sites insight
past and present status on North State reservoir proposal from the staff of the California Cattlemen's Association
This article is the first in a series of articles regarding the proposed Sites Reservoir. This first article will provide some basic information on what Sites is and some of the history behind it. This article will also touch briefly on some other reservoir and surface water storage projects, groundwater storage, fish, water conveyance, safe drinking water, habitat restoration and other issues which are all part of the equation in implementation and funding for any future water storage project such as Sites. Over the decades, through a series of legislation, ballot propositions, federal policies and executive decisions, the state has evolved from the 1950s strategy of water management. It used to be: get it from where it is to where it is needed. Now water is viewed as serving many new purposes in addition to human consumption, agriculture and industry.
What is Sites Reservoir?
Many people, especially in the north state, are familiar with the proposed Sites Reservoir that is envisioned to be able to store 1.5 million-acre feet (AF) of water in an off-stream location. 1.5 million AF translates to about 489 billion gallons, enough water to theoretically supply California’s entire population for personal consumption for 124 days, assuming the reservoir was full and then drained down to the bottom. Sites would provide storage for an impressive amount of water and would be the tenth largest reservoir in the state by volume of water once completed and filled. Off-stream reservoirs do not dam a river, instead they are designed to be a holding area for water that is diverted from a nearby river via pipeline or canals. Motorists who have traveled west from I-5 near Santa Nella to Gilroy or Monterey have driven past the San Luis Reservoir, which is an off-stream reservoir holding over 2 million AF of water. Originating in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta (Delta), San Luis’ water is conveyed south in the California Aqueduct, whereupon it is pumped up from the aqueduct to be stored for distribution. The water has been used for agriculture and municipal water supply since 1967 and San Luis is currently the largest off-stream facility in the country.
Origin of the Sites Reservoir concept
The Sites Reservoir was originally supposed to be part of the second stage of the State Water Project about 40 years ago, but that idea died as collateral damage when the proposed peripheral canal project was killed at the ballot box in the election of 1982. Stage I of the State Water Project was Oroville Dam, the California Aqueduct and their attendant hydroelectric plants and pumping stations, which began construction in the '60s. Stage II was for a 22 California Cattleman November 2021
peripheral canal to take water from Northern California, divert it around the Delta and move it southwards. Sites was to be part of Stage II. The Sites concept then languished until 2009 when State Sen. Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto) authored a bill to get a water bond on the 2010 ballot which sought to, among many other things, fund surface water storage projects. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but because of the state’s budget problems at the time, the legislature held off on putting it on the ballot until 2012. It was again pulled back from the ballot for the same reasons as before. A similar effort (AB 1471) was launched in 2014 by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and subsequently signed in to law by Gov. Jerry Brown. AB 1471 put Proposition 1 on the Nov. 4, 2014 ballot. Proposition 1 was titled the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014 and it was overwhelmingly approved by 67 percent of the voters. Proposition 1 authorized the issuance of $7.12 billion to finance a water quality, supply and infrastructure improvement program. Proposition 1 also reallocated $425 million from unissued past bond funding to help finance Proposition 1. Proposition 1 was to be implemented immediately upon passage of the bond act. Sites was not mentioned by name in Proposition 1, rather a portion of the bond language designated $2.7 billion to the California Water Commission for “water storage projects that improve the operation of the state water system.” This section of the bond language identified surface storage, groundwater storage, conjunctive use (a blend of surface and groundwater storage) and local and regional surface storage projects. Surface storage projects were limited to only those projects identified in the
