The Truth About State Water
Santa Barbara's Supplemental Source Is Invaluable
California Water Impact Network’s (C-WIN) president, Carolee Krieger, recently provided her opinion about the State Water Project in Santa Barbara County and the proposed Twin Tunnels project currently being considered to move water around the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Unfortunately, Krieger’s opinion piece is short on truth and long on rhetoric.
Krieger likes to compare the construction cost estimates from the early 1990s for the Coastal Branch facilities of the State Water Project to the estimated total costs over the entire term of the contract (about 40 years). That’s similar to comparing the original purchase price of a house to the total cost of ownership over the 30-year mortgage, including interest, insurance, utilities, and so on.
Krieger gives $270 million as the original construction cost estimate of the Coastal Branch extension and $1.76 billion as actual costs. The truth is that the original construction cost estimate for the facilities actually constructed was $409 million. The actual costs of construction were $595 million. It’s true ALL costs over the entire term of the project are estimated at roughly $1.76 billion, but it is misleading to compare that number to the construction cost estimate.
