People fishing in Elk Slough in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta near Courtland.
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry in the 1973 classic Magnum Force, a governor must know his limits.
Even a governor with little political opposition and a very friendly, usually cooperative legislature has limits to power.
This time Governor Gavin Newsom may have found his limits. Key lawmakers are fighting back against his late-introduced law to expedite construction of a highly controversial water tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
As is his pattern, Newsom attempts to squeeze through legislation at the last minute, denying lawmakers and the public adequate time to evaluate and discuss the proposal. This really gets on the nerves of lawmakers, whether they are leaders or backbenchers.
“It feels disrespectful to him [legislative] process,” said State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, at a Senate committee hearing on the governor’s proposal this month.
“To try to do something like this at the last minute on such a controversial issue is so inappropriate,” said Rep. Carlos Villapudua, D-Stockton.
Newsom waited until May 19 to propose outline infrastructure legislation for lawmakers to pass within five weeks as part of the annual state budget. What he proposes has nothing to do with the budget. But he can hold lawmakers’ favorite budget items hostage to their votes for his proposal
Newsom proposed a sweeping package of 11 bills that would facilitate the construction of clean energy, transportation and water projects, including the Delta Tunnel.
This would be achieved essentially by reducing environmental protection. Lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 would have to be completed within 270 days unless a judge determines it is impracticable. Such lawsuits can drag on for years.
Governors have tried for six decades to build this project in some form, but have been repulsed by grassroots activists or state voters.
The delta is California’s most important water hub, serving 27 million people and irrigating 3 million hectares.
“It’s the backbone of our state’s water system,” says Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the state agency for natural resources. “We have borrowed time at the Delta. It is highly vulnerable to saltwater intrusion and is at risk of sea rise as a result of climate change. And there is a risk of earthquakes.
Project opponents — particularly Delta residents, including farmers — claim that future saltwater intrusion is one reason the tunnel should not be built. It would siphon water from the fresher northern delta before it could flow through the saltier southern end, as it does now, pushing back the salt water intruding from San Francisco Bay.
The saltier water would be disastrous for Stockton, smaller Delta communities and agriculture, opponents say.
In terms of earthquake risk, no earthquake has ever damaged a dike in the delta and there are no major faults under the estuary. Anyway, couldn’t a major tremor damage an underground tunnel?
The fishing industry and boaters fear that reducing freshwater flow through the delta will decimate salmon stocks and exacerbate toxic algae that clog waterways in summer.
Villapudua authored a letter to Newsom and lawmakers, signed by 10 lawmakers from both parties, asking for the tunnel project to be removed from the governor’s package.
“It wasn’t very wise to include the delta,” says Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, a former natural resources secretary who helped persuade the then-governor to consider the delta. Jerry Brown’s failed twin tunnel project.
“A $16 billion project like [the tunnel] is likely to have a significant impact on a large, ecologically sensitive and important area. Something of this magnitude should not be rushed through an environmental assessment process.”
Oh yeah. The Cost: Virtually everyone knows that the price for this 45-mile, 39-foot-wide tunnel would be much higher than advertised. And so far there isn’t even any funding for it. Water users would pay.
Newsom should listen to Dirty Harry.
George Skelton is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
