Californians for Water Security just dropped some big news: A recent statewide poll revealed that voters from diverse regions, political backgrounds, and demographics are fully behind the Governor’s Delta Conveyance Project.
Seventy-six percent (76%) of voters say they support the Delta Conveyance Project when read a description, including 40% of voters that strongly favor the project. Only 13% of voters oppose the project. And voters across party and region also strongly support the project, with 81% of Democrats, 65% of Republicans and 76% of No Party Preference voters expressing support.
“Californians are saying loud and clear: it’s time to move forward with the Delta Conveyance Project to improve the reliability of our state’s water supply,” said Jennifer Pierre, General Manager of the State Water Contractors in a news release published by Californians for Water Security.
“The local infrastructure that supplies water to 2/3 of our state is in serious need of modernization and is more vulnerable than ever due to the impacts of extreme weather and climate change,” said Charles Wilson, Executive Director & CEO of Southern California Water Coalition. “As this poll shows, Californians know the Delta Conveyance Project is the right project at the right time to help ensure the State Water Project can continue to meet California’s water needs into the future.
The Delta Conveyance project is a landmark investment in the state’s aging water infrastructure — and a vital project for California’s future. This project will modernize and upgrade a key section of the State Water Project, which serves as the state’s primary water delivery system, by constructing a tunnel to move water supplies underneath the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem rather than through it. This state-of-the-art water conveyance solution will ensure that nearly 27 million Californians will have clean, reliable and affordable water for generations to come.
*The poll, conducted by FM3 Research, surveyed 1099 likely California voters from 2/9 – 2/16, with a margin of error of 3.1%.
Californians for Water Security is a diverse coalition of family farmers, business groups, labor, local government, public safety advocates, conservationists, taxpayer groups and citizens.
SCWC has a long history of supporting modernized Delta Conveyance. In fact, we were founded in 1984 to help support the project following the defeat of the Peripheral Canal. We led the coalition in support of the earlier version of this project, known as California WaterFix. In 2019, the California WaterFix project was revised and renamed. Today, the Delta Conveyance project consists of one pipeline instead of two, but the goal remains the same: improving water supply resiliency for Californians.
The Delta Conveyance project is a key action in Governor Newsom’s Water Resilience Portfolio, a comprehensive document accounting for the challenges and opportunities facing the state and its communities as we seek to secure every Californian’s right to water.