Sites Reservoir part of water solution

From the Chico Enterprise-Record
Sunday, January 28, 2001

Editorial – Sites Reservoir part of water solution

After years of talk about a reservoir in Colusa County, word is finally getting out that it’s not just a pipe dream. And we’re glad word is getting out, because building Sites Reservoir is an idea that most people, will support once they learn moreabout it.

Tnroughout the lengthy Cal-Fed process, it’s been obvious that even with the best conservation, and watershed management measures, California needs to increase its water supply. That means finding more storage for water.

We can tell you what the state shouldn’t do. It shouldn’t try storing water under the desert, and it shouldn’t be building dams on rivers with year-round flows and viable fish populations. Too many species of-fish, partìcularly salmon and steelhead, have ended up on the endangered or threatened species lists in large part because of dams.

Anybody with an ounce of common sense also realizes that dams won’t get built on major rivers anymore because of environmental concerns and that’s fine with us. Enough rivers have been ruined.

But there’s still that nagging supply question.

And the Sites Reservoir helps answer it.

Sites is a valley about 10 miles west of Maxwell. The valley has just a handful, of houses and a handful of landowners. It has no:year-round streams, only ephemeral streams, so there are no fish populations. It’s a dry oak woodland with “very little environmental value,” as one Chico State University professor put it. There’s abundant wildlife that would be displaced, but there’s plenty of open space all around where the animals could roam.

The valley could be easily dammed to produce a bathtub that could hold 1.9 million to 3 million acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is enough to fill an acre of land one foot deep, and is roughly enough for a family of four for one year. Lake Oroville holds 3.5 million acre-feet.

Runoff would never fill the lake, so water would be pumped from the Sacramento River through canals to Sites. Water likely would only be pumped when flows are highest, such as during winter storms. Some years it would be easy to fill the lake. Other times — such as so far this winter — little water would flow to the lake.

Because Sites is downstream of Shasta Dam, building the reservoir would be like enlarging Shasta lake. During a year when Shasta is nearly full in spring for example, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could release water to leave more room in Shasta for late-spring rains, and that excess water could be pumped into Sites.

Then, in the summer, water could flow out of Sites to farmers, cities and other users. Or it could stay in Sites Reservoir, in case the following winter was dry.

Of course, Shasta doesn’t fill up every year,and neither would Sites. But it would give water managers more flexibility during wet years.

The Northern California Water Association, a group that represents water districts, farmers and landowners, is pitching the Sites idea to county boards of supervisors in Northern California, hoping to get them to support a water management plan that includes Sites Reservoir.

Environmental review for the Sites project will begin in April and will take more than three years. If the decision is made to proceed, construction would begin no later than August 2006.

We’ll be a larger, thirstier state by then. It’s time to start thinking about the solution now.