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Gov. Edmund Brown Jr.’s biggest legacy – an underground Peripheral Canal – is not really a done deal, claims one of the most powerful executives in California water.

Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said that the massive twin water tunnels project the governor envisions to pipe fresh water away from the Delta to buyers in Southern California and the western San Joaquin Valley is not yet final. “Our Board has not voted and said, ‘We’re ready, willing and able to spend money to build these tunnels,’” Mr. Kightlinger told a forum sponsored by the Sacramento Bee.

It wasn’t just generous spring rains filling north-state reservoirs that had California’s urban water districts pushing back so hard against mandatory water cuts this year.

All those brown lawns and shorter showers have cost them millions in customer revenue.

As water use plummeted because of the statewide conservation orders implemented last summer, many water agencies found themselves struggling to cover operating costs. Less water use has meant lower monthly utility bills, and for most utilities, there has been no correlating decline in basic operating costs, such as payroll, debt obligations and maintenance of pipes and treatment plants.

The state Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by Delta interests attempting to block the sale of roughly 20,000 acres of land to a Southern California water agency. The court’s decision appears to clear the way for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to finalize its controversial $175 million purchase. San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties, Delta farmers and environmentalists fought the deal and were able to delay it twice, but their last-ditch request for the Supreme Court to get involved did not succeed.

The state Supreme Court has cleared the way for Southern California’s powerful Metropolitan Water District to buy five islands at the epicenter of the delta’s water system, officials said Friday.

Some officials and environmentalists in Northern California had fought to halt the sale, worried about what the MWD planned to do with the land. The agency has said it might use some of the land to provide access for the construction of a proposed delta tunnel system, a controversial project some oppose amid California’s five-year drought.