State Water Board revises draft water right decision for proposed Sites Reservoir; The Sites Project Authority responds ~ MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK

Draft balances water supplies with protections for fish, water quality

From the State Water Board:

The State Water Resources Control Board today released for public comment a revised draft water right decision and draft permit for the proposed Sites Reservoir in Northern California that will balance the project’s water supply benefits with the protection of senior right holders, water quality and flows for fisheries.

The proposed 1.5 million-acre-foot reservoir, which would be the largest built in California in more than 50 years, would increase the state’s supplies by diverting water from the Sacramento River when flows are relatively high and storing it for farms, cities and the environment.

If approved by the State Water Board, the revised drafts allow the project to divert up to 986,000 acre-feet of water per year — enough to supply about 8.4 million people annually.

The documents released today are revised versions of drafts released in March 2026 after two years of public proceedings overseen by the board’s Administrative Hearing Office. Both the initial and revised drafts reflect careful consideration of public comments submitted during the proceedings and were informed by extensive deliberations by board members in closed sessions.

The main revisions to the draft decision and permit expand opportunities to divert water from the river and ensure the project aligns with the recently released final draft Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Bay-Delta Plan).

If adopted by the board, the new permit would:

Authorize up to 986,000 acre-feet of diversions annually.
Align with the requirements and compliance pathways in the final draft of the Bay-Delta Plan, while ensuring coordination between the board and water users participating in the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program under the plan.
Provide flexibility for project operations to maximize diversions while avoiding unreasonable impacts to water quality and fisheries, and injury to other water users.
Grant project proponents the opportunity to show that water is available from local creeks to divert and store in the reservoir.

Next Steps

Final written comments will be accepted through Oct. 5. The board will consider adopting the draft water right decision and water right permit at its Nov. 4 public meeting.

Background

The Sites Project Authority’s proposed reservoir would store water from the Sacramento River for future uses, including agriculture, municipal, and fish and wildlife preservation. Increased water storage from the project would contribute to statewide goals of strengthening climate resilience and long-term water reliability by adding 9 million acre-feet of new water supply or capacity by 2040.

The project would use existing infrastructure to divert water from the river near Red Bluff and Hamilton City and store it 17 miles west in Glenn and Colusa counties. New and existing facilities would transfer water into and out of the reservoir, ultimately releasing water back to existing canals or the river system for use by storage partners.

Project proponents include state and federal agencies, public irrigation districts in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys and urban water suppliers serving the Bay Area and Southern California.

The Administrative Hearings Office is an independent unit of the board that was created in 2019 to conduct neutral, fair and efficient hearings on water right matters. The office’s hearing process on the Sites Reservoir permit took place on 32 separate hearing days over two years and involved 21 parties, 60 witnesses and 2,115 evidentiary documents.

The State Water Board’s mission is to preserve, enhance and restore the quality of California’s water resources and drinking water for the protection of the environment, public health and all beneficial uses, and to ensure proper resource allocation and efficient use for present and future generations.

Sites Project Authority responds …

Today, the Sites Project Authority released the following statement after the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) Administrative Hearings Office (AHO) released its revised Draft Decision and associated Draft Water Right Permit for the Sites Reservoir Project (Project):

“We are carefully reviewing the revised Draft Decision and Permit and will take the time necessary to fully evaluate the revisions. The final adopted permit must keep the Project feasible, affordable, and capable of delivering the benefits it is designed to provide.

When we reviewed the initial March 2026 draft, we identified several areas of concern. In our May 22, 2026 comments, we emphasized that some of the proposed conditions for the diversion and release of water greatly risked undermining the viability of the Project and needed to be addressed before the AHO submitted the proposed order to the State Board. As we complete our review of the revised draft, we will be looking closely at whether the revisions address those concerns and evaluating for any new concerns.

Following the release of the initial draft, the State Board received approximately 50 comment letters from a wide range of interested parties, including the Authority, the Bureau of Reclamation, the California Department of Water Resources, the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the California Water Commission, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This level of participation underscores both the significance of this Project to California and the value of a transparent, deliberative process. We are grateful to everyone who took the time to weigh in on this critically important project.

In the coming weeks, interested parties will again have the opportunity to submit public comment to the State Board on the revised draft decision and permit. The Authority will actively participate in this process.

California’s water challenges are intensifying, and the importance of new surface storage has never been clearer. The people of California emphasized the value of new water storage by overwhelmingly passing Proposition 1 in 2014.

We remain committed to delivering this important project and working with state and federal agencies and participants across the state to advance the California Water Plan’s goals for securing our future water supplies.”

Sites Reservoir is a 1.5 million acre-foot, off-stream reservoir proposed north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that would improve California’s water reliability and resiliency in drier years for farms, families, fish, and fowl. The Project is backed by a broad coalition of cities, counties, water agencies, and irrigation districts across California, as well as the State of California through the Water Storage Investment Program and the federal government under the 2016 Water Infrastructure and Investment for the Nation Act. Additional information can be found at www.sitesproject.org or on Facebook, Instagram, and X at @SitesProject.

Notice from the State Water Board:

The Administrative Hearings Office (AHO) has prepared on behalf of the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board or Board) a Revised Draft Decision and associated Revised Draft Water Right Permit (Revised Draft Permit) on the petition for assignment of State-filed Application 25517, accompanying water right Application 25517X01, and petitions for release from priority of State-filed Applications 25513, 25514, 25517 (unassigned portion), 22235, 23780, and 23781 in favor of water right Application 25517X01 of the Sites Project Authority.

The Board will accept written comments on the Revised Draft Decision and Revised Draft Permit submitted to sites-wr-application@waterboards.ca.gov by the end of day (11:59 p.m.) on October 5, 2026.