Stop the Delta Tunnel before it becomes another High Speed Rail | Opinion
The Delta Tunnel project is shaping up to financially mirror California’s out-of-control High Speed Rail project: failing to deliver on promised increases in water supply while also threatening the state’s largest and most fragile estuary.
The Legislature had a crucial opportunity to demand accountability and transparency before even more money was spent, but declined to schedule a state audit hearing of the project for early June.
This is on top of the Legislative Audit Committee also failing to schedule a vote on an audit of the Department of Water Resources’ spending on the Delta Tunnel last year as well. The audit was requested by Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, D-Stockton, and would have provided long overdue scrutiny of one of the state’s most costly infrastructure proposals.
Yet, at the same time, lawmakers are considering Assembly Bill 2215, a bill that seeks to extend the Department of Water Resources’ water rights permit for the State Water Project through 2046, which would clear the way for controversial projects like the Delta Tunnel without proper regulatory oversight.
The Tunnel — which was formerly known as the Delta Conveyance Project — has become a multibillion dollar boondoggle that California simply cannot afford.
To date, the Department of Water Resources has already spent more than $700 million on planning and public engagement related to the project and its previous iterations. Despite these staggering costs, critical information remains inaccessible to the public and major questions remain unanswered, including whether the Department of Water Resources has exercised proper fiscal oversight and whether hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent responsibly?
Californians deserve to know where their money is going.
Costs continue to spiral and enormous hurdles remain before construction on the Tunnel could even begin. The project still faces unresolved water rights issues, a massive price tag, unclear financing plans and a lack of commitments from water agencies to fund it.
The parallels to High Speed Rail are becoming impossible to ignore. But, unlike High Speed Rail, the costs extend beyond taxpayers’ wallets to the ecological future of the Bay-Delta estuary — the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas and a critical ecosystem that supports fisheries, tribes, farming communities, wildlife and regional economies across California.
The project is a massive water diversion scheme that would exacerbate an already declining Delta, suffering from harmful algal blooms, degraded water quality and collapsing fish populations. Diverting even more water through the proposed tunnel would further destabilize this fragile ecosystem and jeopardize the communities and industries that depend on healthy water flows.
Despite these environmental and financial hazards, efforts to force the project forward continue by any means necessary. The State Water Contractors are backing AB 2215 as a legislative workaround to the Department of Water Resources’ expired water rights associated with the Delta Tunnel, yet another attempt to bypass proper regulatory process at the State Water Resources Control Board.
The contradiction in state policy is striking: The Newsom administration recently celebrated the restoration of salmon habitat on the Klamath River, but simultaneously champion a massive tunnel project that would divert freshwater away from the Delta and further threaten fish populations and the communities that rely on a healthy Bay-Delta.
A full audit is a critical first step toward restoring transparency and accountability.
Californians deserve a clear understanding of how taxpayer and ratepayer dollars are being spent, especially on projects with such profound financial and environmental consequences.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla is executive director of Restore the Delta.
This story was originally published June 8, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Stop the Delta Tunnel before it becomes another High Speed Rail | Opinion."