If you happen to run into Gavin Newsom, persuade him to go with you to your friendly neighborhood 7-Eleven and buy him a politically incorrect Super Big Gulp.

Grab a cup, give it to the governor and have him nudge it against the Pepsi dispenser lever.

Newsom might recoil at the act given it is political poison in the eyes of the Nanny State crowd that periodically push legislation to break the  “Pepsi People” and other soda consumers of their habits by taxing sugary drinks as if they were hardcore liquor.

With a little luck, the Pepsi dispenser will run out of syrup just as he finishes filling the cup.

Make sure that you grab a politically incorrect plastic straw instead of a paper straw so Greta Thunberg knows she still has plenty of pontificating left to do with the climate before moving on to fix the Middle East.

Next point the governor in the direction of the Delta.

Ask the governor to put the straw into his Super Big Gulp and try to enjoy.

It will be tough, given a $2 or so Super Big Gulp is not the same as opening a $135 bottle of PlumpJack Winery’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon produced at the upscale Napa Valley winery he founded with his poor little rich boy buddy Gordon Getty.

And to be honest, your typical 7-Eleven lacks the ambiance of the French Laundry,

Newsom, though, has a kind of a kinship with 7-Eleven store owners as they don’t like anyone wearing masks either as they drop in to partake of a $2 pizza slice deal as opposed to a small plate of hors d’oeuvres for $400.

Once he’s got the soda down about an inch or two, ask Newsom to top it off.

Since the Pepsi dispenser is maxed out, he’ll have to select another source to fill the cup back up. As any self-respecting pre-teen of days gone-by would know, Newsom is taking the first step toward making a soda concoction that’s called a “suicide.” You have just given the governor a perfect analogy for his myopic Delta tunnel plan.

You also have created a TikTok moment that can serve as a rallying cry for the next generation of victims of the incredible thirst of the Los Angeles Basin as well as large corporate farmers.

Siphon Sacramento River water from the Delta and it will create a void that has to be filled from somewhere else.

If you don’t, you will allow severe saltwater intrusion that would turn the Delta into a toxic wasteland for birds, native fish, flora, and even inconsequential things like farmers and people that depend on Delta water or water pumped from aquifers in and around the Delta that would be impacted as salt water replaces fresh water.

Back to the 7-Eleven for a second.

Most offer other soda flavors such as Mt. Dew, Sprite, or Dad’s Rootbeer. There are usually two Pepsi options due to the larger volume that also requires more tanks of syrup as opposed to the other flavors that have less demand and therefore less syrup.

The Sacramento River is Pepsi. The Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced rivers are the other three soda flavors. Once the Pepsi is siphoned out of the cup that is used to flush the Delta, some soda has to replace it.

That’s when the state will create a “suicide” mix increasing the flows from the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced watersheds to flush the Delta.

Of course, anyone in Owens Valley 2.0 — better known as the Northern San Joaquin Valley — would be committing suicide to favor such a move.

The tunnel puts historic adjudicated water rights that Northern San Joaquin Valley cities and farmers rely on at significant risk to backfill ecological damage that the state’s own studies show will be inflicted on the Delta with the tunnel in place.

This is why big water interests in Los Angeles as well as corporate farmers have managed to convince yet another governor that the Northern San Joaquin Valley needs assistance to commit suicide which is where the myopic tunnel comes into play.

The Department of Water Resources five years ago at Newsom’s request, officially repackaged the double barrel shotgun his predecessor Jerry Brown aimed at the Delta ecological system as well as Northern San Joaquin Valley cities and farms as a single barrel by issuing a notice of preparation for the project.

That’s was the prelude to the lengthy eye-popping environmental review process that is much like the impeachment of Donald Trump as you already know how it is going to end.

In the case of the myopic tunnel, we have been told it will be the best thing for California since gold was discovered.

That’s an appropriate analogy given 175 years later we are still dealing with environmental disasters perpetuated in the name of growing the economy including filling in a third of the San Francisco Bay and reshaping and poisoning waterways.

As for two tunnels versus one tunnel, it’s just like a gun. It only takes one bullet to kill a person.

The same is true for siphoning water and what it will do to the Delta.

Newsom is clearly not a connoisseur of soda nor the Delta.

If Los Angeles and their SoCal partners in crime in the Metropolitan Water District wanted to dam Yosemite Valley for their insatiable need for water to keep fueling their growth, Newsom would have a coronary.

And if a big oil company wanted the state to short circuit the environmental review process and take away the ability to use the courts to stop an effort to drill for oil in the Pacific Ocean a mile off Malibu Beach, Newsom wouldn’t have brazenly tried to insert language into the state budget to do so.

Newsom has adequate water for his beloved high-end grape vines owned by the PlumpJack Group.

The tunnel project is not going to wipe out the gentleman farmer whose winery holdings are in a blind trust while he works from the governor’s office in Sacramento to destroy family farmers in the Delta that account for a third of San Joaquin County’s annual $3.22 billion agricultural production. Nor is it going to imperil the water supplies of the voter rich hardcore blue California coastal cities that will figure heavily in his bid to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Jan. 20, 2029.

The coastal cities are also where the people with the money to grease his presidential campaign live and have business interests. They are business interests that depend on more and more water for Southern California to keep growing what is now light years beyond what the natural hydrology of the region can support.

Those greasing his campaign palms include massive corporate farmers with marginal land and insufficient water in the southwest portion of the Central Valley.

The only way they can make the land productive to the point it turns profits needed to keep stockholders happy and for “farm” CEOs to fly around in corporate jets is to commandeer an ungodly amount of water at the expense of family farmers elsewhere, including the Delta.

It is why the Delta tunnel backers have a saying that 7-Eleven customers would appreciate.

Oh, thank heaven, for Gavin Newsom.

—  This column is the opinion of Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Courier or 209 Multimedia. He may be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com