California’s water system is running on borrowed time. While the state continues to innovate, its water delivery systems have not kept pace. … Today’s structure relies on one-off financing to maintain or build large-scale water projects, leaving ratepayers to cover what grants and bonds cannot finance. … The Sites Reservoir project is a good example. When the project was proposed in 2019, it carried an estimated price tag of $3 billion. Today, that estimate has climbed to between $6.2 billion and $6.8 billion. … This cost burden is especially difficult for California’s farmers and ranchers, who compete in global markets where others set prices, and rising water costs are simply absorbed. … Yet there are other options.
–Written by Michelle Paul, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition.

Other water infrastructure opinions:

• Oroville Mercury-Register (Calif.): Opinion: State continues to leave Butte County underwater with Oroville Dam
• San Diego Union-Tribune: Opinion: Mexico should pay for sewage repairs, not county taxpayers