California water regulators have approved construction of Sites Reservoir, clearing the way for construction of the state’s first large new reservoir in decades.
The plan calls for building two large dams, about 300 feet high, and nine smaller dams that would contain water pumped from the Sacramento River and flood about 15,000 acres in a valley northwest of Sacramento.
After intense debate, the state Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously Wednesday night to approve a water rights permit for a reservoir near the community of Maxwell.
“We face more extreme droughts and floods, and the need to store water during wet periods is growing. The site was built for this,” said Board Chairman E. Joaquin Esquivel.
State officials and water agency managers say the $7 billion reservoir will be an important part of California’s efforts to adapt to climate change.
Governor Gavin Newsom celebrated the decision, saying it showed “California can start big infrastructure projects again.” He called it a smart investment and said: “Now is the time to get started.”
Construction is scheduled to begin next year and be completed in 2034.
Opponents, including environmental activists and fisheries advocates, urged the commission to deny the permit, saying the reservoir would suck too much water from the Sacramento River and harm salmon and other native fish. They call it a costly waste that largely benefits agribusiness and other powerful interests, and say the impoundment will warm the river, exacerbate algae blooms and degrade the aquatic ecosystems of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
“The Sites Reservoir plan makes no sense. It costs billions of dollars, delivers a small amount of new water, and threatens the health of the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay Delta,” said Keiko Mertz, policy director for Friends of the River, an environmental group.
Local activists strongly criticized the plan. They say flooding the valley will Destruction of sacred sites and ancestral burial sites.
“If this reservoir came through, you would actually cover up the footprints and the trails that my father and his mother walked, he walked with me, I walked with my kids. And it would all be gone,” said Amanda Mitchum, the group’s leader. Kazir Dehvington Indian Band.
Chhé’ee Fókaa Northeast Pomo BandCalling it a “destructive, extractive” project, he told the board: “You are corruptly acting as a mouthpiece and rubber stamp for big agriculture companies, water profiteers and the politicians in their pockets.”
Among the big agencies backing the plan is the Metropolitan Water District, which supplies water to nearly 19 million people in Southern California. It and other agencies plan to pay some of the costs.
“This generational plan is necessary given the impacts of climate change, extreme droughts and severe flooding years,” said Ryan Shaw, manager of the Western Municipal Water District.
Reservoirs like the Sites project have been controversial since the 1950s. The current iteration of the project began taking shape in 2010.
It is expected to be the largest reservoir built in California since the completion of the new Mellons Dam on the Stanislaus River 1979with a water storage capacity of up to 1.5 million acre-feet.
The state and federal governments have pledged to cover about a third of the construction costs. The project has been allocated more than $1.3 billion from California’s Proposition 1 bond measure, which voters approved in 2014.