California is advancing one of the biggest projects the state has ever planned: a $20 billion tunnel running 45 miles beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The tunnel would join the State Water Project, which delivers water to 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland.
Californians have watched big public projects run long and cost more than promised, and this one arrives with the question already attached: can the state still build something this big?
The concerns are familiar. The project has already spent more than six years in planning and permitting, and construction would run well over a decade. Yet the organization responsible for building the tunnel says this project is set up differently from the ones Californians remember, beginning with who pays for it and who answers for the money.
Graham Bradner is the executive director of the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority, the agency responsible for designing and building the project. He explains what his team decided to change before the environmental review ever began, and the one risk he says engineering cannot remove.
