By SEJAL CHOKSI CHUGH
As the dust settles from the whirlwind transition of the California governor’s office, it’s a relief to see that the new statehouse has squashed the massive Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta tunnels water project.
Conservation, fishing, and community groups welcomed the Newsom administration’s May 2 announcement that it will abandon Gov. Jerry Brown’s misguided twin tunnels plan and seek instead to refocus the state’s water priorities.
For over a decade, the California Department of Water Resources incessantly promoted the deceptively named WaterFix project as a response to two of the Legislature’s stated goals for the Delta: 1) to improve the reliability of water supplies, and 2) to protect and restore the health of the struggling Delta ecosystem and its six endangered fish species.