Why are top California Democrats ducking Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Delta tunnel project? | Opinion

The three top Democrats seeking to replace the late Dianne Feinstein in the United States Senate managed to clearly answer every question California’s McClatchy opinion team recently managed to pose. Except for one.

It happened to deal with one of Feinstein’s signature issues: Water.

Opinion

Here was the question: “Climate change is requiring California to adapt its water management and develop new supplies. What is your position on Governor Newsom’s Delta Conveyance Project…?”

One said yes. Two said they were studying the matter.

Asked the identical question, our incumbent Senator, Alex Padilla, said he was analyzing a recently-published environmental document.

Three out of four of California’s leading Democrats are flunking a key leadership test.

The Sacramento San-Joaquin Delta is ground zero in California water. It is home to the two largest water diversion projects that two-thirds of the state depends on. It is one of the hemisphere’s most important estuaries. Nowhere are the interests of the California environment and economy so intertwined and complicated.

The Delta Conveyance Project is the governor’s so-called “single tunnel” proposal to keep moving water north to south through the State Water Project, with new intakes upstream (and at higher elevation) in the northern Delta and a 35-mile tunnel to transport the supply to the California Aqueduct.

Whether this project is built or not is a big deal. One way or the other, it reshapes the water future of most voters in this state.

It’s shocking how little our leaders have to say.

Only Barbara Lee, the congresswoman from Oakland who seeks to replace Feinstein in the Senate, had a clear, but nuanced answer. “I agree with what the governor is doing, but I think we have to look at the water challenge here in California from a variety of perspectives…My perspective on our water policy is about making sure that it’s clean and it’s equitable.”

Congressman Adam Schiff of Burbank, meanwhile, is still in listening mode.

“I’ll be the first to admit I’m not an expert on the proposal, and I’m meeting with stakeholders to evaluate the benefits and the liability of it,” he said. “I want to make sure I understand it before I give a definitive opinion on it.”

Congresswoman Katie Porter of Irvine is busy listening as well.

“My goal would be to hear from all of the critical stakeholders about whether this project will actually meet the goals while trying to drive home agreement across stakeholders with the goals of making our water infrastructure more secure and making sure we can get water where we need it when we need it,” she said.

Senator Alex Padilla, meanwhile, says he is busy reading.

“Since entering the Senate, I have engaged extensively with a wide variety of stakeholders to help secure access to clean, reliable, and affordable water for all Californians,” he said. “That is the approach I am taking as I analyze the recent (Department of Water Resources) environmental impact report regarding the Delta Conveyance Project, as well as future budget projections as they become available.”

None of these leaders are short of platitudes about climate change being important.

Yet here is the paradox.

Nobody representing California can lead on climate change if they do not lead on water. And nobody can lead on water without a clear vision on how to deal with the troubled heart of our water system in the Delta.

There are only two basic plumbing answers.

Opposing new intakes upstream in the northern Delta means phasing out, likely over decades, California’s largest water projects due to sea level rise. A water supply for more than 26 million Californians comes from a source in the southern Delta that is now only 3 feet above today’s sea level. An opponent would need a new vision to replace this supply over time and to phase out more San Joaquin Valley agriculture, for it has no other conceivable source.

Supporting the project means figuring out a way to pay for it (an outdated cost estimate of $16 billion awaits updating). Then there is how to operate this new system amid ever-changing conditions, with Delta regions plagued by toxic summer algal blooms and iconic native fish species such as salmon facing extinction absent a dramatic turnaround. A supporter would need a vision on how to manage dwindling Sierra supplies, a changing Delta and water demands.

Schiff’s self-proclaimed unfamiliarity with the Delta is of particular note. His ignorance about the project is purely a chosen condition. He was a California state senator for four years and is now in his 23rd year in Congress. That is enough time for Schiff to have achieved a modicum of water literacy.

Porter has no excuse either.

And as for Padilla, I somehow doubt he is staying up at night reading any of the thousands of pages of the Delta Conveyance Project Final Environmental Impact Report in search of what to say.

Padilla’s indecision says something very unflattering about the person who appointed him. Gavin Newsom doesn’t appear to be lobbying party peers like Padilla very hard for his project. And if Newsom has been searching for friends, he has been wildly unsuccessful. A failure for Newsom in water erases any climate change legacy.

The late Feinstein supported Newsom’s pursuit of one tunnel while eventually opposing the two tunnels sought by his predecessor, Jerry Brown. Her passing has left a massive leadership vacuum in California when it comes to water.

Yet the math and the polls suggest that California will soon be led by two United States senators who duck the state’s toughest water question. The prospect leaves one imagining Feinstein, incensed, rolling in her grave.

The incomplete water policies of Schiff, Porter and Padilla are existential threats to their climate change agendas and California. Credit Barbara Lee for offering a position, right or wrong, that voters can judge. It’s time for leaders to lead.