California officials don’t have to pay property owners to access their land to conduct preliminary testing before deciding whether to move forward with a $15.7 billion plan to build two giant water tunnels to supply drinking water for cities and irrigation for farmers, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The landowners in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta had demanded payment for thousands of acres sought by the state for testing. The payments would have added millions of dollars to the cost of the tunnels project.