Editorial: Raging streams give argument for Sites

Watching all the water raging in area streams, creeks and rivers, pounding over waterfalls and spilling out of Shasta Dam is a welcome sight after years of drought in Northern California.

As an atmospheric river brings feet of snow to the mountains and more rain than the valley has seen in years, the Bureau of Reclamation has opened the floodgates, so to speak, and upped flows from Shasta and Keswick dams to clear out room as it expects even more water to pour into the lake.

And guess where much of all that beautiful, precious, millions and millions of gallons of water will end up?

The ocean.

Sure, some will seep into groundwater basins, replenishing their sinking stores. Some might get siphoned off to users downriver.

But as flooding chases residents from their neighborhoods along the swollen rivers around Sacramento, it becomes glaringly obvious that California should have a long time ago built the Sites Reservoir.

This project, literally decades in the works, would create a reservoir in the Antelope Valley, a long, narrow area that straddles Colusa and Glenn counties. Its sole purpose would be to take extra runoff like we're seeing this year and storing it for use for the years California just suffered through. When full, the reservoir is expected to hold up to 1.81 million acre feet — enough water for nearly 2 million California households a year. Water would be released in dry years to help water agencies south of it meet their water needs.

It was originally supposed to be part of the second phase of the State Water Project. The first phase of that project finished in the 1980s, with completion of the California Aqueduct and Oroville Dam. But Sites got delayed as political priorities and funding shifted.

But the need for it has only become more urgent as a growing population puts more pressure on perennial water shortages. The past few years Californians have seen their lawns and trees die. More than 100 million trees in our state's forests are dead and dying, ready tinder for the next massive wildfire.

State and federal officials need to make creating reservoirs such as Sites a top priority. The project moved incrementally ahead in December after the California Water Commission adopted regulations that are the first step in implementing the Water Storage Investment Program. All the bureaucratic language adds up to one thing: It opens the way for the commission to start using $2.7 billion in bond revenue generated by Proposition 1, a water bond passed voters approved in 2014 that authorized $7.12 billion for water supply infrastructure projects.

Even if all goes swimmingly, it will still be about eight to 10 years out before Sites is built, but it will be important for our communities and elected officials to keep the pressure on the California Water Commission, state leaders and other key players in the project to keep it on track.

Both Assemblyman Brian Dahle and Rep. Doug LaMalfa enthusiastically support the reservoir. When built, it will take away some of the pressure from the North State to send more water to the thirsty south, while at the same time making sure our local needs as well as that of the environment are met.

We are currently blessed with plenty of water this month, but even though the National Weather Service tells us this is what a normal rain year looks like, we fear that maybe the past five years were more of what we can expect going forward.

In that case, it is imperative that California makes building more water storage a top priority.