Delta group requests legislative audit of DWR funding of Delta Tunnel project

At a time when Governor Newsom’s May revision budget proposal would have slashed overtime pay for caregivers, consumer access to care and nursing home oversight, the controversial Delta Tunnel that he wants to build is already costing taxpayers $1 million per day, according to the Department of Water Resources, or DWR.

Restore the Delta, a conservation group based in Stockton, has decided that it’s time for an audit. The group recently submitted a formal request to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee urging a full audit of DWR spending on the project formally known as Delta Conveyance Project, as well as its associated Voluntary Agreements.

“The request comes amid rising public costs, incomplete project plans, and growing legal and environmental concerns,” Restore the Delta said in a statement.

According to the letter, DWR will have spent nearly $1 billion on various iterations of tunnel project planning, with projected construction costs exceeding $20 billion before inflation or unforeseen expenses.

“Yet the project lacks a finalized operations plan, an enforceable environmental impact report, and relies on expired water rights,” the group pointed out. “Additionally, questions regarding refunds due to water agencies from DWR in the hundred of millions of dollars remain unanswered.”

The Restore the Delta’s letter states:

"Various iterations of the Delta Conveyance project have been proposed over decades, including the peripheral canal, BDCP, WaterFix, and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, all of which faced significant opposition from Tribes, the public, and environmental groups. Rejected by California voters in 1981, this project continues to be pushed forward under the guise of a ‘climate solution,’ but inflexible, grey infrastructure that negatively impacts the Delta is antiquated and ill equipped to handle the anticipated extreme range of hydrological changes. Despite this, DWR has spent nearly $700 million in public funding on these numerous iterations of the ‘Tunnel’ over the past 15 years, and proposes at least $20.1 billion in construction costs before inflation, tariffs and other unforeseen costs."

"As stated by Director of DWR, Karla Nemeth, at the April 3, 2025 Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 2 hearing, the project is currently costing $1 million each day. Additionally, there are unanswered questions for the public regarding hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds due to State Water Contractors from DWR, and problematic findings in Urban Management Water Plans approved by DWR for Southern California water districts indicating multiple violations of current water codes."

Restore the Delta also highlights that modeling for the tunnel assumes the unapproved Voluntary Agreements will move forward – despite broad opposition from tribes, environmental justice groups and fishing communities, not to mention evidence that these agreements violate state water law and environmental protections.

“California cannot afford to throw billions of public dollars at a project that doesn’t have legal, environmental, or fiscal footing,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta. “The public deserves transparency, and the Legislature must hold DWR accountable for its use of taxpayer funds, its disregard for the Delta’s communities, and its ongoing failures to comply with state law.”

The request for a legislative audit of the Delta Tunnel was proposed as the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary is in its worst-ever crisis, as evidenced by the closure of commercial salmon fishing off the California Coast for an unprecedented third year in a row, due to the collapse of the Sacramento and Klamath River Fall Chinook Salmon populations. Meanwhile, Sacramento River Spring Chinook and Winter Chinook Salmon — listed under both the state and federal endangered species acts — continue to decline.

Independent experts say the Delta Tunnel will only make the ecological crisis in the Delta even worse, since the project will divert vast quantities of water out of the Sacramento River before it flows through the Delta — when what the fish and ecosystem need is reduced water exports out of the estuary to agribusiness and Southern California water agencies.

The testimony of DWR engineer Amardeep Singh reveals that the DCP, or Delta Tunnel, will increase water deliveries by 22%, according to an analysis by the California Water Impact Network, or C-WIN.

“DCP operation will not decrease water supply for Central Valley Project (CVP) contractors and will increase water supply for SWP Table A contractors by 22 percent,” Singh states on page 2 of his testimony.

Moreover, during drought periods when fish are already strained by low flows and high temperatures, the DCP would increase deliveries by 24%.

The data from the Pacific Fishery Management Council documents the abysmal situation that Sacramento River Fall Chinook Salmon, once the driver of the West Coast salmon fishery, and the Spring and Winter Chinook are now in.

Between 1996-2005 the average return for fall-run Chinook on the mainstem Sacramento River was 79,841 spawning salmon. In 2023 that number fell drastically to only 3,560 salmon – a 95% decline, according to an analysis by the Golden State Salmon Association.

Spring-run Chinook have also experienced a staggering 95% decline due to a lack of cold water flows in Central Valley salmon rivers. The average wild and hatchery spring-run return plummeted from 28,238 fish in 2021 to just 1,231 salmon in 2023.

For the seventh year in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife also found no Delta Smelt in its Fall Midwater Trawl Survey of the estuary. The Delta Smelt is an indicator species, one that indicates the relative health of the Sacramento River-San Joaquin River Delta. When no Delta Smelt, once the abundant fish found in the estuary, are found in a survey that has been conducted since 1967, you know that the estuary is in an unprecedented ecological crisis.