Four environmental groups sue to stop reservoir in hills west of Patterson
The reservoir planned in the hills west of Patterson drew a lawsuit Friday from four environmental groups.
They claim the project would harm plants and wildlife in the immediate area, threaten Patterson with flooding, and worsen conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The Del Puerto Water District is planning the roughly $500 million reservoir. It would enhance storage for farmers on about 45,000 acres straddling Interstate 5 between Vernalis and Santa Nella.
The suit was filed in Stanislaus Superior Court by the Sierra Club, Friends of the River, the California Native Plant Society and the Center for Biological Diversity.
“The district’s plan to destroy this precious local landscape, and further strain the seriously imperiled Delta ecosystem, is sad and unfortunate,” said Sean Wirth, conservation chair for the Sierra Club Mother Lode Chapter, in a new release.
The suit was no surprise. Opponents threatened legal action when the district board voted Oct. 21 to approve the environmental study for the project. It is expected to take about six years to build.
Suit does not deter water district
Anthea Hansen, the district’s general manager, responded to the suit in an email.
“Of course, we are disappointed with this course of events, but the district conducted an exhaustive environmental analysis of the project and we are confident in the outcome of any judicial review of that process,” she said.
The 82,000-acre-foot reservoir would inundate part of Del Puerto Canyon, a sparsely populated landscape of grass and oak woodland. The water would be pumped from the Delta-Mendota Canal, part of the federal Central Valley Project.
The district gets some of its water from the CVP, pumped from the canal into San Luis Reservoir. It recently added a system for using treated wastewater from Modesto and Turlock.
Proponents say the new reservoir is badly needed in a state that has done little to increase water storage in the past half-century.
“Storage of precious water supplies in times of abundance for use in times of need is absolutely a must for the future of agriculture and the environment in California,” Hansen said.
Concern about plants and animals
The suit said the reservoir would destroy habitat for animals such as golden eagles, red-legged frogs and tiger salamanders. It cited rare plants that include big tarplant, diamond-petaled California poppy and Lemmon’s jewelflower.
The plaintiffs also say seismic conditions under the dam site could lead to flooding of Patterson, home to about 23,000 people. The proponents have said such risks will be addressed in the design submitted to the state.
The suit contends that the increased storage would mean more diversions from the Delta, where fish already suffer from massive pumps and other impacts.
“Sucking more water from the Delta is not the solution to California’s water supply challenges,” said Ron Stork, senior policy advocate for Friends of the River. “This reservoir will only fuel increased demand among the agricultural interests of the San Joaquin Valley, worsening dependence on the already strained Delta.”
Friends of the River is a statewide group based in Sacramento. It got its start with the 1970s fight over New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River.
The Sierra Club, based in Oakland, is a national group involved in water, energy, wilderness and other issues.
The Center for Biological Diversity has its headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, and works on behalf of wild plants and animals around the world.
The California Native Plant Society is based in Sacramento and promotes biodiversity around the state.
