Water: Newsom pushing uphill finally

Dedicated to Empowering and Informing the Burlingame Community

Water: Newsom pushing uphill finally

November 9, 2023

Gavin Newsom appears to have finally gotten serious about a bit more reservoir capacity in California. As we noted back in wet January, some "experts" claim we have already built reservoirs in the most useful spots, but Newsom seems to disagree and is "accelerating" the Sites Reservoir whose Project Authority has been in existence for some time. Per the Comicle piece

Gov. Gavin Newsom exercised his new power under state law Monday to help get a giant reservoir planned for Northern California on the fast track for approval. The proposed $4.5 billion Sites Reservoir, envisioned 70 miles north of Sacramento, would be the first major reservoir built in California in nearly half a century.

The reservoir, planned for a swath of ranchlands in rural Colusa and Glenn counties, has long been promoted as a way to significantly boost water storage amid an increasingly uncertain climate. The reservoir is designed to capture water from the Sacramento River during wet years like this past one and hold up to 1.5 million acre-feet in reserve for dry times — enough for at least 3 million households for a year. The supply would be piped to cities and farms from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. The reservoir would be the state’s eighth largest.

That note about NorCal water going to SoCal is always concerning, but that is the political price to be paid. The other interesting design feature is

While the water would come from the Sacramento River, the proposed facility is different than most because it would not sit on a waterway. Instead, water from the river would be piped to the “off-stream” site.

So the fish get water first and the reservoir only diverts some when the Sacramento River is flowing well. It's a plan–lets see if it really starts holding water in 2032.

Posted in State Ievel issues, Water

3 responses to “Water: Newsom pushing uphill finally”

Joe

November 14, 2023

Ooops
Anderson Dam: Cost to rebuild major reservoir rises to $2.3 billion, tripling from two years ago
Increased labor and building materials, along with changed spillway design to blame, engineers say
The cost to bring Anderson Dam, which holds back the largest reservoir in Santa Clara County, up to modern earthquake standards has increased to $2.3 billion, water officials said Monday. That’s double what was estimated a year ago, triple the price tag from two years ago, and nearly certain to drive water rates higher next year across Silicon Valley.
“It’s very disturbing,” said John Varela, chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a government agency based in San Jose that owns the dam and is is overseeing the project.
“The cost escalations are just absurd,” he added. “It’s like a taxi cab when you go inside for a cup of coffee and the meter keeps running and your $5 fare goes to $10 and you say ‘Wait a minute.’”
————————-
I’m not sure about the taxi analogy, but no one should be surprised that a public works project has escalating costs–after all we have the Inflation Production Act money flowing all over.
Joe

September 28, 2024

Oooops 2.0
In a stunning setback for efforts to expand water storage in Northern California as the state struggles with more severe droughts from climate change, a $1.5 billion plan to enlarge Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County and share the water with residents across the Bay Area has collapsed after more than seven years of planning and millions of dollars spent.
The project, which was promised $477 million in state funding six years ago by the administration of former Gov. Jerry Brown, had been viewed by water planners as one of the most promising efforts to increase reservoir storage anywhere in the state. Plans called for raising the height of the earthen dam at Los Vaqueros by 55 feet to 281 feet high.
But the project’s costs have grown steadily, from $980 million in 2018 to nearly $1.6 billion today.
On top of that, late last year the state Department of Fish and Game updated the permit that the Contra Costa Water District uses to draw water from the Delta into the reservoir. The agency said tougher standards are needed to protect the endangered Delta smelt, a tiny fish, which reduced the yield, or annual amount of water users could expect from the enlarged reservoir, by up to 30%.
Finally, the eight major water agencies that had formed a partnership to build the project couldn’t agree on which should shoulder the most financial risk and pay for additional cost overruns if they came up.
The San Francisco Public Utilities District, which serves 2.4 million people in San Francisco, the Peninsula, the South Bay and Southern Alameda County, cut its share (Ed: Commitment to buy) in half, from 40,000 acre-feet to 20,000.
The failure is a major setback for the eight water agencies — each of which contributed $4.4 million and thousands of hours of staff time. But it also is a blow to the Newsom administration, which has said that more reservoir storage is needed for California to capture water in wet years for dry years, as droughts become more severe.
Joe

July 17, 2025

Whooops. You snooze, you lose another $2 billion:
Construction costs to build the largest new reservoir in California in 50 years, a vast 13-mile-long off-stream lake that would provide water to 500,000 acres of Central Valley farmlands and 24 million people, including residents of Santa Clara County, parts of the East Bay and Los Angeles, have risen sharply.
The price tag for Sites Reservoir, proposed to be located in the rural ranchlands of Colusa County 70 miles northwest of Sacramento, have increased from $4.5 billion to at least $6.2 billion, and potentially as much as $6.8 billion, the project’s planners confirmed Wednesday.
The increase is due to inflation for concrete, steel and other construction materials since 2021, when the original estimate was generated, planners said.
—————————
But Newsom has time to go to South Carolina and harangue Texas about their redistricting………………

ABOUT THE VOICE

The Burlingame Voice is dedicated to informing and empowering the Burlingame community. Our blog is a public forum for the discussion of issues that relate to Burlingame, California. Opinions posted on the Burlingame Voice are those of the poster and commenter and not necessarily the opinion of the Editorial Board. Comments are subject to the Terms of Use.