Rep. Josh Harder Reintroduces the Stop the Delta Tunnel Act in Congress

On Feb. 9, Representative Josh Harder (D CA-9) reintroduced his Stop the Delta Tunnel Act, a bill that prohibits the Army Corps of Engineers from issuing a federal permit necessary for the State of California to build the Delta Conveyance Project.  

“The Delta Tunnel is a zombie project,” said Rep. Harder in a press statement. “Every time we kill it, the Governor brings it back. My bill will put an end to this $16 billion boondoggle once and for all and make sure every drop of Valley water stays right here where it belongs,”

“This is a choice between watering a family farm right here in the Valley, and watering someone’s manicured green lawn down south. I’ll do what’s right for the Valley every single time,” he explained. 

The proposed 45-mile-long tunnel would divert water from the Sacramento River before it reaches the Delta and then ship it south from Clifton Court Forebay to big corporate growers and Southern California agencies.

Critics and independent scientists say the tunnel would have a devastating impact on family farms in San Joaquin, Sacramento and other Delta counties, as well as on imperiled fish populations and the ecology of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary. Strong arguments have been made that the project, by diverting more water out of the Delta, would hasten the extinction of Delta and longfin smelt, Sacramento River winter-run and spring run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and other fish species.    

”The Delta Tunnel would make our water so salty, it’d poison our fields,” noted Harder in a Facebook post on Feb. 1.  “Yes, it’s as scary as it sounds. I'm fighting it tooth and nail.”

Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers recently extended the comment period for public draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS) for the Delta Conveyance project to March 16, 2023. The document was released for public review and comment on December 16, 2022.     

The corps is also now planning an in-person public workshop on the Delta Tunnel EIS in early March in Stockton. The date and location has not been set yet.

You can also submit a public comment at the Army Corps Regulatory Division website at: Delta Conveyance (army.mil).

In September when the bill was first introduced during the last Congressional Session, KCRA3 News called Rep. Harder’s bill, “the strongest step yet to stop the state’s proposed giant water tunnel from gaining ground.”

“The Delta Tunnels doesn’t modernize anything,” Harder told the station. “All it does is build a giant tunnel to take the water that our community depends on and sends it down to Los Angeles. I don’t call that modernization, I call that theft.”

Specifically, the bill text states, “The Secretary of the Army, acting through the Chief  of Engineers, may not issue a permit under section 404 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C.  2 1344) relating to the Delta Conveyance Project referred to in the document published by the California Department of Water Resources on January 15, 2020, entitled  ‘Notice of Preparation of Environmental Impact Report  6 for the Delta Conveyance Project.’”  

In January, Rep. Harder held a town hall attended by more than 150 people who all showed opposition to  the Delta Tunnel project.  

In July 2022, Rep. Harder introduced an amendment alongside Reps. Garamendi and McNerney to prohibit the Army Corps of Engineers from issuing a Clean Water Act (Section 404) permit for the state of Delta Tunnel that would export water out of the Delta, but that effort did not move forward.