <\/p>\n \u201cWhoever they appoint, that is really where it happens,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to imagine that if Brown and\/or Newsom weren\u2019t all in on this, it would have gotten this far.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018They\u2019re gonna have to take it\u2019<\/p>\n Martin pulls his pickup to the side of the road next to a lush pasture he leases that\u2019s more prairie than Pacific. This is one of the next battlegrounds for the tunnel project. <\/p>\n In the spring and summer, Martin grazes hundreds of cows and their calves here. And in the winter, the Sacramento Area Sewer District plans to pipe recycled water onto the fields, creating seasonal feeding grounds and rest stops for the protected<\/a> sandhill crane and other birds traveling the Pacific Flyway.<\/a> <\/p>\n It\u2019s part of the largest agricultural recycled water project in the state, Harvest Water,<\/a> to provide highly treated wastewater to 16,000 acres of farmland in the region and take the pressure off local groundwater supplies. <\/p>\n California has already awarded more than $400 million for Harvest Water, but the funding hinges on the environmental benefits like habitat the project will provide, according to the sewer district\u2019s Jofil Borja. It\u2019s an ideal spot, between the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge and the Cosumnes River Preserve. <\/p>\n And that\u2019s where it runs up against the tunnel project. The pastures where Martin grazes his cattle and the sewer district plans to create seasonal habitat are also in the Department of Water Resources\u2019 sights. State water managers plan to build a nearly 600-acre construction complex \u2014 with a permanent 214-acre mound of excavated tunnel materials up to 15 feet tall \u2014 right here.<\/a><\/p>\n A sign for the Sacramento Area Sewer District, which is working on a major recycled water project to irrigate farmland and create wildlife habitat in the Delta.<\/p>\n (Miguel Gutierrez Jr. \/ CalMatters)<\/p>\n \u201cYou tell me if you want to be the neighbor that lives right there, lookin\u2019 out his frontyard at this pile of muck,\u201d Martin said, gesturing at a house across the road. Right now, its view is a sea of grass that disappears into a darker line of trees. <\/p>\n In refereeing the fight over this land, the Delta Stewardship Council last month ordered the Department of Water Resources to resolve its conflicts with Harvest Water over the site, or explain why that isn\u2019t possible, the council\u2019s staff report said.<\/a> <\/p>\n Kelley Taber, the attorney representing the sewer district, is celebrating the mixed victory. <\/p>\n \u201cI always thought that this was going to be [the department\u2019s] Achilles heel,\u201d Taber said. Among the \u201cmultitude of disastrous impacts to the Delta,\u201d she said, it\u2019s \u201cthe most obvious fatal flaw.\u201d <\/p>\n Buckman disputed staff\u2019s assessment of the siting conflict in a letter to the council, saying that the tunnel project can\u2019t avoid the entire Harvest Water footprint, and that the habitats don\u2019t exist yet. But, she added, the department would \u201cwork promptly\u201d to address the issue. <\/p>\n A barn and metal corrals on a ranch leased by Duane Martin for cattle grazing in the Delta region of Sacramento County, southwest of Elk Grove, on April 22, 2026. <\/p>\n (Miguel Gutierrez Jr.\/CalMatters)<\/p>\n If it does, to the council\u2019s satisfaction, state water managers will still need to buy or seize the land. The landowner declined to speak on the record.<\/p>\n Martin expects it will be a fight \u2014 and he\u2019s ready for it. Under eminent domain, the state can forcibly take property for a public purpose. The landowner can contest it. But he\u2019s unlikely to stop it. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re gonna have to take it,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of friends that leave, but I ain\u2019t about to quit. 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