A funny thing happened on the way to the Capitol. On July 1, 2026, the author pulled Assembly Bill 2215, against which I was about to testify in a state Senate committee. If enacted, AB 2215 would have given the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) a special deal. It would have given DWR’s State Water Project another 20 years to divert more water from the Delta under the water rights it obtained in 1972. The time to fully use those water rights ran out in 2009. The bill would have eliminated public process from this decision: no water rights hearing, no environmental impact report required.
Fortunately, this bill that was sponsored by the State Water Contractors didn’t even come to a vote.
On June 29, staff of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee posted a bill analysis that was fair to both sides. The bill analysis showed a clear connection between the bill and DWR’s proposed Delta Conveyance Project (DCP or simply Delta tunnel), stating: “According to some, the DCP is one of the principal projects that DWR identifies as helping it to fully develop the SWP. Although the two are legally distinct, they are operationally intertwined as the DCP is a major component of DWR’s strategy for fully developing its water rights.”
The analysis recommended an amendment that would have kept the normal water rights process at the State Water Board. To respond to concerns about delay, the amendment would also have put the State Water Board on a timeline. The timeline would have started once DWR presented the Board with “a complete application, including any necessary environmental review.”
Rather than accept the amendment, the bill’s legislative author, Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, removed the bill from consideration.
Part of the speech that I didn’t need to give briefly recounted the history of DWR’s effort for what’s called a “time extension” for its State Water Project water rights. A time extension means that DWR wanted more time to try to divert more water with the State Water Project, up to the maximum amounts stated on paper in its original water rights. Otherwise, DWR is limited to diverting and storing the maximum amounts of water it has already actually used in any one of the years between the time the water rights were issued in 1972 and the time its last extension ran out in 2009.
Some History about DWR’s Water Rights
On the last day of 2009, DWR petitioned to extend time on its SWP water rights through 2015. In February 2011, DWR wrote a letter to CSPA saying DWR was producing an environmental impact report (EIR) to support its petition. 2015 came and went. DWR never produced its EIR.
From 2016 through 2024, DWR also did not bother to update its 2009 petition. A petition to extend time through 2015 doesn’t make much sense in 2016 or after!
In 2025, DWR filed a new petition to extend time on its SWP water rights. In 2025, DWR promised a new EIR. To date, DWR has not produced that EIR either.
CSPA protested DWR’s 2009 petition. CSPA has been waiting for the next step ever since. CSPA now looks forward to completing the water right process: the sooner, the better.
Water Contractor Hyperbole
In one of the more unfortunate events related to the introduction of AB 2215, Mr. Shivaji Deshmukh, General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and Ms. Valerie Pryor, General Manager of the Zone 7 Water Agency, wrote an opinion piece in support of AB 2215. Maven’s Notebook posted this piece on June 30, 2026. It was expected that general managers of water agencies that are members of the State Water Contractors organization would support the bill. What was not expected is that they would attack the integrity and motivation of the opponents of the bill.
In the opinion piece, Mr. Deshmukh and Ms. Pryor wrote:
“Opposition to AB 2215 is the same opposition that has litigated the SWP’s very existence over the last decade. Bond validations, routine incidental take permits, water transfers, long-term repayment contracts, you name it – they have all been opposed by the same organizations. This isn’t principled environmentalism.”
Let’s unpack that.
First, opposition to each of the opposed issues cited does not mean that opponents have “litigated the SWP’s very existence.” In fact, several organizations that have sued DWR are now working to pass Senate Bill 872 (SB 872). SB 872 would fund both Delta levee upgrades and repairs of SWP canals that are functioning poorly because the ground beneath the canals is sinking. That’s an effort to make the SWP work better.
CSPA and other organizations have litigated the way that DWR operates the State Water Project, not the SWP’s existence. If these GMs of two state water contractors cannot imagine the existence of the SWP under different operations, that says more about them than about those who have tried to hold DWR accountable.
Second, no one has litigated the issue of time extension for DWR’s water right permits. DWR could have had this wrapped up a decade ago, including litigation, if any. Preemptive legislation in place of due process is not the answer.
Mr. Deshmukh and Ms. Pryor call out a number of the issues that CSPA and others have litigated or simply opposed. Here’s our take on those:
- “Bond validations”: DWR tried to authorize bond funding in 2020 for a new Delta tunnel project, on the basis that a section of the Water Code passed in 1959 generally allows DWR to build and modify the State Water Project. Two courts said the general statute was not enough basis for selling bonds. The California Supreme Court refused to hear it on appeal.
- “Routine incidental take permits”: Sorry, but we don’t think the rules that govern the operation of the State Water Project in the Delta are “routine.” We think they kill fish, both individually and in terms of long-term population declines. We also don’t think the take permits can lawfully duck consideration of how much water DWR keeps in storage in Oroville Reservoir. So, let’s have a judge decide.
- “Water transfers”: We don’t think entities north of the Delta should be selling water to entities south of the Delta when there’s not enough water in storage north of the Delta to protect fish. We also think it’s generally a bad idea to deplete Sacramento Valley groundwater in order to sell surface water to people south of the Delta who otherwise don’t have the right to it.
- “Long-term repayment contracts”: We don’t think DWR (or the Bureau of Reclamation, for that matter) should renew contracts for water that they can’t reliably meet. It creates structural over-demand for water in an over-allocated system. Fish and the environment get stuck giving up water because contracts promise too much. So, we have challenged contracts.
Finally, there’s Mr. Deshmukh and Ms. Pryor’s sweeping attack on motivation: “this isn’t principled environmentalism.” Actually, the people who over the years have fought DWR’s efforts to take more water out of the Delta are some of the most principled people I know. And one of the first principles they stand for is that DWR and everyone else needs to leave enough water in rivers and the Delta for those ecosystems to thrive.
Some Final Thoughts
From where CSPA sits, we are constantly compelled to oppose projects that are variations on the same theme: to take more water out of rivers and the Delta. It’s been a pervasive theme for decades, long before response to climate change was the rationale. We’ve now entered an era when that theme is increasingly armed with efforts to change the rules. We defend those rules when they give a fighting chance to principled, responsible people who think California needs to live within its means when it comes to water.
With AB 2215, the effort to change the rules didn’t work. We thank committee staff for its hard work and sober analysis of this bill. We also thank all the people who talked to all the legislators and their staffs in the effort to oppose to this bill.