California water regulators have approved a permit for Sites Reservoir, clearing the way for construction of the state’s first new major reservoir in decades.
Plans call for two large dams about 300 feet high, as well as nine smaller ones, holding water pumped from the Sacramento River and inundating about 15,000 acres in a valley northwest of Sacramento.
After a heated debate, the State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously late Wednesday to approve the water right permit for the reservoir near the community of Maxwell.
“We’re living with more extreme droughts and floods, and a growing need to store water during wet periods. Sites is built for exactly that,” Board Chair E. Joaquin Esquivel said.
State officials and managers of water agencies said the $7 billion reservoir will be a critical part of California’s efforts to adapt to climate change.
Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the decision, saying it shows “California can get big infrastructure projects moving again.” He called it a smart investment, saying: “Now it’s time to get shovels in the ground.”
Construction is scheduled to begin next year and conclude in 2034.
Opponents, including environmental activists and fishing advocates, urged the board to reject the permit, saying the reservoir would siphon too much water out of the Sacramento River and harm salmon and other native fish. They called it a costly boondoggle that will mainly benefit agribusiness and other powerful interests, and said filling the reservoir will warm up the river, worsen algae blooms, and degrade the aquatic ecosystem in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
“The Sites Reservoir project makes no sense. It costs billions, delivers a trickle of new water, and threatens the health of the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay-Delta,” said Keiko Mertz, policy director of the environmental group Friends of the River.
Native activists strongly criticized the plan. They said inundating the valley would destroy sacred sites and ancestral burial grounds.
“If this reservoir goes through, you will literally be covering up the footprints and trails that my father walked with his mother, he walked with me, and I walk with my children. And that’ll all be gone,” said Amanda Mitchum, a leader of the Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians.
Theresa Moore, of the Chhé’ee Fókaa Band of Northeastern Pomo, called it a “destructive, extractive” project and told the board: “You are corruptly embracing a role as the mouthpieces and rubber-stamps of Big Ag, water profiteers, and the politicians in their pockets.”
The large agencies supporting the project include the Metropolitan Water District, which delivers water for nearly 19 million people across Southern California. It and other agencies plan to consider paying part of the costs.
“Given the impacts of climate change, extreme drought, and intense flood years, this generational project is necessary,” said Ryan Shaw, a manager of Western Municipal Water District.
A reservoir like the Sites project has been debated since the 1950s. The current iteration of the project took shape starting in 2010.
It’s slated to be the largest reservoir built in California since the completion of New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River in 1979, holding up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water.
The state and federal governments have pledged to pay for about one-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.
During Wednesday’s meeting, state officials said the reservoir is designed to take water from the Sacramento River during wet periods, helping the state adapt as climate change intensifies extremes and brings more precipitation as rain, not snow.
“Our water systems that were really once on the vanguard and the envy of the world are not built for the climate we have,” Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said. “And it demands something different than what we’ve done in the past.”
Supporters, including managers of water agencies, said the reservoir represents a vital strategic investment to modernize California’s water system.
Nearly 70 people urged the board not to approve the permit. Among them were boaters, fishers and people who live near the Sacramento River. Many said they believe building the reservoir is an outdated approach that will cause environmental damage.
Beth McCullough, a kayaker who lives in Sacramento County, said the idea of pumping water out of the river and sending it to an arid valley “sounds like a proposal to create an enormous stagnant pond,” where toxic algae would grow, then later be released into the stressed ecosystem of the Delta.
Lindy Rice, a retired professor, said she thinks the reservoir is “a 20th century solution to a 21st century problem.”
She and others said the state should instead invest in alternative approaches, such as stepping up conservation, switching to less water-intensive crops, and devising nature-based solutions to capture stormwater and recharge groundwater. They pointed out that, unlike a reservoir, underground water storage avoids loss to evaporation.
Christina Swanson, an environmental scientist who has studied the Delta, told the board that she thinks the project is “amazingly ill-conceived.”
“Basically, there’s not enough water available to fill this reservoir,” she said, adding that it will harm water quality.
Environmental advocates have also argued that building the reservoir would emit a substantial amount of planet-warming greenhouse gases.
The five-member state water board, after hearing those concerns, said the project has undergone a thorough review and they are satisfied with the environmental protections.
The process leading up to the decision was contentious.
A judge-like officer appointed by the board oversaw a series of hearings to weigh the permit application. When the officer, Nicole Kuenzi, released a draft decision earlier this year, the project’s proponents objected that it would severely limit how much water the reservoir could deliver.
In May, Newsom urged the board in a letter to make changes in the draft permit to allow for “adequate storage in the reservoir.” Opponents of the project criticized what they said was political pressure.
The agency later adopted changes that satisfied the concerns of Newsom and the project’s developers — which critics said weakened environmental protections.
With the permit approved, leaders of the Sites Project Authority, the agency overseeing plans for the reservoir, will turn next to securing funding commitments from water agencies.
Jerry Brown, the authority’s executive director, said he expects that will take about four months, and then the agency will be ready to start taking out loans and making final preparations to start construction.