Scale, price of massive reservoir cut back
$2B trimmed off costs for Colusa County project, which would send water statewide
“We took to heart what people told us and said we need to take a step back and reevaluate this.”
—Jerry R. Brown, executive director of the Sites Project Authority
An ambitious plan to build the largest new reservoir in California in 40 years to supply water to homes and businesses from the Bay Area to Los
Angeles, along with Central Valley farmers, is being scaled back considerably amid questions about its $5 billion price tag and how much water it can deliver.
Sites Reservoir is proposed for construction in remote ranchlands in
Colusa County, about 70 miles north of Sacramento. The reservoir, originally designed to be four times as big as Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, received $816 million two years ago from a water bond passed by state voters during California’s historic drought.
But supporters still haven’t found enough to
pay all the construction costs.
So, late last month, the agency planning the reservoir, the Sites Project Authority, issued new plans.
Under the new approach, which has drawn little attention due to the coronavirus pandemic, the price tag will be cut roughly 40% from $5.1 billion to $3 billion. The reservoir will shrink from 1.8 million acre-feet to 1.5 million acre-feet. Plans to build an 18-mile pipeline east to the Sacramento River to fill the reservoir were dropped in favor of using existing canals.
A hydro-power pumping station was cut. And significantly, the amount of water the reservoir is expected to deliver on average, known as the “annual yield,” was cut in half from 505,000 acre-feet to 243,000 acre-feet.
Backers say the reservoir nevertheless remains on track.
“This is a step in the right direction to making this project a reality for the state of California,” said Jerry R. Brown, executive director of the Sites Project Authority.
Brown, no relation to the former governor, was hired last month after previously working as general manager of the Contra Costa Water District.
Making the project more affordable, he said, will increase the likelihood that water agencies will contribute — from farmers in the Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley to urban users like the Santa Clara Valley Water District in San Jose, the Zone 7 Water Agency in Livermore and the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles, all of whom have expressed interest.
So far, 21 agencies have put up $27 million for planning and studies. An additional $19 million is due by Oct. 1.
“We took to heart what people told us and said we need to take a step back and reevaluate this,” Brown said. “We’ve developed a right-sized project that is affordable and buildable.”
But the changes highlight how difficult it is to build huge new water projects in California, even as the state heads into a dry summer after a disappointing winter rainy season.
“All of us have done something like this in our lives,” said Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “You go out on the market and see how big a house or car you can buy at first, but then, when you sharpen your pencil and do the finances more seriously, you decide you can only afford something a little smaller.”
Environmentalists were more blunt.
“To me, it just shows it’s a project that’s struggling to pay for itself,” said Ron Stork, a senior policy advocate for Friends of the River, a group that opposes the project.
The changes will delay the start of construction from 2022 to at least 2023, although planners say they still hope to finish by the original date of 2030.
Sites would be an “offstream” reservoir. Instead of damming a river, a remote valley 10 miles west of the sleepy farm town of Maxwell would be submerged, the water held in by two large dams and up to nine smaller “saddle dams” on ridges.
The reservoir would be filled by diverting water from the Sacramento River in wet years, and releasing it in dry years for farms and cities and to help fish and other species in the SacramentoSan Joaquin River Delta.
The project has multiple challenges, however. The state Department of Fish and Wildlife, which must issue permits, said the original plan would take too much water out of the Sacramento River, harming salmon, steelhead and other species.
The scaled-back plan takes significantly less water.
To pay for the project, Sites’ planners asked the Brown administration for $1.6 billion from Proposition 1, a bond passed in 2014 by voters. They got half. They also were given a $439 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The planners are seeking $1 billion in other federal loans and $1.2 billion from water agencies that would buy the water.
“It’s a steep hill to climb,” Lund said. “But it’s not as steep at $3 billion as it would be at $5 billion.”