(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
California Senate Rejects Governor Newsom's Delta Tunnel Budget Power Grab! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-10
On May 20, the California Legislative Delta Caucus urged leaders of the California Senate and Assembly to reject Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to fast-track the Delta Tunnel Project in the 2025-26 state budget.
In a letter to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate President Pro-Tempore Mike McGuire, Assembly Budget Chair Jesse Gabriel, and Senate Budget Chair Scott Wiener, along with Gov. Newsom, all of the Delta Caucus’ 15 members noted that the costly and destructive Delta Tunnel Project “is opposed by every city and county affected by it.”
“The bipartisan Delta Caucus is unanimous in strong opposition to the governor’s proposal to fast-track the Delta Tunnel, a $20 billion unaffordable project to be paid by ratepayers who are already struggling with the high cost of living in California. This project will destroy prime farmland, wreak havoc on the Delta region for a generation, and fail to solve the state’s water issues,” said Delta Caucus co-chairs, Senator Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, and Assemblywoman Lori D. Wilson, D-Suisun City. “We call on the Legislature to quickly reject the governor’s proposal. California should instead pursue less costly and destructive alternatives, including fortifying Delta levees and increasing water recycling and groundwater storage.”
A copy of the Delta Caucus’ is here: Delta Caucus Letter - Budget TBL 5.20.25.pdf
The Delta Caucus is a bipartisan group of legislators who represent counties of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The caucus members are Senator McNerney (D) (co-chair), Assemblywoman Wilson (D) (co-chair), Senator Roger Niello (R) (co-vice chair), Assemblymember Heath Flora (R) (co-vice chair), Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D), Senator Jesse Arreguín (D), Senator Angelique Ashby (D), Assemblymember Anamarie Ávila Farías (D), Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D), Senator Christopher Cabaldon (D), Senator Tim Grayson (D), Assemblymember Josh Hoover (R), Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D), Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen (D), and Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom (D).
While the trailer bill language has been rejected for the time being, the Governor will probably try to reintroduce similar language fast-tracking the Delta Tunnel and slashing environmental regulations in the legislative policy process.
Background: San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem in unprecedented collapse
The Senate Budget Subcommittee’s rejection of Newsom’s trailer bill language occurs 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.
Yet 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 Delta Conveyance Project (DCP) will increase water deliveries from the Delta by 22%, according to an analysis by the California Water Impact Network (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%: static1.squarespace.com/…
The data from the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) 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.
And spawner escapement in 2024 of endangered Sacramento River Winter Chinook, an endangered species under both the state and federal Endangered Species Acts, was estimated to be only 789 adults and 578 jacks (two-year-olds).
Delta Smelt is functionally extinct in the wild
I have written extensively about this in previous articles, but it’s crucial in understanding how bad the situation is in the once robust Bay-Delta estuary to review the current status of Delta Smelt and other pelagic species on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
For the seventh year in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife CDFW found no Delta Smelt in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl Survey in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in 2024. This 2 to 3 inch fish is an indicator species that has been villainized by Donald Trump and his corporate agribusiness allies for supposedly being a “worthless fish,”
It is significant that zero Delta smelt were caught in the survey despite the release of tens of thousands of hatchery-raised Delta smelt into the Delta over the past few years by the state and federal governments.
“The 2024 abundance index was 0 and continues the trend of no catch in the FMWT since 2017,” reported Taylor Rohlin, CDFW Environmental Scientist Bay Delta Region in a Jan. 2 memo to Erin Chappell, Regional Manager Bay Delta Region: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/...
“No Delta Smelt were collected from any stations during our survey months of September-December. While FMWT did not catch any Delta Smelt, it does not mean there were no smelt present, but the numbers are very low and below the effective detection threshold by most sampling methods,” she wrote.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/10/2327184/-California-Senate-Rejects-Governor-Newsom-s-Delta-Tunnel-Budget-Power-Grab?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
