Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Karla Nemeth

74. Karla Nemeth

Karla Nemeth is the Director of the Department of Water Resources, who since the Brown administration has been leading the state through drought conditions that have only eased up in the last couple of years. In fact, despite the outlook on water resources improving, her stature has only grown as Gov. Newsom has asked her to advise his administration on what the state’s water priorities should be as he sets about modernizing the infrastructure that carries water from Northern California to Southern California. That is of course better known as the Delta Conveyance Project (or to its critics Newsom’s Big Beautiful Tunnel), which the governor is trying very hard to fast-track into existence. Given the decades-long fight over creating a new conveyance system (Peripheral Canal, anyone?) it feels like the odds of that coming off anytime soon are slim and slimmer. Native tribes, fishermen, Delta farmers and landowners, NorCal water companies and communities and environmentalists oppose it, while SoCal ag interests and SoCal Big Water all want it. And Nemeth is the person smack dab in the middle of it all. Good times. Meanwhile, we’re going to trademark “Big Beautiful Tunnel.”

Updated August 26, 2025