Support for delta tunnel dropping in Kern County
Financial support for the controversial Delta Conveyance Project has been eroding among Kern County agricultural water districts over the past year and lost another significant chunk when the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District opted recently to cut its contribution by nearly 97% – from $4.6 million down to $146,000.
“We still believe it’s a good and viable project that needs to be built,” Wheeler Ridge General Manager Sheridan Nicholas said. “But it has become extremely difficult, especially for ag, with other expenses going up.”
“There’s only so much money to go around.”
– Semitropic Water Storage District General Manager Jason Gianquinto
Four other large State Water Project contractors in Kern are also considering lowering their participation levels as the Department of Water Resources is trying to firm up agreements to collect $300 million from contractors for the ongoing planning and design phase of the $20 billion project.
DWR is looking for about $33 million from the Kern County Water Agency, which administers the state contract on behalf of 13 agricultural water districts, known as member units.
Several of those member units, though, have either already dropped their participation levels or are considering following in Wheeler Ridge’s footsteps.
The Semitropic Water Storage District, along with the Belridge Water Storage District and Lost Hills and Berrenda Mesa water districts, which together contract for about half of Kern’s state water, are also looking at how much they want to continue funding the tunnel planning phase.
“All of our districts remain supportive of the project, but no decision has been made yet,” said Mark Gilkey, general manager of Belridge, Lost Hills and Berrenda Mesa.
For Semitropic, and others, the biggest hurdle has been information.
“Primarily, we haven’t decided on our participation level because we haven’t seen a revised supplemental funding agreement. We’ve been asking for it quite some time,” said Semitropic’s General Manager Jason Gianquinto. The issue was tabled at the district’s March 11 meeting.
Semitropic’s share at its current participation level would be $917,000 this year and $1.375 million in 2027. It has already paid $785,596 in 2023 and $864,155 in 2024, according to Gianquinto.
And there are still a lot of unknowns, he said, including how the tunnel will be operated and how excess water in wet years will be portioned out. At the same time, contractors are facing potentially significant cost increases such as fixing subsidence on the California Aqueduct.
“There’s only so much money to go around,” Gianquinto said.
Gianquinto touched on a frustration that’s been brewing in Kern for some time – lack of information.
Last year, Kern County Water Agency member units grudgingly agreed to continue funding the delta tunnel but wanted more details and transparency. That, apparently, hasn’t been forthcoming to their satisfaction.
“The (Kern County Water) agency doesn’t really have the answers but they’ve been trying,” said Dave Ansolabehere, General Manager of the Cawelo Water District, which dropped its participation in delta tunnel funding to 1% last year. “It’s very difficult to keep going back to the farmers and ask for more money when we’ve been paying into this for so long with nothing to show for it.”
Collectively Kern districts have paid at least $72.4 million since 2007 on this and previous versions of a delta tunnel concept.
“Hopefully, this (reduction in support from Kern members) will grab DWR’s attention. For as long as this project has been going on it’s just pathetic for California,” Ansolabehere said
“”If any of (Kern County Water Agency) member units make contributions lower than anticipated, we will adjust the workload and prioritization accordingly.”
– Department of Water Resources spokesman
The Kern County Water Agency stated through email that it has not finalized a funding agreement with the state for this latest tranche of tunnel funding.
For its part, DWR seemed dispassionate about less funding from Kern districts.
“If any of (Kern County Water Agency) member units make contributions lower than anticipated, we will adjust the workload and prioritization accordingly,” a spokesman wrote in an email.
The bigger issue for DWR may be how to fund the actual tunnel construction after an appellate court ruled in Dec. 2025 that it lacked the legal authority to issue billions in bonds. Alternative funding options could be getting the money from the Legislature or through a public bond measure.
The tunnel would take Sacramento River 45 miles south beneath the sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin delta to the Bethany Reservoir northwest of Tracy.
DWR has said it wouldn’t create any “new” water. Instead it’s intended to create more certainty on the system as climate change is expected to reduce exports by 570,000 acre feet a year by 2070.
The tunnel’s greatest benefit, according to DWR, would be during the winter months and under conditions, such as the presence of endangered species, that occasionally prevent pumps from moving water out of the delta.
