SACRAMENTO, California — State officials denied a reservoir developer’s water quality permit application Monday in a minor setback for the Gov. Gavin Newsom-backed project.
The proposed Sites project would store 1.5 million acre-feet of water diverted from the American River into an off-stream reservoir northeast of Sacramento — the first major reservoir built in California in decades.
The State Water Resources Control Board told the reservoir developer, the Sites Project Authority, to submit its application for a water quality permit under the Clean Water Act again after the Army Corps of Engineers determined the developer hadn’t submitted enough information about how the project would comply with endangered species, clean water and historical preservation laws.
Water Board Chief Deputy Director Jonathan Wilson called the denial a “procedural inadequacy” in his letter to the Sites Project Authority’s director, Jerry Brown, and said staff would work “expeditiously” to process a new application. Brown didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
