California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
At the 90th annual Sacramento Hot Breakfast, hosted by the California Chamber of Commerce, Governor Jerry Brown discussed his plans for two water diversion tunnels. According to Brown, these tunnels would protect California’s economy from tanking.
Along the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a number of levees and berms are aging, which are “going to crash at some point.” Governor Brown estimates the economic loss in the state would be in the hundreds of billions of dollars should those levees and berms break.
Brown’s plan would divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the south. The two tunnels would run 30 miles long and pull water from the Sacramento River to diversion canals near Tracy. The idea is that the tunnels would help deliver water from the Delta to more than 25 million residents and 3 million acres of farmland.
The projected cost of the project is around $300 million, significantly higher than the original $8 million price tag.
