In late June, a Sacramento County Judge ruled that the California Department of Water Resources, or DWR, had to suspend its efforts to conduct geotechnical “exploratory drilling” on private property across the Delta.

Agents for DWR had wanted to get onto peoples’ land and start boring holes in the soil as part of laying the groundwork for Governor Gavin Newsom’s highly controversial Delta Tunnel.

The struggle that farmers and homeowners in the estuary engaged in to keep DWR away from their gates goes back at least for years. At one point, it was contentious enough that Sacramento County went as far as to seek a restraining order against DWR employees on behalf of property owners between Hood and Courtland.

On June 20, Judge Stephen Acquisto ruled that DWR cannot encroach on private citizens’ property and begin trenching, testing pits, staging activities and installing monitoring devices, as the Newsom administration had hoped to do. The judge blocked these plans by granting an injunction that was petitioned for by local governments, tribal organizations, environmental nonprofits and various fishery groups.

According to the attorneys who pulled off this legal win – Thomas Keeling, Osha Meserve and Roger Moore – the judge agreed that DWR’s intentions would be violating the 2009 Delta Reform Act.

For those battling to stop the proposed tunnel, which critics say will kill businesses in the Delta, destroy its farmlands and collapse its eco-system, this was the second big legal win against the Newsom administration since January: In the previous victory, Sacramento County judge Kenneth C. Mennemeier Jr. had ruled that DWR lacks the authority to issue revenue bonds to help finance the estimated $20 billion it will take to build the project.

Now, the legal developments on June 20 mean the project’s monetary and geotechnical prep work are both in limbo.

Nevertheless, Newsom continues to publicly champion the tunnel, a project that’s at the top of the wish list for some of his largest campaign donors, though it is opposed by virtually every environmental protection group in the state.