Why California’s largest reservoir in nearly 50 years may be derailed by water shortages
Deep in California’s farm country … about 70 miles north of Sacramento, a coalition of water agencies is setting out to build the first major reservoir in California in nearly half a century. The $4 billion plan calls for flooding miles of ranchlands with flows from the nearby Sacramento River and sending the water to cities and irrigation districts as far away as the Bay Area and Los Angeles. … But there’s a problem: There may not be enough water to fill the new reservoir. In a letter sent out by state regulators Friday, project officials were told that their application for a water right is incomplete because they failed to show that there’s sufficient flow to draw from in the Sacramento River.
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