By: Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations, Western Region, Ducks Unlimited; Tim Johnson, President and CEO, California Rice Commission; and David Guy, President, Northern California Water Association
California’s water future depends on capturing water when available and putting that water to work when communities, farms, and ecosystems need it most. Sites Reservoir embodies this approach. Combining modern infrastructure, dedicated environmental water, and collaborative management, Sites Reservoir offers an innovative investment in healthy rivers, landscapes, and communities—and a more resilient California. We encourage the State Water Board this week to approve the water right permit to move forward with Sites Reservoir—an important investment in California’s water future!
In Northern California, we are all working together through a memorandum of understanding “to promote functioning ecosystems and sustainable water supplies in California’s Sacramento Valley.” Our objective is “to preserve, sustain, and promote working agricultural landscapes in the Sacramento Valley that support ecosystem function and provide landscape-scale habitat benefits for fish, bird, and wildlife populations. Our collective goal is to bring our natural and working landscapes in this region to life through the careful interaction of water, sun, and land.”
Completing Sites Reservoir is central to our collective priorities by strengthening working landscapes that sustain food production and provide essential habitat for fish and wildlife, while providing water for communities, flood control, and public recreation benefits.
Capturing opportunity and preparing for dry years
Sites Reservoir is an off-stream regulating reservoir proposed for the west side of the Sacramento Valley. It would capture water during high runoff periods, store it, and make it available during drier periods. By its location upstream of the Delta, Sites Reservoir can benefit the entire state of California.
Its value extends beyond storage capacity. Coordinating Sites Reservoir with existing reservoirs and other water management programs will provide flexibility to respond to changing conditions and serve multiple beneficial uses. This flexibility is essential as California adapts to increasingly variable precipitation and runoff, and declining snowpack.
The 2020-2022 drought brought this into focus and demonstrated the consequences of insufficient surface water. Communities faced constrained drinking water supplies, farmland went unplanted, ricelands and refuges lost water essential to wildlife, salmon experienced exceptionally challenging conditions, and groundwater pumping increased.
Sites Reservoir would provide an additional water asset to help manage these interconnected pressures. Stored water gives water and refuge managers more options to sustain communities, farming, and ecosystems, while reliable surface supplies also reduce groundwater dependence during dry periods.
Photo: Northern California Water Association
Connecting environmental water with healthy rivers and landscapes
A defining feature of Sites is its dedicated environmental water supply. This creates an opportunity to manage water intentionally for healthier rivers and habitat, particularly when dry conditions place ecosystems under stress.
Throughout the Sacramento Valley, we are working with various partners to advance a holistic approach to ecosystem health from ridgetop to river mouth. Reliable water provides significant ecological value when delivered to restored habitat at the right time and place.
Sites can contribute an environmental water budget supported by expert management and partnerships. Coordinated with the holistic approach for birds and salmon in the Sacramento Valley, the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program, floodplain reactivation, and groundwater replenishment, Sites can combine water storage with nature-based solutions to support native fish, birds, and wildlife.
Advancing state policy
Sites Reservoir offers California an opportunity to turn state water policy into tangible and lasting public benefits. The voters’ approval of Proposition 1 in 2014 affirmed their support for investing in water storage that delivers ecosystem improvements and other public benefits—an approach reflected in Sites’ dedicated environmental water supply. The bi-partisan passage of SB 72 in 2025 expressed the Legislature’s long-term vision for California water and the need for additional water supplies by 2040. Sites Reservoir is poised to help advance these goals through integrated water management: capturing flows when available, improving dry-year reliability, coordinating surface water and groundwater management, and supporting healthier rivers and landscapes. Completing Sites would translate voter support and legislative direction into infrastructure that strengthens California’s resilience and serves communities, farms, and the environment.
Photo: Northern California Water Association
Moving from vision to implementation
We appreciate the substantial work undertaken by the State Water Board and its Administrative Hearings Office to include permit terms that set the stage for a viable project and balance competing beneficial uses of water to further the public interest.
Sites Reservoir is an innovative project designed to deliver ecosystem benefits and serve communities, farms, and wildlife throughout California. Strong partnerships like ours among water suppliers, landowners, conservation organizations, and fish and wildlife agencies will help ensure Sites Reservoir delivers its intended benefits while responding to changing conditions in California.
The time is now for the State Water Board to adopt and issue the recommended Decision 1653 and Water Right Permit 21487 for the Sites Reservoir Project, so the Sites Project Authority can turn decades of planning into lasting investment in California’s rivers, landscapes, and communities.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Maven’s Notebook.
