The State Water Resources Control Board has begun taking testimony to kick off the lengthy process to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the proposed Sites Reservoir Project.
Along with the project authority, environmental and sportfishing groups, tribes, water agencies and the California Farm Bureau are laying out their arguments for or against the off-stream reservoir.
Those parties will be spending lots of time together, as the lengthy administrative hearings are set to run through October. The outcome will likely factor into the California Water Commission’s subsequent decision over approving Prop. 1 water bond funding for the project.
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Many of those representatives will appear before the board later this month to testify at a three-day workshop on voluntary agreements for Bay-Delta flows. Along with those two regulatory milestones, the board will begin hearings next week on whether to put the Tulare Lake subbasin on probation under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
