San Joaquin farmers willing to pay for the Delta tunnels

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WB Staff
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Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:56 am

San Joaquin farmers willing to pay for the Delta tunnels

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Group of San Joaquin farmers says they’re willing to pay for the Delta tunnels

A bloc of San Joaquin farmers tentatively endorsed the Delta tunnels project Thursday, becoming the first significant agricultural group to support the struggling plan.

But the level of support from members of the Kern County Water Agency, which serves much of the $7 billion-a-year farm economy at the southern end of the valley, was less than wholehearted. An estimated 48.5 percent of the agency’s water users said they’re interested in helping pay for the tunnels, which works out to about $1 billion in financial support.

That leaves the tunnels project, known officially as California WaterFix, still billions of dollars short of the funding it would need to bring to completion Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to re-engineer the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and improve water deliveries to south state water agencies.

Brown and other state officials have begun talking about scaling the project down – perhaps building one tunnel instead of two – to make up for the expected shortfall in funding

Read the rest and video from Sac Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/califo ... 52571.html
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