Tunnel emerges as favored way to deliver Sacramento River water to the state
Matt Weiser
Sacramento Bee
02/11/2010
A giant tunnel now is the primary concept for delivering water from the Sacramento River to the rest of California.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a coalition of water agencies and nonprofit groups, agreed at its meeting in Sacramento today to pursue the tunnel idea. It now is the group's primary option for further study as a solution to freshwater delivery problems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The conservation plan is an effort by water agencies to obtain Endangered Species Act approval for massive new plumbing projects in the Delta. A draft of the full plan, including large habitat restorations projects, is not expected until the end of this year.
As American water projects go, this one will rank among the biggest ever.
As currently proposed, the tunnel would run about 35 miles from near the town of Hood, south of Sacramento, to water diversion pumps in the south Delta near Byron. It would be a pair of tunnels 150 feet underground, each about 33 feet in diameter. The twin tunnels could move 15,000 cubic feet of water per second, or about 10 times the flow in the American River today.
Estimated cost is $11.7 billion. Water agencies that receive the diverted water have agreed to pay for the project, a cost that would be passed on to ratepayers.
The project is needed because current water diversions from the Delta threaten several fish species. The present diversion method also is vulnerable to floods and rising sea level.
The tunnel is favored over a surface canal because it would minimize environmental harm on the surface and also drastically reduce the amount of land that must be acquired. That would reduce conflict with Delta residents, who almost universally oppose the project.
