Update: Del Puerto leader says court ruling on West Side reservoir is minor setback
A court ruling on the proposed Del Puerto Reservoir is a minor setback, a leader on the project said Wednesday.
The ruling involved only the environmental effects of relocating Del Puerto Canyon Road from the reservoir site, said Anthea Hansen, general manager of the Del Puerto Water District. The plaintiffs also had cited concerns about wildlife, recreation and excessive pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“I was very pleased with the ruling, actually,” Hansen said in a phone interview. She added that the need to reexamine the road issue would not interfere with the scheduled completion of the $500 million project by 2027.
The reservoir would store up to 82,000 acre-feet of water in the hills west of Patterson for farmers in the Del Puerto district and four others. They hope to get state and federal funding to supplement their own shares of the construction cost.
The new reservoir would help the districts deal with sometimes tight supplies from the federal Central Valley Project. It would get its water via pumping from the Delta-Mendota Canal, which already supplies San Luis Reservoir and other storage sites.
The road at issue winds through a sparsely populated area of grass and oaks.
The ruling was issued Monday, Oct. 31, by Judge John Mayne in Stanislaus County Superior Court.
Plaintiffs claim victory
The four environmental groups that sued in 2020 claimed victory in a news release Thursday.
“With this outcome, the imperiled species of Del Puerto Canyon will live to see another day,” said Isabella Langone, conservation program manager for the California Native Plant Society. “We hope this ruling sends a clear message that cutting corners on environmental review and the disclosure of a project’s impacts is not acceptable.”
The other plaintiffs were the Sierra Club, Friends of the River and the Center for Biological Diversity. They urge groundwater recharge as an alternative to new dams.
“Del Puerto Canyon reservoir will destroy a beautiful canyon and will only fuel increased demand among the agricultural interests in the San Joaquin Valley, worsening dependence on the already strained delta,” said Jann Dorman, executive director of Friends of the River.
Water for nearly 300,000 acres
The Del Puerto district irrigates about 45,000 acres straddling Interstate 5 between the Tracy and Santa Nella areas. It can have especially severe federal cutbacks during drought but has boosted its supply with highly treated wastewater from Modesto, Ceres and Turlock.
Del Puerto is partnering on the new reservoir with the four irrigation districts that make up the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors Authority. They farm about 250,000 acres in a stretch from Crows Landing to Mendota.
The four districts have somewhat better federal supplies thanks to a 1939 agreement to give up direct San Joaquin diversions in exchange for water from the Delta-Mendota Canal.
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 10:04 AM.
