Congressman would ban California water tunnel lawsuits

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A congressman wants to ban environmental lawsuits challenging a plan to build two gigantic tunnels to divert water from Northern to Southern California.

The Sacramento Bee says Republican Rep. Ken Calvert inserted the ban in a proposed Interior Department spending bill released Tuesday.

If Congress approves the provision, it might gut some existing lawsuits and bar future ones challenging environmental impact studies.

The $17-billion WaterFix project would create two tunnels to carry water from the Sacramento River southward to the San Francisco Bay Area, farm-rich Central Valley and Southern California urban areas.

Critics who’ve filed a dozen lawsuits over the years say it could be an environmental disaster and they accuse Calvert of trying to do silence opposition.

But Calvert says after a decade of studies, enough is enough.