From prolonged drought to excessive flooding, water conditions in California have been anything but consistent during the past few years. That’s a problem for one of the world’s leading agricultural regions.
With climate change threatening one of California’s biggest industries, we need to invest in a truly resilient and reliable water future. We need Sites Reservoir.
When the largest dam removal in U.S. history began on the Klamath River this year, it seemed as if the era of dam building was over in the West. Just a month later, however, the federal government finalized $216 million dollars in funding for a controversial dam project south of the Klamath, adding to the $1 billion in direct grants already pledged to the project known as Sites Reservoir. Rights for the water are being distributed this summer.
This would be California’s first major new reservoir in half a century. The project will require building two main dams on a pair of streams that typically only run during big winter rains. Most of the water would come from much farther away, however: Filling the reservoir means piping water from the Sacramento River uphill, away from the Central Valley. If it’s built, the reservoir will inundate Antelope Valley, 14,000 acres of hilly grassland in the California Coast Range, northwest of Sacramento.
California’s plan to build the state’s first new major reservoir in decades is advancing after a court rejected a challenge by environmental groups.
In the ruling last week, a Yolo County Superior Court judge sided against environmental advocates who had argued Sites Reservoir would harm the Sacramento River’s ecosystem and threaten imperiled fish species.
Colusa County is known for sprawling rice farms and almond orchards, wetlands full of migrating ducks and geese, staunch conservative politics, and the 19th-century family cattle ranch where former Gov. Jerry Brown retired five years ago.
A plan to build the largest reservoir in California in decades, Sites Reservoir about 70 miles north of Sacramento, is being challenged as ecologically destructive and not worth the cost in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups Wednesday.
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom utilized the state’s new infrastructure streamlining bill to accelerate the building of Sites Reservoir. This is great news for all Californians, particularly farmers who provide a safe, healthy, reliable food supply. Sites Reservoir is a critical element in California’s struggle to maintain a reliable water supply in the face of climate change.
California water agencies say they have nearly secured $4.5 billion in funding needed to build the state’s largest reservoir in nearly a century, Sites Reservoir, as a state environmental review process for the project comes to a rapid close after decades of delay.
California’s state government began drawing up plans for Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento Valley 70 years ago. And it still only exists on paper.
So, kudos to Gov. Gavin Newsom for deciding that it’s finally time to put this tardy project on the fast track.
Fast track means there’ll be limited time for any opponent to contest the project in court on environmental grounds.
The future of California water storage reached a major milestone Thursday with the finalization for plans of the Sites Reservoir in Northern California. The reservoir would be the second largest off-stream reservoir in the nation and would increase Northern California’s water storage capacity by up to 15%, according to a press release from the Bureau of Reclamation. It will deliver water to beneficiaries primarily during dry periods or drought. The project area is about an hour north of Sacramento, situated between the Sacramento Valley to the east and the mountainous portion of the Coast Range on the west. It’s currently being used for livestock and cattle grazing.
