The Los Angeles water overlords want to tempt Californians with their latest Trojan Horse.

And the horse’s name is “Climate Change.”

Do not misunderstand.

Climate change per se exists.

And it has many possible scenarios that should be dealt with.

But destroying the Delta’s ecological system and creating a ripple effect that would imperil water supplies in the Northern San Joaquin Valley to “protect” a large chunk of Southern California’s water supply is not one of them.

Addressing the consequences of climate change was referenced as the main reason that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California this past week in allocated $142 million for pre-construction and planning costs for the Delta tunnel.

It’s critical, they say, due to aging water infrastructure and climate change shifts in precipitation.

That means more rain at the lower elevations, and less snow at the higher elevations in the Cascades and the Sierra. 

As such, that in turn would weaken the effective water capturing capabilities of reservoirs built in the higher elevations.

That is the long-promised “extra water” the tunnel would generate for Southern California cities and large-scale corporate farmers that would benefit on the problematic southwestern portion of the San Joaquin Valley,

One little detail.

Climate change models Sacramento and activists embrace stress that in addition to the shift in precipitation, there will also be rising sea levels.

The most conservative model projects a 3-foot rise by the end of this century.

If that happens the tunnel will be a $20 billion boondoggle.

And if you apply the California High Speed Rail project management under the auspices of what passes for governance in Sacramento, that price tag will likely be closer to $100 billion than $20 billion. 

What makes it a boondoggle is where a completed 45-mile, 40-foot-wide tunnel, some 150 feet below ground would dump  Sacramento River water diverted before it reaches the Delta.

That “where” is the 33-foot deep, six square mile Clifton Court Forebay less than 10 miles northwest of Tracy.

From there, it is lifted by gigantic pumps at the head of the 444-mile long California Aqueduct.

The problem is Clifton Court Forebay is at 3 feet above sea level.

And so is the the surrounding area with some of it being lower than sea level.

In all the high profile hand wringing over rising sea levels, it is portrayed as a coastal issue where large cities are located.

,With the exception of places like Florida that redefines the term “flat”, the area in coastal cities that would need to be protected from rising seas rarely makes it more than a quarter of mile inland.

No so in the Delta.

The middle-of-the-road models have more than three quarters of the Delta threatened right up to Lathrop, Tracy, and Stockton.

It is why water supplies plus the Delta ecological system, along with vast rich tracts of farmland and regional communities can all be protect by channeling Holland with a “wall” to keep back the sea with locks to allow ships to pass.

The tunnel not only is a questionable solution, but it only takes care of corporate farmers and  LA.

The alarm that revived the modern-day version of the Peripheral Canal — the above ground Delta conveyance options voters statewide overwhelmingly rejected in 1982  — was over “unstable” levees that could collapse in an earthquake.

That would mean salt water would mix with fresh water until the levees are restored.

It translates into undrinkable water for LA unless they invested in more intense — and expensive — treatment plant processes.

When they couldn’t twist earthquake science enough to justify the twin tunnels, they switched gears and latched onto climate change.

The basic premise is that climate change will raise sea levels.

As such, some experts believe models show that by 2100 the water level in the Delta could rise as much as 10 feet.

The Clifton Court Forebay reservoir, where 11 gigantic pumps lift water 244 feet from the Delta into the California Aqueduct, would be under 7 feet of seawater.

That means in the estimated 13 plus years needed to actually construct the tunnel, most in the climate change cabal expect the sea levels to already be well on the way to rising high enough to inundate places as low as the Clifton Court Forebay.

Perhaps someone in the governor’s office might want to check the official State of California climate change sites, as well as the federal sites, that have maps with interactive rising sea level tools going from 0 to 10 feet.

So why build a tunnel that would essentially be made ineffective by rising sea levels — a theory that there is virtually universal buy-in up in Sacramento.

The people behind the tunnel aren’t idiots.

They are anything but.

At some point LA will push for “seawalls” to protect Clifton Court Forebay.

Why not do it now as part of the tunnel project?

The answer is dangerously simple.

In doing so, they would play a card that everyone is keeping hidden as well as possible.

There is technology and a path that would allow a sea wall to be put in place to protect the entire Delta.

And it likely could be done at a lower cost. It would also allow the tunnel project to be scuttled.

But that doesn’t serve the hidden agenda.

Los Angeles wants a water supply that isn’t compromised by the whims of nature via droughts.

Nor does it want a water supply that is divvied up from a pie to keep salinity levels in the Delta just right for fish.

Such orders typically come from the bureaucracy and courts.

LA would get the same sweetheart deal San Francisco did when that city built the original Delta tunnel bypass — the pipeline that diverts Tuolumne River water before it reaches the Delta and sends it underground below Modesto and across the valley floor until it reaches the East Bay.

Because of that project 100 years ago, not a drop of water SF has behind Hetch Hetchy has ever been a part of a fish flow deal or a statewide management plan during severe droughts.

Let’s recap, for a moment, what the impartial federal Army Corps of Engineers had to say about the tunnel project in its 691-page environmental impact study.

Potential fallout for San Joaquin County, which has the largest land mass within the Delta region, include:

Extensive damage to the Delta ecological system.

Negative impact on fish including the endangered Chinook salmon.

Long-range issues with saltwater intrusion impacting water supplies the cities of Lathrop, Tracy, Manteca, and Stockton take from the underground aquifer that is impacting when fresh water levels above and below the surface in the Delta drop.

The quality and sustainability of Delta recreational opportunities.

Tens of thousands of acres of farmland, some of the richest agricultural ground in the world, could go out of production.

Domestic water supplies would be impacted.

The tunnel would rob the Delta of water flows that for centuries has helped sustain fish and the Delta’s unique ecological system that serves as the biggest estuary along the Pacific Flyway.

The tunnel project  — once it is stripped of the climate change mantel they embraced only after everyone saw through the quake charade — is part of  unadulterated behind-the-scenes water grab strategies that LA has spent more than a century perfecting.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209.249.3519.