OPINION: 1 Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta tunnel Is No Better Than 2

The Brown administration has pulled the plug on the 5-year-old plan to build twin 35-mile tunnels to move water from the north end of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to points farther south — sort of. Bowing to reality that the beneficiary water agencies were not going to pay $17 billion for what the state calls WaterFix, the state announced Wednesday it plans to build a single tunnel now and a second tunnel later. One now and one later is still two tunnels that reduce needed water flows to the San Francisco Bay, an environmentally bad idea.