Press Release Provided by State Water Contractors
On July 27th, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released a Draft Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIR) for the Delta Conveyance project – a single-tunnel proposal to modernize the existing State Water Project (SWP) infrastructure in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and a crucial part of the state’s Water Resilience Portfolio. The proposed Delta Conveyance Project is a key climate adaptation strategy that would ensure the SWP can capture, move and store water when it is available for the 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland that depend on it.
“We commend DWR for advancing the Delta Conveyance Project with the release of the Draft EIR. This project is critical to ensuring Californians have access to high-quality, affordable and reliable water supplies amidst the growing impacts of climate change. The Draft EIR clearly shows that the project has been downsized, refined and redesigned to avoid and reduce local impacts and address environmental concerns.
The State Water Contractors have built and strengthened local and regional projects to diversify and expand water supplies to serve their customers – efforts that rely on or complement SWP supplies. We need to make investments in resilient, updated water infrastructure in the Delta to respond to climate change and support local water supply projects. These investments are urgent, and the Delta Conveyance Project is the right project at the right time to modernize the SWP’s Delta infrastructure so that it can continue to provide the foundational source of water local agencies need to secure their water future.
We look forward to the public review process and moving this critical project forward.”
