Confronted with new value overruns that it feared would spike water charges, together with years of delays, threats of lawsuits and different setbacks, the board of Santa Clara County’s largest water company on Tuesday voted to kill a plan to construct an enormous new reservoir within the southern a part of the county close to Pacheco Move after eight years of research and conferences.
The board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District voted 6-0 Tuesday afternoon to halt planning and engineering research, and to withdraw the company’s software for state bond funds for the Pacheco Reservoir undertaking.
The reservoir — for which the company has already spent $100 million in public funds on planning, enviornmental research, engineering work, authorized payments and different prices — would have been the biggest new reservoir constructed wherever within the Bay Space since 1998 when Los Vaqueros Reservoir was constructed in jap Contra Costa County.
However hovering prices, the shortcoming of the water district to search out another water companies to assist pay building prices and share the water, and a call final month by the federal Bureau of Reclamation to not permit water from federal initiatives to be saved within the reservoir, marked the top.
“These are very difficult projects,” mentioned Tony Estremera, chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “It’s not something people do every week. We can do the engineering. We can engineer a project. But there has to be political willingness and there has to be funding available.”
In 2017, the district estimated the reservoir would value at $969 million. By this 12 months, the value tag had soared to $2.7 billion. On Tuesday, Darin Taylor, chief monetary officer on the district, mentioned tariffs and different prices would improve that price ticket to $3.2 billion, not counting financing, which may value an extra $3 billion.
With no companions to assist cowl these prices, the undertaking may elevate water charges for Santa Clara County residents by $20 to $27 a month for the common family, Taylor mentioned, or as much as $324 a 12 months, with different value will increase past that probably.
“We can’t put this kind of pressure on our water rates,” Estremera mentioned.
The district, a authorities company primarily based in San Jose which gives water to 2 million folks, will proceed to work on different options, Estremera mentioned, together with increasing groundwater storage, boosting recycled water, and initiatives to lift the peak of present reservoirs like Calero in Santa Clara County or the dam at San Luis Reservoir east of Gilroy.
Opponents, who’ve included San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-San Jose, mentioned the undertaking was impractical and unlikely from the beginning. The water district’s workers rejected the thought of a dam in the identical location space 25 years in the past as a result of unstable geology that would spike prices. The location would submerge a small a part of Henry W. Coe State Park. The district’s personal research additionally confirmed that different choices for increasing the water provide have been cheaper.
“This is the right decision — analysis has consistently shown that Pacheco’s water storage potential simply doesn’t justify the high additional costs ratepayers would be forced to bear,” Mahan mentioned late Tuesday. “We now have an opportunity to prioritize local investments in alternative solutions like water purification and recycling, conservation, groundwater recharge and perhaps one day even desalination.”
Environmentalists celebrated.
“We have come to a point where it seems like realities have become quite stark,” mentioned Juan Pablo Galván Martínez, senior land use supervisor with Save Mount Diablo, in Walnut Creek. “We care about drinking water and natural resources and lands that are designated as protected. This project doesn’t yield the public benefits that its proponents originally envisioned.”
The collapse of Pacheco was years within the making.
In 2017, the district proposed constructing a 320-foot excessive dam on Pacheco Creek close to Freeway 152 and Henry Coe State Park. The objective was to acquire funding from Proposition 1, a state water bond that California voters handed throughout the 2012-16 drought to assist pay half of the development prices.
The brand new earthen dam on the North Fork of Pacheco Creek was to have been constructed 2 miles north of Freeway 152, east of Casa de Fruta, changing a small reservoir that has been there because the Thirties.
The brand new reservoir would have held 140,000 acre toes of water — sufficient for 700,000 folks a 12 months when full — and would have been crammed principally by piping in water from close by San Luis Reservoir in moist years that the district buys from state and federal companies.
However the undertaking bumped into setback after setback. The California Water Fee promised it $504 million, though it has solely launched $24 million to this point. In current months, the fee grew impatient with the sluggish progress, and incapacity of the district board to make a closing choice on whether or not the undertaking was going to maneuver ahead or not. Earlier this month, the fee selected to award further cash to different proposed water initiatives, most notably $219 million to the Websites Reservoir undertaking in Colusa County, which has 22 different water companies as companions, whereas giving no new funding to Pacheco.
The unique Pacheco plan was to interrupt floor in 2024 and end building by 2032.
In Could, nevertheless, district officers informed the California Water Fee that they nonetheless haven’t secured main permits wanted to begin building, haven’t secured water rights, and solely have accomplished 30% of the design. They mentioned they wouldn’t have the ability to break floor till 2029 and wouldn’t full building till at the very least 2036.
They mentioned the undertaking had been slowed by lawsuits by environmental teams, discoveries of geological issues, and different points. Some board members who had supported the undertaking mentioned it will likely be again once more in the future sooner or later.
“There are not enough dams in California,” mentioned board member Dick Santos. “We have climate change. We have fires. Water is precious.”
Initially Revealed: August 26, 2025 at 4:03 PM PDT
