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.
“Sites Reservoir doesn’t make any sense because of its high cost, relatively low yield, and significant negative impacts,” said Keiko Mertz, policy director of the environmental group Friends of the River. “Sites will be extremely expensive, while only adding about a half a percent to California’s water supply on average.”
Native activists strongly criticized the plan. They said inundating the valley would destroy sacred sites and ancestral burial grounds.
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