On March 20, 2026, the Administrative Hearings Office (AHO) for the State Water Resources Control Board (Board) issued a Draft Decision regarding water rights for the proposed Sites Reservoir. The Draft Decision followed over a year of evidentiary hearings that ended with reply briefs in June 2025. The Draft Decision is accompanied by a Draft Water Rights Permit.
The Draft Decision proposes granting the water rights, but with a series of conditions that are much stricter than those proposed by the applicant, the Sites Project Authority. Many of these conditions are the consequence of evidence presented by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who protested the application, including CSPA.
Are CSPA and other NGO protestants happy with the proposed decision to grant the water rights? Nope. Denial is still the right answer. Further diversions from an over-allocated Central Valley watershed are not in the public interest. NGOs presented evidence that demand reduction and alternative water supply sources are feasible to protect public trust resources and still meet reasonable water use.
Yet the conditions on the water rights do not, apparently, meet the approval of the Sites Project Authority either. To date, the Authority has not offered a comprehensive response to the Draft Decision.
The approximate location of the proposed Sites Dam at the proposed Sites Reservoir near Maxwell, in 2014. Image: Kelly M. Grow and the California Department of Water Resources
Background
If built, Sites Reservoir would be a 1.5 million acre-foot off-stream reservoir in the Sacramento Valley west of Colusa. It would divert water from the Sacramento River through two existing large canals, from which it would pump water over a ridge a few miles west. It would be the largest reservoir built in California since 1978.
A Few Things in the Draft Decision that Sites Supporters Cannot Like
The Draft Decision is based on issue-specific evidence. In defending in court its Environmental Impact Report for the Sites Project, attorneys for the Sites Project Authority argued that some project partners could not afford stricter conditions on diversions, and thus higher costs per unit of water. However, the Draft Decision does not programmatically approve the water right application the Sites Project Authority proposed. Instead, the Draft Decision considers all of the issues, one by one. It also discusses competing arguments.
The Draft Decision does not accept as adequate the flow protections required by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). In October, 2024, CDFW issued an Incidental Take Permit (ITP) to protect threatened and endangered species listed under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). The ITP met with complete and immediate public approval by the Sites Project Authority. In contrast, the Draft Decision states the importance of protecting non-listed species. It finds that greater flow protections are necessary than those stated in the ITP. Consequently, the Draft Decision requires inclusion of flow conditions in the water rights permit, not just in the separate ITP document (as requested by the Authority).
The Draft Decision would limit diversions based on outflow from the Delta. This would be the first water rights permit, other than those for the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, that would be subject to limitations on diversions based on Delta outflow.
The Draft Decision does not grant Sites priority to divert over water rights granted more recently than 1977. The Sites Project Authority had sought a priority date of 1977 for its water right. For several legal and factual reasons, the Draft Decision would move diversions to Sites farther back in the line. Diversions to Sites would have a priority date of 2022. If water was not available for others with older rights to divert, Sites could not divert water to the reservoir.
Summary
Throughout the Sites water rights proceeding, CSPA and fellow NGO protestants opposed allowing the Sites Project Authority to externalize the costs of the project at the expense of public trust resources. We argued that if the Sites Project Authority had to pay the true costs, even with state and federal subsidies, the project would likely not be economically viable.
The Draft Decision takes the project a bit closer to the moment of reckoning. Yet even on its own terms, it is not, in our view, fully there.
CSPA and others have long maintained that the 55%-percent-of-unimpaired-flow bypass requirement that the Draft Decision would place on Sites diversions is inadequate to protect the Bay-Delta watershed’s fishery and other public trust resources. Also, the language in the Draft Decision regarding Delta outflow is framed as an “interim” measure. The language generally allows the Board too many ways to wiggle out of the Delta outflow requirement altogether.
The Draft Decision also rejects the numeric bypass flow requirement defended by SF Baykeeper’s fishery expert, Jon Rosenfield, as too limiting on water supply.
Moreover, the Draft Decision has no answer to the fact that Sites Reservoir would inundate and irreparably harm thousands of acres of ancestral Tribal lands.
Next Steps
CSPA and fellow NGO protestants will submit comments on the Draft Decision by the May 22, 2026 comment deadline. We fully expect Sites proponents, project partners, and supporters to slash away at the Draft Decision.