A coalition of environmentalists, residents, and landowners sued the Santa Clara Valley Water District last month alleging that the utility lacked the necessary environmental studies to advance a proposed $2.5-billion reservoir expansion project.
“The Investigation Project would require contractors to drive trucks, trailers, and tracked rigs through the Investigation Project area, and when unable to access the most remote sections of the site, fly helicopters to drop off the materials and equipment needed to conduct geotechnical investigations,” wrote Attorney Osha R. Meserve in the June 2 complaint.
Construction on the Pacheco Reservoir, which is scheduled for 2024, is expected to increase water capacity from 5,500 acre-feet to 140,000 acre-fee by 2032 during a time when the state is undergoing a drought and water restrictions, according to media reports.
“This area has Eagles, brown and golden, which have various protections as well as other protected birds and so it's very important to not have helicopters and ATVs running around while those same birds may be nesting,” Meserve told the Southern California Record.
Meserve is representing the Stop the Pacheco Dam Project Coalition, which is made up of the Sierra Club’s Loma Prieta Chapter and Friends of the River, a statewide river protection group. They filed their lawsuit in Santa Clara Superior Court.
“Valley Water didn’t prepare any environmental review at all for these very extensive geotechnical and other exploration activities,” Meserve added. “Whereas what I've seen with other major water infrastructure projects is that if the agency wants to go ahead with exploration in advance of completing a review of the entire project, it will usually prepare some environmental review that includes mitigation measures and ways to try to avoid or minimize impacts on the environment.”
Meserve further alleges in the complaint that, if allowed to proceed, the expanded dam could lead to flooding.
"If the 1500 acres was inundated, it would permanently destroy valuable cultural information and part of the Amah Mutson tribal history, including burials and things like that," she said. "There's a broad understanding that protecting those kinds of resources, even if they're on private property, that they shouldn't be disturbed and I think that's one of the big problems with this project is that it would certainly disturb and really destroy those resources."
Building an underground reservoir would be a better solution overall for the water drought problem in the state, according to Meserve.
“Valley water, in its capital improvement program, does have what they call a South County Recharge Project that they already are working on so, I would point to projects like that,” she said. “They should continue to expand those types of projects where they can recharge their groundwater and not lose a bunch to evaporation.”