California has approved a permit for a nearly $7 billion reservoir that would be the state’s largest to be built in nearly 50 years.
The Sites Reservoir, a controversial project decades in the making, received approval for a water right permit in a unanimous vote by the State Water Resources Control Board on Wednesday.
The reservoir will be built near the community of Maxwell, about 70 miles northwest of Sacramento, and will flood around 15,000 acres of land. It is designed to collect water pumped from the Sacramento River during wet periods, which can then be stored and released when supplies are lower…