Water district may buy site for huge reservoir
Saying it needs an insurance policy against future droughts, the Santa Clara Valley Water District is moving forward with plans to purchase a key property to build the largest reservoir constructed in the Bay Area in the past 20 years.
The water district’s board is scheduled to vote Tuesday afternoon on an agreement to purchase 274 acres near Pacheco Pass for the project.
The land is currently owned by the tiny Pacheco Pass Water District and is submerged under a small lake used by farmers that is known as Pacheco Reservoir.
Under the proposal, which is expected to be approved, the Santa Clara Valley Water District would agree to pay the Pacheco Pass Water District $200,000 for the land under a 15-year option. The Santa Clara district would then construct a new $969 million reservoir on, or slightly upstream from, the existing reservoir in the rugged ranch lands about half a mile north of Highway 152 near Casa de Fruta. The larger district would guarantee the Pacheco district a similar amount of water as it is getting now.
“The liability of our water supply system is really key,” said Norma Camacho, the CEO of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “When you are dealing with climate change and recurring droughts, we are going to need an emergency water supply. It allows for more resiliency. It’s an insurance policy.”
The Santa Clara Valley Water District is a government agency based in San Jose that provides water and flood protection to 1.9 million people from Palo Alto to Gilroy.
The existing reservoir was built on the North Fork of Pacheco Creek in 1939 behind a 100-foot earthen dam now badly in need of costly repairs. It holds only 6,000 acre-feet of water, while the new reservoir would hold more than 23 times as much — or 140,000 acre feet.
That would make it the largest reser-
voir in Santa Clara County, and the largest in the Bay Areasince Los Vaqueros Reservoir was constructed in eastern Contra Costa County in 1998.
The new dam would be 319 feet tall. The district would take water it now stores in nearby San Luis Reservoir and pipe it into the new reservoir, filling it during wet years.
The project is still in the early stages, and significant hurdles remain.
Among them: Whether the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown will pay nearly half the cost of the project. Last August, the Santa Clara Valley Water District applied to receive $485 million from Proposition 1, a $7.5 billion water bond passed by voters in 2014 during the depths of the state’s recent five-year drought.
After a long process, the California Water Commission, an agency made up of Brown’s appointees, is scheduled to make a final decision July 24-26 how to spend $2.7 billion of the bond that is set aside for water storage. The bond money can be used to pay up to half the cost of projects. There are 11 projects that are finalists.
Second, the water district has yet to identify where the other $500 million or so to build the new reservoir would come from. The district could try to tap federal sources, but raising local water bills is considered the most likely place.
Third, environmental groups say they have questions about the project. And that could lead to lawsuits. In a letter to the state water commission in January, the Sierra Club’s local Loma Prieta Chapter said the the new Pacheco reservoir “is not an essential project” and that future supply could be better and more cheaply secured with conservation, water recycling, storm water capture and raising the height of Los Vaqueros Reservoir instead.
Other environmentalists said the district seems to have rushed to put the project together as a way to apply for the state bond money rather than carefully consulting with groups who have an interest.
“They are proceeding in a manner that is going to make it much more difficult and potentially expensive than it needs to be,” said Jonas Minton, a former deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources who now works for the Planning and Conservation League, a Sacramento environmental group.
“They are going forward in the traditional engineering mindset way — get an option, do the environmental studies, get a permit,” he added. “Agencies that have been successful have used a much more inclusionary process. They have talked with stakeholders before jumping into actions such as options to purchase land.”
Another major challenge for the district is that it was recently outbid in its attempt to purchase a huge property surrounding the reservoir site. The existing small reservoir is surrounded by a 12,000-acre cattle ranch known as El Toro Ranch. That property, a vast expanse of land half the size of San Francisco, was on the market for $21 million last year. The water district would have to buy it to build the reservoir, since large reservoirs need protected landscapes around them to prevent development and lower fire risk.
The water district attempted to buy it from the Mathis family, a long-time ranching family. Another government agency, the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Agency, also was working with the Nature Conservancy to purchase it.
But in September, according to county records, Edmund Jin of Atherton bought the land. Jin, who was born in China, came to the United States with little money but started JLA Home, a successful importexport business for home furnishings. Jin, who was traveling and could not be reached for comment, owns property nearby.
Several years ago, Jin started an online video series that portrays his adventures around the world, including spear fishing in the tropics, going on expeditions to Antarctica and horse-back riding through wilderness near Yellowstone National Park.
Some observers are wondering if he purchased the property as a speculative investment, knowing water district would need to buy it later. Others have wondered if he simply bought the land to pursue his passion for the outdoors and horses.
“He was a very nice guy. Humble. Quiet,” said Pete Clark, a Paso Robles real estate broker who represented the Mathis family. “I was told when I met him and his colleagues that he wants to just keep the ranch as it is and run a few cattle and use it for recreation and family.”