Rep. Josh Harder Reintroduces Bill to Stop Delta Tunnel

WASHINGTON – As the Gavin Newsom Administration attempts to advance the Delta Conveyance Project, also known as the Delta Tunnel, Rep. Josh Harder (Democrat CA-09) reintroduced legislation to finally kill this “disastrous boondoggle once and for all.” 

 The Stop the Delta Tunnel Act would prohibit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) from issuing a federal permit necessary for the project to be implemented, according to a press release from Harder’s Office.

 On February 13, the bill was referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Harder used some of his strongest language yet in opposition to the Delta Tunnel upon the reintroduction of the bill.

“In the latest chapter of this boondoggle, Sacramento is attempting to jam through the Delta Tunnel by changing water right permits, despite the fact that these permits expired over 15 years ago. Sacramento is wasting time and making up its own permitting rules in a desperate effort to advance a project that won't create a single drop of water,” according to Harder.

 “This all comes at a time when dozens of water projects in the Valley need permitting and would actually create and store the water our communities need. And over the weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the project received an additional permit, making it clear that Sacramento politicians will try anything they can to steal our water and leave us with the bill,” stated Harder.

 “I’m sick and tired of politicians in Sacramento spending more time on the same tired playbook and not enough time expanding everyone’s water access,” said Rep. Harder. “Make no mistake – this zombie project is a shameful heist designed to steal water from Delta communities with no regard to the devastation it will cause. Today we introduced the Stop the Delta Tunnel Act because our economy and our communities depend on stopping this water grab.”

 “First proposed more than 60 years ago, the Delta Tunnel is a monstrous zombie project that would cause irreparable damage to Delta communities. Sacramento’s own findings revealed that the project would cost over $20 billion in taxpayer dollars just to build, and if completed would cause $167 million in damages to Delta agriculture, air quality, and infrastructure,”  Harder revealed.

 “In a callous admission of real risks of this project, the state has even established a bribe program to placate outraged communities that are in the direct path of this manmade crisis,” concluded Harder.

Rep. Harder has been a vocal leader in the fight against the Delta Tunnel, according to Harder’s Office. He has:

 Held multiple town halls to amplify the voices of Valley farmers and families.

• Led a major demonstration at the State Capitol in Sacramento alongside environmental activists, agriculture leaders, and concerned citizens.
• Pressed federal agencies to deny permits for the project.

 In the last year alone, the cost of the Delta Tunnel has ballooned by 25%, according to Harder.

Read more about the bill here: https://bit.ly/4197bdM

 The Delta Tunnel project is opposed by a broad coalition of Tribes, fishing groups, environmental justice organizations, conservation groups, Southern California ratepayers, five Delta Counties, scientists and elected officials. They say the project will hasten the extinction of Sacramento River winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species, as well as wreak havoc on Delta Tribal and environmental justice communities. 

 The reintroduction  of the Stop the Delta Tunnel Act comes as Delta Smelt, an indicator species that has been villainized by Donald Trump and his acolytes for supposedly being a “worthless fish,” have been caught in the CDFW Fall Midwater Trawl Survey in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for the seventh year in a row: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/...

Meanwhile, salmon fishing on California’s ocean and river waters has been closed for the past two years and may be closed again this year, due to the collapse of Sacramento River and Klamath River fall-run Chinook salmon populations. Likewise, Sacramento River winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon are moving closer and closer to extinction, due to massive water exports from the Delta and other factors.

Conservationists and scientists say the Delta Tunnel, by diverting more water from the Sacramento River before it flows through the Delta, will only further exacerbate the critical situation that Delta fish species and Central Valley salmon populations are now in.

 In the first of several planned State Water Resources Control Board hearings, California Water Impact Network board member and senior policy advisor Max Gomberg testified yesterday that Governor Newsom’s proposed $20+ billion Delta Conveyance Project – popularly known as the Delta Tunnel – would undermine the public interest and further harm ratepayers, communities, and the environment,

 “We are living in a time of crisis, both political and environmental,” said Gomberg. “The impacts of these crises fall disproportionately on marginalized people and places already suffering from the greatest environmental degradation. The Delta Conveyance Project would result in even further harm to them and foreclose other investments and strategies for generations.”