A group of water users on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley is continuing its unlikely quest to stop a proposed new dam on the west side of the valley. Back in Oct. 2022, a Stanislaus County Superior Court judge dismissed a host of environmental challenges against the project as well as concerns brought by the Friant Water Supply Protection Association. On July 24, the Friant group filed an appeal in the Fifth District Court of Appeals. It’s not that the Friant group wouldn’t like to see more water storage, it would. But the group is concerned with how that stored water will be counted and how that accounting could affect Friant, according to the appeal. The proposed Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir would allow water users that are part of the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractor Authority to store up to  84,000 acre feet in the hills above Patterson, west of Interstate 5.