California approves water right for Sites Reservoir, with construction planned soon

The Abridged version:

• The Sites Reservoir cleared a major regulatory hurdle Wednesday when it received its water right from the state.
• The decision, which came after a nine-hour meeting, moves the project toward construction.
• The reservoir remains controversial with some environmentalists, landowners and tribal governments.

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California’s largest reservoir project in a half century is moving forward.

Sites Reservoir, which would store large amounts of Sacramento River water in a remote valley in Colusa County, received its water rights from the state Wednesday. The decision follows years of negotiation and debate over the controversial project, pushing it towards long awaited construction.

“This decision is the product of one of the most thorough water right hearings the board has conducted,” said E. Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, at the start of a nine-hour hearing Wednesday.

Now the reservoir, which would be the eighth largest in California, has cleared its most significant regulatory hurdles and is on track to be completed in the next decade.

“It’s probably the only new off-stream reservoir project that makes any sense in California right now,” water board member Sean Maguire said. “This is a huge moment for California.”

Decades in the making

Conversations about the Sites Reservoir first started at the end of the 1990s. Back then, a group of landowners and farmers identified a large stretch of land in the hills west of Maxwell as a potential site for a new reservoir.

The water would be supplied by the Sacramento River through a series of pipes and canals that direct the water into the hills during the wet season. But after it was proposed, the reservoir was met with opposition from a variety of stakeholders.

“When we started in 1998, the project had a lot of warts,” said Fritz Durst, Yolo County farmer and chair of the Sites Project Authority board of directors.

Some worried that the allocation of water from the Sacramento River would further degrade ecosystems that rely on the already heavily burdened waterway, including the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Tribal members, environmentalists and advocates argued that migratory fish like salmon and the complex environments they rely on would be adversely affected by the project.

At the same time, local landowners expressed concerns about how the infrastructure needed for the project could impact their land and livelihoods.

Opposition to the project culminated in a lawsuit filed in 2023 by a coalition of environmental organizations led by Friends of the River. The lawsuit challenged the project’s environmental review and CEQA determination.

That case was eventually lost in court.

‘When the river has it to spare’

After decades of back and forth over the project, the decision by the state Wednesday has given the Sites Project Authority a meaningful win in its effort to build the reservoir.

As it stands, the reservoir will be eligible to draw 986,000 acre-feet of water per year from Nov. 1 through June 14.

That water can only be drawn when there is excess water in the Sacramento River during rainy months of the year.

“It captures water when the river has it to spare,” Esquivel said.

It will then be stored in the 1.5-million acre-foot, off-stream reservoir and released to customers during dry months, said Nicole Kuenzi, presiding hearing officer for the SWRCB.

At the time of the meeting Wednesday, there were 22 storage partners signed on to the project, with the largest being the Bureau of Reclamation, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District.

To get to customers south of the reservoir, the project will use a series of canals and pipelines, including a new one near Dunnigan, to move the water.

Ongoing debate

As the project moves forward, there is still a robust debate occurring about its need versus its costs.

Wade Crowfoot, California’s natural resources secretary, said at the hearing that the project is crucial for the state’s future water planning.

“It’s not the end all be all, it’s not the silver bullet, but it is critical,” he said. “It is carefully designed to capture water during big, wet periods and during our wettest winters for the dry periods and these punishing droughts that we know are coming.”

California has experienced more intense weather patterns over the last decade due to climate change, necessitating investment in the state’s water infrastructure, Crowfoot said.

“This weather whiplash is not an aberration, it is the scientific reality and it is the new normal,” he said. “Our system, built over 100 years, is not designed for that.”

Other speakers at the hearing, including representatives from water boards across the state and county supervisors, agreed with Crowfoot.

“Sites reservoir could bring a lifeline to a region that has no other interties with other water agencies,” said Carol Mahoney, representative for Zone 7 Water Agency in Livermore.

But other speakers disagreed, raising persistent concerns about the downstream effects to places like the Delta of drawing so much water from the Sacramento River.

“This is the definition of living outside our means,” said Keiko Mertz, policy director for Friends of the River.

“The habitat destruction is just not worth it for the amount of water that is going to be created,” Santa Cruz resident Daniette Bowes said.

Moving forward

Sites Project Authority officials hope the decision will provide certainty for potential partners and funders that the project is viable.

With some funding already secured, the authority will move forward in the coming months with securing customers.

The project will take years to build, but supporters are hopeful that the approval of the water right is a final step in the drawn-out regulatory process.

“The approval shows California can get big infrastructure projects moving again,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in a news release.