California’s most hotly contested water proposal suffered a setback Monday after a budget deal reached between Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers dropped a provision that would have put the project on a regulatory fast track.
It means more uncertainty for the Delta Conveyance project, a 45-mile tunnel that would pull water from the Sacramento River and pipe it underneath the environmentally fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — the water supply source for 27 million people and millions of acres of farmland in the Bay Area and Southern California.
Various versions of the project have been on state drawing boards for decades. The current iteration is staunchly opposed by environmentalists who says it poses a threat to Delta communities and already-endangered wildlife, while proponents are resigned to more years of debate.
