Proposed Delta Tunnel Could Provide Huge Jobs Boost

By Richard Atwater
SCWC Executive Director
September 30, 2011

If you read the news in today’s economy, no matter what policy area you’re talking about, there’s one word you see more than any other – jobs. And, California needs more of them with an unemployment rate that is the second-highest in the nation.

For those of us active in statewide water policy, we’ve been busy analyzing how to best fix the broken Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta -- studying fish species, flow patterns and alignments -- but no one has talked about jobs to date.

However, this week, we finally got our first look at employment figures generated by the construction of a new Delta conveyance facility – one of the largest public works projects to be undertaken by the state.

The study, which was presented this week during the Bay Delta Conservation Plan’s (BDCP) public meeting, forecasted that approximately 130,000 jobs could be created during the seven-year construction period for building a 15,000 cfs tunnel. A smaller tunnel, 3,000 cfs, could create approximately 74,000 jobs during that construction period.

Those are significant findings.

Here’s an interesting comparison of job creation from a variety of pending and past public works projects in California. And, clearly, the jobs created by a new Delta tunnel are significant.

This is only a small snapshot of the overall economic impact and benefits. This doesn’t include the jobs to be created by the habitat restoration and impacts to local farming. However, BDCP is currently underway on a more comprehensive study.

This new jobs study on the tunnel options is the first major study of its kind, and it opens our eyes to the fact that – beyond helping secure our water supply, promoting a better Delta environment and providing a monumental boost to our aging and deteriorating public infrastructure – building a new conveyance tunnel could create more than one hundred thousand new California jobs.

All we have to do is commit to moving forward immediately with the BDCP. Let’s get moving, and get our fellow Californians back to work.