The City Council last week authorized a plan to buy into the development of a new reservoir in California that would yield the city 2,000 acre-feet of water a year. That amount is equivalent to about two-thirds of what the city now needs each year for its water needs, making it a significant boost to its future supplies.

Council members also agreed American Canyon should join the North Bay Water Reuse Authority in order to gain federal help for expanding its recycled water infrastructure.

Both plans were presented by Public Works Director Jason Holley as ways for American Canyon to boost its water supplies and have more control over its water future. In recent years, the city’s dependence on the State Water Project for most of its water revealed how vulnerable it could be during times of drought and water allocation cutbacks.

“I’m very encouraged by the possibilities here,” said Mayor Leon Garcia about the decision to invest in the Sites Reservoir project about 70 miles north of Sacramento.

Sites Reservoir has been under discussion by water experts since the 1970s. It calls for creating a large man-made lake near the town of Maxwell that could hold 1.8 million acre-feet of water. An acre foot equals nearly 326,000 gallons.

Sites Reservoir, about the size of Lake Berryessa, would require the building of a dam, pipelines and canals to ferry water to and from the lake. Unlike other large reservoirs in California, such as Lake Oroville, Sites would be an off-stream water source, meaning it would not be created by damming a river.

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