Growing Opposition to Proposed Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir

Christopher Quock has a Master’s Degree in Entomology from San Francisco State University. His job history there includes work in research and as a teaching assistant. He’s a volunteer defender of Del Puerto Canyon, where a remarkable variety of wildlife and geologic history come together in a natural classroom and science lab. Ed

(All photos courtesy of Jim Gain. See more spectacular Del Puerto images here.)

Earlier this year, the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors provisionally approved a proposed reroute of county-owned Del Puerto Canyon Road to make way for the proposed  Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir in Del Puerto Canyon at the request of Del Puerto Water District General Manager Anthea Hansen. Afterwards, she sent a letter to the California Water Commission asking for additional state funding for the project from the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement (WSIP) Act referencing their support.

Save Mount Diablo launched a campaign in September allowing people who oppose the reservoir and support the pre-existing plans for a park in Del Puerto Canyon to send letters to 32 officials in Stanislaus County. As of November 6th, 8,096 letters have been sent out through the English and Spanish versions of the petition.

However, some letter writers have mentioned getting responses from Stanislaus County Supervisor Channce Condit claiming the board is not involved and that the project is an arrangement between “private” entities. These statements contradict the Supervisors’ recent actions and documented authority, and it puts them at odds with the growing network of other government entities and NGOs calling for increased land conservation efforts.

What can this network do to ensure that the concerns by these letter writers are acted on and encourage these decision makers to be more accountable to them?

For some background, Del Puerto Water District introduced plans in 2020 for a reservoir in the canyon out of more than 10 possible alternatives they explored. It would store canal water to sell to its southern agribusiness customers for non-potable uses, along with legally required environmental offsets near Merced. It would cover 800 acres but only store up to 82,000 acre feet, a fraction of the 2 million acre foot* and 160,000 acre foot capacities of the San Luis and Los Vaqueros reservoirs.

At risk are Del Puerto Canyon’s historic namesake “Gateway Rocks” containing evidence of prehistoric habitation and a carved pathway used by generations of Native Americans and early Californians like Joaquin Murrieta. Additional sites, including where Allan Bennison found the first dinosaur fossils identified from California, locations containing Native American artifacts like grinding rocks, and roadside stops used by educational and recreational groups within Del Puerto Canyon’s first five miles would be destroyed or inundated.

The initial EIR and PR materials question teachers’ claims about the canyon’s educational importance and the public’s ability to stop along open roadsides. According to former Parks and Recreation Commissioner Elias Funez, the City of Patterson recognized the importance of this area and has pre-existing plans for a park including the Gateway Rocks.

While proponents say the project may provide relief from occasional natural floods from Del Puerto Creek, critics claim there was inadequate initial outreach to the majority of the Spanish-speaking community in Patterson next to the proposed project, where some are concerned about its proximity to the San Joaquin fault that could produce a moment magnitude (Mw) 7.2-7.3 earthquake and associated risks from potential dam failures.

At the February 4th meeting where the Board of Supervisors voted to provisionally approve the plans to redirect Del Puerto Canyon Road, Supervisor Terry Withrow said projects like Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir should be repeated, “all the way down the valley.”

However, opposition has been growing. A 2022 county superior court ruling and appeal for a lawsuit by several environmental organizations have voided the initial EIR. A series of earthquakes near Patterson in 2023 also heightened safety concerns. Multiple signature-gathering petitions protesting the project (1, 2, 3, 4 [pages 469-492]) have amassed over 4,200 signers as of November 6th.

Save Del Puerto Canyon, the Patterson-based grassroots group opposing the project and which holds monthly trash cleanups in the canyon, has grown to over 2,100 members. It has begun working more closely with Save Mount Diablo and participated in the inaugural June 5th Diablo Range Convening, which brought over 60 conservation groups and federal agencies together to better coordinate efforts to protect the region from development and proposed public lands selloffs. The movement includes state assemblymembers who overwhelmingly approved Assembly Concurrent Resolution 107, which will go before the Senate in January, recognizing the region the canyon belongs to as a state conservation priority. Despite all this and an estimated budget ballooning to $1.8 billion, proponents of Del Puerto Reservoir have continued to push forward.

Many organizations and agencies have long recognized the importance of the Diablo Range as a biodiversity hotspot, as well as its potential for expanded recreational and educational activities. However, land conservation efforts have been piecemeal and are not keeping up with competing interests who see this same region as a blank slate for expanding energy development, urban sprawl, and dam construction. In response, Save Mount Diablo, which has been a central player in conserving many lands in the northern part of the range, is expanding its efforts to assist other environmental groups to eventually create an interconnected network of parks and land trusts spanning the 12 counties this range stretches across. These plans include Del Puerto Canyon.

According to Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) documentation, Del Puerto Water District needs approval from Stanislaus County for its proposed land use decisions. This is important for those county residents who are ineligible to directly vote or weigh in on the district’s affairs to still have their concerns represented in planning decisions affecting property maintained through shared public tax dollars and plans by neighboring communities.

By endorsing the water district’s proposal and then telling non-district constituents opposed to it that the board has no say, county officials are using a double standard and neglecting this duty. People who aren’t as wealthy or without titles to land still work, pay county taxes, and should have just as much say over projects impacting current and future public infrastructure that they also pay for. Hopefully the increasing pressure from other stakeholders will eventually convince local authorities to be more open to conservationists’ concerns.

What about those other state lawmakers who drafted and passed the Diablo Range conservation resolution this year or the government stakeholders who attended the June convening? Could they help come up with legislative solutions for the Del Puerto Canyon controversy, address concerns surrounding the scope of special districts operating in the area and public representation, and save the pre-existing park plans that include the Gateway Rocks?

With the increased attention towards expanding publicly-accessible lands in the region, more opportunities for input from historically underrepresented groups are needed to ensure that what those roads, parks, and other public infrastructure ultimately look like reflects the desires of all members of the community, not just those who are locally more wealthy or politically connected.

*An earlier text erroneously said “2 billion” acre feet. We appreciate the correction.