October 21, 2026
By Andrew Genasci
Water is at the core of almost every challenge that farmers face across California. In wet years, billions of gallons of water flow through our rivers and out to sea while farmers and communities struggle to prepare for the next drought. We know we need more reservoirs, groundwater recharge facilities and other infrastructure to capture and store water when it’s available. Yet California’s outdated permitting system makes building that infrastructure unnecessarily slow, expensive and difficult.
That is why the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau supports Proposition 45, the Building an Affordable California Act. We represent over 1,400 family farms and ranches across San Joaquin County, all of which depend on reliable water supplies. Proposition 45 would help deliver that supply by building essential water projects faster and more affordably.
Proposition 45 would establish clear, enforceable timelines for the environmental review and permitting of essential projects, including water storage, groundwater recharge and water delivery infrastructure. It would require agencies to complete environmental impact reports within 365 business days, while establishing deadlines for the additional permits and approvals needed to begin construction.
Importantly for San Joaquin County, where farmers and communities have raised serious concerns about the Delta Tunnel’s potential impacts on local water supplies and agriculture, Proposition 45 expressly excludes the controversial project from its streamlined approval process.
Proposition 45 does not exempt projects from environmental review or weaken California’s water quality and environmental protections. It simply ensures that projects are reviewed and decisions are made within a reasonable timeframe.
For San Joaquin County’s farmers and ranchers, that means greater certainty that the infrastructure needed to capture, store, and deliver the water can move forward without years of unnecessary delays.
California’s wet years present critical opportunities to capture and store water for the inevitable dry years ahead. With the right infrastructure in place, we can strengthen our water supplies and better withstand future droughts. But too often, the projects needed to make that possible remain stalled in California’s lengthy approval and permitting process.
Sites Reservoir illustrates why those timelines matter. This water project is a longtime state priority that would add 1.5 million acre-feet to California’s water storage capacity — enough water to irrigate 1 million acres of farmland for an entire year. Yet the environmental analysis for the project took six years, and Sites is still working its way through final permits and approvals.
California has committed approximately $1.36 billion in state funding to Sites Reservoir, yet the project’s estimated cost has climbed from $3.9 billion in 2021 dollars to as much as $6.8 billion in 2025 dollars. While construction costs have risen across the board, prolonged permitting delays only compound the problem. Every additional year spent navigating bureaucratic red tape means higher financing costs, more expensive materials and more taxpayer dollars spent before a single drop of water is stored. Proposition 45 would help prevent these unnecessary costs from piling up on future water projects.
And the changes Proposition 45 proposes extend well beyond water. Proposition 45 applies to other essential project categories that Californians want, need, and rely upon, including housing, clean energy, roads, schools, hospitals and clinics, wildfire prevention, and broadband.
Water reliability isn’t just an agricultural issue. It’s an affordability issue for every California family. San Joaquin County’s farmers help produce the food that stocks grocery store shelves across California and beyond. When unreliable water supplies make farming more expensive, those costs ripple through the agricultural supply chain and can ultimately contribute to higher food prices. At a time when families are already struggling to afford groceries, California cannot afford to make food production more expensive by delaying the infrastructure our farmers need.
California cannot afford to keep waiting for the water infrastructure we already know we need. Every year of unnecessary delay means higher costs for taxpayers, greater uncertainty for farmers and more pressure on the household budgets of California families.
We cannot control when the next drought will come or when a wet year will give us an opportunity to replenish our water supplies. But we can control whether California is prepared to make the most of that water when it comes.
Our farms, families and food supply cannot afford another decade of delays. Vote YES on Proposition 45 so California can build the water infrastructure we need — faster and more affordably.
Andrew Genasci is the executive director of the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau.