Sites Reservoir: a 1950s vision finally taking shape

SITES, Calif. — The Northstate has heard about the Sites Reservoir project for decades. This vision first brought forth in the 1950s to effectively serve as water availability insurance during dry years has long been a subject of attention, but has yet to be built.

Active winter weather like January's atmospheric rivers reinforced the need for water storage. An estimated 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow fell across the state with these systems, and yet much of it had nowhere to go but down swollen rivers. That's where Sites comes in — a 1.5 million acre-foot reservoir filled by the otherwise uncaptured runoff from high precipitation events.

Support for Sites isn’t lacking. Work to make the project a reality has crossed party lines, with local leaders like Assemblyman James Gallagher and Congressman Doug LaMalfa championing the same project that Governor Gavin Newsom has expressed his support for. So what is the hold-up?

“I mean all of it's really turning out to be that the fish are trumping people's needs,” explained Congressman Doug LaMalfa. “You know we can do both. We can coexist on this. But the momentum is all the other way. So if we can build Sites as well, that means 1 1/2 million more acre-feet in the pie, in the pool. Whatever you want to put it, to help out, help balance all this out, so we need to build it immediately. So what we really need to do is call the governor's office and tell them to get the permits done on allowing the water to be diverted so that they have the water right that they need to divert.”

From the state’s perspective, particularly the State Water Resources Control Board, it comes back to the Project Authority itself.

When contacted for an interview, the Board provided KRCR with a statement highlighting several key issues that they have brought to the Sites Reservoir Authority throughout the process, saying:

“The State Water Board previously requested information missing from the original application, specifically regarding the availability of water to supply the project and foreseeable changes involving instream flow demands and operational constraints. The board must ensure that instream flows necessary for the protection of water quality, fish and wildlife in the Delta can be met sustainably and that the project considers a reasonable range of operational alternatives to preserve these flows in a variety of conditions. In addition to informing the authority about the missing or incomplete information, the board also offered guidance on how to avoid unnecessary delays by resolving public concerns and completing requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This guidance repeats what was stated in the board’s CEQA comment letters to the authority in 2018 and 2022. Our requests for information are meant to identify potential issues and ultimately improve the project’s chances for a successful completion of the regulatory process.”

They have accepted the Authority’s application for water rights, but these key question marks remain. So I brought them to the project’s executive director, Jerry Brown.

“Since August, we’ve been working with the board staff, we completed all of the materials that they were requesting and submitted those on January 6th of this year. And so we are currently in the process of awaiting their evaluation of those additional materials. We expect within weeks, we hope, to receive a notice that our application has been accepted,” he explained.

That next step is a period of 60 days for public comment from stakeholders on the project — and there are a lot. From the quiet community of Maxwell to the students who bus through the soon-to-be flooded valley to attend school, there’s much more than just building a dam that needs to happen.

“One of the things that we're really trying to do here, with the Sites Reservoir project, is learn from our history, and do things different,” Brown said. “The way I like to look at it, this is our opportunity to get it right, and we need to take our time to get it right and be cautious and careful in making our decisions, but at the same time, we’ve kind of waited too long. And our need is pressing, and so there’s an urgency."

KRCR previously spoke with Brown in January, and he emphasized the optimism within the project that true action has never been closer. A month later, that remained his perspective.

If all goes to plan, the spot where Brown spoke with KRCR’s Preston Donion will be under nearly 300 feet of water by the early 2030s. But for now, a lot still needs to happen before interviews can no longer be held there.