More on Sites Reservoir posted at Maven’s Notebook …
Detractors of the reservoir includes environmentalists and Native tribes that say they’re being ignored in favor of “Big Agriculture.” By Alan Riquelmy, Courthouse News Service California’s water board on Wednesday granted a permit to the Sites Reservoir project, a 1.5 million acre-foot lake intended as an answer to the problems of a changing climate and the state’s evolving water needs. The decision by the State Water Resources Control Board was a crucial step to make the long-simmering project a reality. […]
Permit balances water supplies, protections for fish and water quality From the State Water Resources Control Board: As California responds to a changing climate, more extreme droughts and floods, and a growing need to store water during wet periods, the State Water Resources Control Board today approved a water right for a new reservoir that incorporates critical environmental safeguards to protect the state’s largest river. The Sites Reservoir Project, located about 65 miles northwest of Sacramento, is an off-stream storage […]
By: Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations, Western Region, Ducks Unlimited; Tim Johnson, President and CEO, California Rice Commission; and David Guy, President, Northern California Water Association California’s water future depends on capturing water when available and putting that water to work when communities, farms, and ecosystems need it most. Sites Reservoir embodies this approach. Combining modern infrastructure, dedicated environmental water, and collaborative management, Sites Reservoir offers an innovative investment in healthy rivers, landscapes, and communities—and a more resilient California. We encourage the […]
Cutting corners leads to a bad project – we all suffer the hidden costs and damages By Keiko Mertz, Friends of the River There’s only one day remaining for the State to divert from its collision course on one of the most consequential and expensive water decisions to be made in our state in decades. On November 4, the State Water Resources Control Board will vote on whether to grant the proposed Sites Reservoir a water right permit, and if […]
By Ric Ortega, General Manager of Grassland Water District For those of us responsible for delivering water to California’s remaining wetlands, Sites Reservoir offers a more dependable water supply when habitat needs it most, including in dry years when wildlife has few places to go. Although Sites would be built in the Sacramento Valley, environmental water from the project would be delivered south of the Delta, sustaining the Grassland Ecological Area wetlands and other vital links along the Pacific Flyway. […]
COMMENTARY: The time is now: Sites Reservoir can strengthen California’s water future
By: Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations, Western Region, Ducks Unlimited; Tim Johnson, President and CEO, California Rice Commission; and David Guy, President, Northern California Water Association
California’s water future depends on capturing water when available and putting that water to work when communities, farms, and ecosystems need it most. Sites Reservoir embodies this approach. Combining modern infrastructure, dedicated environmental water, and collaborative management, Sites Reservoir offers an innovative investment in healthy rivers, landscapes, and communities—and a more resilient California. We encourage the State Water Board this week to approve the water right permit to move forward with Sites Reservoir—an important investment in California’s water future!
In Northern California, we are all working together through a memorandum of understanding “to promote functioning ecosystems and sustainable water supplies in California’s Sacramento Valley.” Our objective is “to preserve, sustain, and promote working agricultural landscapes in the Sacramento Valley that support ecosystem function and provide landscape-scale habitat benefits for fish, bird, and wildlife populations. Our collective goal is to bring our natural and working landscapes in this region to life through the careful interaction of water, sun, and land.”
Completing Sites Reservoir is central to our collective priorities by strengthening working landscapes that sustain food production and provide essential habitat for fish and wildlife, while providing water for communities, flood control, and public recreation benefits.
Capturing opportunity and preparing for dry years
Sites Reservoir is an off-stream regulating reservoir proposed for the west side of the Sacramento Valley. It would capture water during high runoff periods, store it, and make it available during drier periods. By its location upstream of the Delta, Sites Reservoir can benefit the entire state of California.
Its value extends beyond storage capacity. Coordinating Sites Reservoir with existing reservoirs and other water management programs will provide flexibility to respond to changing conditions and serve multiple beneficial uses. This flexibility is essential as California adapts to increasingly variable precipitation and runoff, and declining snowpack.
The 2020-2022 drought brought this into focus and demonstrated the consequences of insufficient surface water. Communities faced constrained drinking water supplies, farmland went unplanted, ricelands and refuges lost water essential to wildlife, salmon experienced exceptionally challenging conditions, and groundwater pumping increased.
Sites Reservoir would provide an additional water asset to help manage these interconnected pressures. Stored water gives water and refuge managers more options to sustain communities, farming, and ecosystems, while reliable surface supplies also reduce groundwater dependence during dry periods.
Connecting environmental water with healthy rivers and landscapes
A defining feature of Sites is its dedicated environmental water supply. This creates an opportunity to manage water intentionally for healthier rivers and habitat, particularly when dry conditions place ecosystems under stress.
