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The Delta Tunnel Will Burden Urban Water Users and Subsidize Corporate Players [1]
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Date: 2025-04-29
The cost of living in California has always been high – and it’s getting worse for low-income and working-class residents.
“While the focus typically is on housing, home energy and food, water costs often go overlooked. But water rates have been rising quickly across the state, further stressing household budgets and necessitating public response,” according to a press release from the California Water Impact Network:
“In Southern California, urban water agencies have been making critical investments in conservation and local water supplies to buffer against intensifying droughts triggered by climate change. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state provided over $385 million in water debt relief.” [1]
“Managing the impacts of these investments on water bills has been a significant challenge, but Governor Newsom nevertheless is aggressively pushing for the construction of the Delta Tunnel – also known as the Delta Conveyance Project – which could cost upward of $40 billion after the inevitable construction cost overruns and interest on bonds.
“The Delta Conveyance Project would send already high rates skyrocketing, with no plan for mitigating water bill impacts to ratepayers. In fact, when presented with a bill to create a low-income water payment assistance program, Governor Newsom vetoed it.” [2]
“It’s really an insult to hardworking Californians struggling to make ends meet to claim the DCP is necessary to achieve water security,” said Max Gomberg, a California Water Impact Network Board Member and the group’s Senior Policy Advisor.
“People and businesses that have heeded the calls for conservation should not be burdened with higher bills for this project,” said Gomberg. “We can have water security for Southern California at a much lower cost by expanding recycled water capacity and redirecting water now used to grow alfalfa in the desert.”
Gomberg noted Newsom is pushing the tunnel because it would allow continued subsidization of corporate agriculture in Kern County and development in inland Southern California.
“These subsidies would be paid for by ratepayers in cities from Los Angeles to San Diego, who would get minimal water benefit for their ‘investment’,” Gomberg said.
Gomberg said the Newsom administration should quit trying to gaslight Californians about the Delta Conveyance Project and pursue alternative strategies that are equitable, cost-effective and environmentally sound.
“We cannot have a comprehensive affordability conversation in California without talking about the overwhelming economic burden this project would create,” said Gomberg. “We need leadership that prioritizes helping people make ends meet over receiving campaign contributions from corporate donors.”
Newsom’s push for the Delta Tunnel may have something to do with the fact that Beverly Hills Billionaires Linda and Stewart Resnick, owners of the Wonderful Company and the largest orchard fruit growers in the world, are among the largest contributors to Governor Newsom and hosted his 2022 anti-recall campaign in a fundraising letter. The Resnicks have donated a total of $431,600 to Governor Gavin Newsom since 2018, including $250,000 to Stop The Republican Recall Of Governor Newsom and $64,800 to Newsom For California Governor 2022. Newsom received a total of $755,198 in donations from agribusiness in the 2018 election cycle, based on the data from www.followthemoney.org. That figure includes a combined $116,800 from Stewart and Lynda Resnick and $58,400 from E.J. Gallo, combined with $579,998 in the agriculture donations category. But the Resnicks are also huge contributors to the University of California system. In 2019 they made a donation of $750 million to CalTech and in 2022 made a $50 million donation to UC Davis, in addition to contributing millions to UCLA, CSU Fresno and other universities over the years. The Resnicks have pushed for increased water exports from the Delta for agribusiness and the construction of the Delta Tunnel for many years.
The Resnicks have donated many millions of dollars to both the Democratic and Republican parties and to candidates for both parties over the years. They were instrumental in the creation of the Monterey Amendment, a 1994 pact between Department of Water Resources and State Water Project contractors, that allowed them to obtain their 57 percent stake in the Kern Water Bank:
https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/monterey-amendment
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