Victory for Rivers: Court Blocks Delta Tunnel Funding
Project moves one step away from gravy and closer to grave.
River lovers got a belated holiday gift on the last day of 2025 when an appeals court upheld a lower court decision that denied the Department of Water Resources (DWR) the authority to issue revenue bonds to finance the Delta Tunnel (also known as the Delta Conveyance Project). The project would add new water diversion facilities on the Sacramento River in the Northern Delta and convey additional water for export to the south—to San Joaquin Valley agribusinesses and Southern California cities.
On December 31, the Third District Court of Appeal upheld the 2024 Sacramento County Superior Court decision that DWR lacked the authority to validate bond resolutions and revenue pledges. DWR’s actions were challenged broadly by public interest groups, local governments, and water users.
An aerial photo of the California Aqueduct, a major part of the State’s water infrastructure made to export water to Southern California, March 1, 1989. Credit: CA Dept. of Water Resources.
According to the appellate judges, the scope of the “Delta Program” for which DWR sought to validate bond financing “is so opaque and ill-defined as to afford DWR nearly unlimited discretion to specify the facilities for which the bonds will be issued” and that “the Bond Resolutions would give DWR authority to issue an unlimited amount of bonds to finance the work.” [Emphasis added.]
The decision places another hurdle in the way of approval of the Tunnel. Follow up bond resolutions by DWR are also being challenged in state court. Independent analyses project that the project’s costs are more likely in the $60 to $120 billion range, three to six times higher than the state’s official estimate.(1) Friends of the River is protesting DWR’s application to construct and operate the Tunnel, and along with many other opponents has been presenting expert testimony on how:
the increased water diversions from already over-used and over-allocated river systems will adversely affect river and estuary environments,
how it will incentivize even more water storage projects and transfers, and
how investments in locally self-reliant and climate resilient actions like water reuse and recycling are a better use of the public’s money.
Resources:
“Review and Economic Assessment of the Economic Issues Related to the Delta Conveyance Project,” ECOnorthwest, July 11, 2025.
