Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson       Red Bluff Daily News 9/09/2025

        The sorry tale of languishing projects

It was an impressive revelation upon moving to Red Bluff in 1988, when Barbara informed me of a massive ongoing water storage project near Maxwell, called the Sites Reservoir. It had everything going for it—bare land, sufficient drainage, a capacity to hold enough water to provide for the needs of a huge portion of Southern California’s urban masses, a clear passage to allow stored water to be released and transferred to said population via canals. It struck this restaurant manager husband as an exciting and worthwhile thing for her to be involved in, if only as a DWR administrator.

By the time she retired in 2000, the shine had somewhat faded as the Sites Reservoir project seemed no closer to fruition than it was 12 or more years earlier. Our state senator, Jim Nielsen, and other officials lobbied for it, gaining a commitment to fund and build it in a state water bond (Proposition 1) passed in 2014, which funded the Water Storage Investment Program (WSIP):

“The program provides funding for five major water storage projects throughout the state, including Sites Reservoir, that provide public benefits to Californians, such as ecosystem and water quality improvement...Sites Reservoir will increase water supply throughout California and provide, for the first time, environmental benefits by storing water specifically to support native wildlife and their habitat during drought periods.” (Sitesproject.org) None of those projects is completed and storing water.”

As I understand it, those projects would have easily met the drinking water needs of most of SoCal, and provided water for fire fighting (ahem, recall empty storage as the Pacific Palisades area burned).

The Daily News article referred to an informational presentation by Air Pollution Control Officer Joseph Tona on the Sites Reservoir Project. Illustrating why virtually nothing gets built for the benefit of California residents, it included “a draft memorandum of understanding between the Sites organizers and the air pollution control districts of multiple counties, including Tehama.”

The construction of the Shasta, Oroville, Folsom and other dams—back when California built-things-that-people-needed—never had to deal with “offset construction emissions that could potentially impact the surrounding counties”. The Sites location is 65 miles south of Red Bluff and it’s ludicrous to think of “construction emissions” being detectable here. The Sites organizers will “pay fees to offset” said emissions. Of course they will, adding to the nearly $1 billion cost for what could have been built 40 years ago for a fraction of that.

I don’t disparage Air Pollution Control Officers carrying out their duties. The “system” cannot be “bucked” or ignored. Interestingly, while doing research, one link found: “Friends of the River and conservation groups undaunted by court ruling: Sites Reservoir is a bad deal for rivers, for fish and for Califoria,” from June 2024. Written like true BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody), these ideologically radical environmentalists would probably cheer tearing down dams and letting our state go thirsty and dry. (If I hear from one of said “Friends of the River”—go pound sand)

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It might have been 15 or so years ago that I walked the Paynes Creek Slough from its upriver opening near Rio Vista Mobile Home Park, to where it rejoins the Sacramento River below the Diversion Dam. Long story short, it convinced me that we could have had both Lake Red Bluff and a thriving year-round bypass for everything from fish passage around the dam, to summer floating and kayaking.

It’s too bad because the institutional weight of the anti-dam lobby was far beyond anything Red Bluff could have resisted, even though it only needed clearing the slough and engineering the slope to allow free-flowing, cool, clear river water to run downhill. Funny that the same thing was attempted for Sand Slough with marginal results and minimal fish passing upriver through the channel.

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It’s estimated that our state is “home” to about 2 million illegal aliens (“aliens” as they’re nationals of another country; “illegal” because they broke laws entering). Public Policy Institute has, coincidentally, determined that California has about 2 million un- or under-employed citizens. Hmmm.

“Over-regulation and over-taxation jack up the price of everything in California, including labor. Now, business and political leaders swear to God the state's economy can't function without the underpaid workers they euphemistically call ‘undocumented.’”

“The chairman of the California State Student Association (CSSA) revealed that the California State University (CSU) system serves 10,000 illegal alien students.” (thenationalpulse.com, September 5)

Also, in the Saturday Daily News, “Trump Administration investigates Medicaid spending on immigrants”—“illegal aliens” who have no legal right to be here but now receive taxpayer-funded health care. Most voters don’t support any of it, but you Democrats just keep crusading for what one representative called her “constituents,” meaning the illegal alien invaders. Every last one of them should go home, the way I see it.