Tuesday February 20, 2024
Sites JPA via Maven’s Notebook —
The Sites Project Authority (Authority) announced that with the recent storms, Sites Reservoir could have diverted and captured 1.2 million acre-feet of water in 2023 and 2024 to date. Based on 2023 flows and significant storms this January and February, it is estimated that Sites Reservoir would be 80 percent full today following the critically dry prior years when Sites water would have been depleted.
“These latest storms show the need for Sites Reservoir to capitalize on California’s rainy season and store excess stormwater for the betterment of communities, farms, and the environment,” said Fritz Durst, Chairman of the Sites Project Authority Board of Directors. “While the exact amount of water will vary from year to year, we need to be prepared to capture water from major storms when they happen and save it for the next inevitable dry period. With hotter and drier weather threatening California’s water supply, we have no time to waste.”
Sites Reservoir is specifically designed to capture and store water generated by extreme storm events, like the atmospheric rivers that seasonally make landfall in California, to increase water flexibility, reliability, and resiliency in drier years.