Cali Voters To Determine Future Of Gov. Brown's Water Tunnel Plan

A measure expected to appear on California ballots next year could have a major impact on water policy in the drought-ridden state.

The proposal “would require voter approval of many large public works projects, including Gov. Jerry Brown’s twin-tunnel plan to divert water south around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The measure is essentially a “tunnel-killing initiative,” according to the Central Valley Business Times. Farmer and food processor Dean Cortopassi and his wife, Joan, are among its top backers. They “have bankrolled the No Blank Checks Initiative ballot effort, pumping $4 million into the petition drive, consultants and other expenses since March,” The Fresno Bee reported. The pair opposes the tunnel project.

Brown was critical of the ballot initiative, along with labor unions and business interests. “They contend it would torpedo many infrastructure projects. There could be some, such as dams partly paid for by water users,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

In a nutshell, here is Brown’s proposed water project, which could be delayed or even scuttled as a result of the ballot measure: “The Bay Delta Conservation Plan calls for building two underground tunnels, 40 feet across and 30 miles long, to send water from the Sacramento River around the Delta. The water currently irrigates 3 million acres of farmland in the Central Valley and serves 25 million people as far south as San Diego,” the Associated Press reported.

The proposed tunnel project is a divisive issue in California.

"Decades of fights among government and water agencies, environmentalists and farmers, in courtrooms and conference rooms have brought California to this place," The San Francisco Examiner reported. For the California Department of Water Resources, it amounts to the “most ambitious water project ever," as KPCC put it.

The ballot initiative “also blocks creative financing by politicians of massive projects by prohibiting dividing projects into multiple separate projects to avoid statewide voter approval requirement,” the report said.

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