Throughout the Sacramento Valley, we are working with various partners to advance a holistic approach to ecosystem health from ridgetop to river mouth. Reliable water provides significant ecological value when delivered to restored habitat at the right time and place.
Sites can contribute an environmental water budget supported by expert management and partnerships. Coordinated with the holistic approach for birds and salmon in the Sacramento Valley, the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program, floodplain reactivation, and groundwater replenishment, Sites can combine water storage with nature-based solutions to support native fish, birds, and wildlife.
Advancing state policy
Sites Reservoir offers California an opportunity to turn state water policy into tangible and lasting public benefits. The voters’ approval of Proposition 1 in 2014 affirmed their support for investing in water storage that delivers ecosystem improvements and other public benefits—an approach reflected in Sites’ dedicated environmental water supply. The bi-partisan passage of SB 72 in 2025 expressed the Legislature’s long-term vision for California water and the need for additional water supplies by 2040. Sites Reservoir is poised to help advance these goals through integrated water management: capturing flows when available, improving dry-year reliability, coordinating surface water and groundwater management, and supporting healthier rivers and landscapes. Completing Sites would translate voter support and legislative direction into infrastructure that strengthens California’s resilience and serves communities, farms, and the environment.
Moving from vision to implementation
We appreciate the substantial work undertaken by the State Water Board and its Administrative Hearings Office to include permit terms that set the stage for a viable project and balance competing beneficial uses of water to further the public interest.
Sites Reservoir is an innovative project designed to deliver ecosystem benefits and serve communities, farms, and wildlife throughout California. Strong partnerships like ours among water suppliers, landowners, conservation organizations, and fish and wildlife agencies will help ensure Sites Reservoir delivers its intended benefits while responding to changing conditions in California.
The time is now for the State Water Board to adopt and issue the recommended Decision 1653 and Water Right Permit 21487 for the Sites Reservoir Project, so the Sites Project Authority can turn decades of planning into lasting investment in California’s rivers, landscapes, and communities.
More on Sites Reservoir posted at Maven’s Notebook …
COURTHOUSE NEWS: California water board approves permit for Sites Reservoir project
Detractors of the reservoir includes environmentalists and Native tribes that say they’re being ignored in favor of “Big Agriculture.” By Alan Riquelmy, Courthouse News Service California’s water board on Wednesday granted a permit to the Sites Reservoir project, a 1.5 million acre-foot lake intended as an answer to the problems of a changing climate and the state’s evolving water needs. The decision by the State Water Resources Control Board was a crucial step to make the long-simmering project a reality. […]
PRESS RELEASE: State Water Board approves water right for Sites Reservoir
Permit balances water supplies, protections for fish and water quality From the State Water Resources Control Board: As California responds to a changing climate, more extreme droughts and floods, and a growing need to store water during wet periods, the State Water Resources Control Board today approved a water right for a new reservoir that incorporates critical environmental safeguards to protect the state’s largest river. The Sites Reservoir Project, located about 65 miles northwest of Sacramento, is an off-stream storage […]
COMMENTARY: The time is now: Sites Reservoir can strengthen California’s water future
By: Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations, Western Region, Ducks Unlimited; Tim Johnson, President and CEO, California Rice Commission; and David Guy, President, Northern California Water Association California’s water future depends on capturing water when available and putting that water to work when communities, farms, and ecosystems need it most. Sites Reservoir embodies this approach. Combining modern infrastructure, dedicated environmental water, and collaborative management, Sites Reservoir offers an innovative investment in healthy rivers, landscapes, and communities—and a more resilient California. We encourage the […]
COMMENTARY: The Sites Reservoir is a bad deal for Californians
Cutting corners leads to a bad project – we all suffer the hidden costs and damages By Keiko Mertz, Friends of the River There’s only one day remaining for the State to divert from its collision course on one of the most consequential and expensive water decisions to be made in our state in decades. On November 4, the State Water Resources Control Board will vote on whether to grant the proposed Sites Reservoir a water right permit, and if […]
COMMENTARY: Sites Reservoir can help sustain wetlands in the San Joaquin Valley
By Ric Ortega, General Manager of Grassland Water District For those of us responsible for delivering water to California’s remaining wetlands, Sites Reservoir offers a more dependable water supply when habitat needs it most, including in dry years when wildlife has few places to go. Although Sites would be built in the Sacramento Valley, environmental water from the project would be delivered south of the Delta, sustaining the Grassland Ecological Area wetlands and other vital links along the Pacific Flyway. […]
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