Delta Tunnels Project Needs Water Agencies to Pay for It. Why Some Are Hesitating

If you live in Los Angeles, the cost of building the Delta tunnels might raise your water bill by as little as $2 a month or less – no more than a latte, to quote one of the project’s main cheerleaders in Southern California. But if you’re a farmer on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the increase could be hundreds of dollars per acre-foot of water. And you could be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional expenses every year, for decades, for a resource that’s as indispensable to farming as soil itself.