New mega California reservoir is in final planning phase 

Covering San Francisco with water 50 feet deep sounds like an OUTSTANDING idea!

Its good they got the planning done. They will probably get around to building it as soon as that high speed rail project is completed.

Reservoirs like this, where they can divert water from rivers during flood periods would be a great idea. Keeps the excess water from damaging homes and just flowing into the ocean.

“Farms families fish and fowl” my man has been waiting his whole life to say that on camera 😂

We also need to build rain harvesting reservoirs throughout California so when it does rain heavy or light its saved for later use for crops and/or cities that need it.

They gonna fill it with hopes and dreams

Wow, I had never heard of this before but this project is long overdue. That runoff to the sea has always been a problem, and a way had to be found to collect it for future use. Nice going, water engineers.

We need to push home rain ☔️ system for plants, garden and lawn. In raining season I collet 500 gallons from my home roof

It’s taken 70 years from when it was identified to get this far … wow …

So it's taken 70 years to get this far on it. How much longer before it's actually a reality.

In southern San Joaquin, build up Tule Lake for storage. It is now usually drained and used as farmland.

Starts out only taking water out during the rainy season. But it never stays like that

Cities like Tucson, AZ, have been diverting rain water for decades. In addition, reusing grey water for ponds, irrigation of golf courses and parks. Many decades ago, Israeli engineers were used to help with some of this process. California can certainly learn and apply these measures. Farm lands can also use grey water in those thirsty almond groves and other agricultural applications.

I’m an environmentalist and I think this reservoir is a great idea. Right now most of the water we have had is being flushed out to sea. Newsom is destroying the wetland in the Delta. This reservoir would allow for better water management. Something north California desperately needs!

Wow CA really rushing on this one. Have only known about this problem for a few decades

Good news, but I gotta say...San Fran under 50' of water is a hell of a good idea.

If this is a government-led operation, add 2 to 5 billion on to the estimation and another 10 years to complete

We have so much water run off and ship it down south. It makes no sense why we haven’t opened up more reservoirs around the state, even if they only get 20% of capacity, that’s a lot of water.

We need water at any cost so bring it on. This is something fisherman like myself would support.

First identified by the department of water resources as as one of the largest possible reservoirs in all of California back in the 1950s. That is 52 years ago. Good going department of water resources for such an expedient and fast solution to California's water problems., always looking first for the well being of California residents.

Amazing to see this forward thinking, we need about 20 of these!

This is a great Idea... More wet land should make environmentalists happy... I am an environmentalist myself and I love this idea. Speed it up already.

We need that COMPLETED 3 years ago, not approved to start construction some time after the high speed rail is completed.

Water is now “teleported” fascinating. Building another lake in a desert 🏜 Brilliant.!!!

See ya Delta Smelt. It was nice knowing you!

Just in time for the next atmospheric river! 😎

Well, we missed catching this winters rain.

Put a Nuclear power-plant next to it if you want to really help!

When you read the comments and you see people can't pay attention to a 3 minute video 🤦🏽‍♂️

We need the water very much, a big thank you 😊 to those who are solving our dire water shortage problems 😀 Thank you 😊.

I was just reading about how water is pumped from Lake Havasu / Parker Dam on the Colorado to IRON MOUNTAINS and on to and through the Coachella Valley and San Jacinto Mountain Range. Lots of pumping and elevation changes, must cost a fortune.

Thank you to you giving up your homes to give the people more water.

My father grew-up during the Great Dust Bowl when it stopped raining in middle America for three years. My mother survived the same in Oklahoma. In both Kansas and Oklahoma after that dry period, the states began building large and small dams to save winter rain and snow water and to save the water from the massive summer rain storms. TODAY... Oklahoma and Kansas have lots of lakes, forests, water recreation areas and electricity generating damns in their states. THEY ALSO HAVE NO MORE DUST BOWL!!!! Learn from history!

You still have have rain. The bigger the reservoir, the higher the evaporation rate.

I'm guessing the 9 year completion schedule is highly optimistic.

You would think these reservoirs would’ve been already built.

All of the final step sewage water (its treated and clean, technically consumable right out of the pipe) should be returned to the environment for reuse, not to the ocean. All the way to the top of the current LA supply along with the other sources for other cities.

So, if every other reservoir is drying up where is the water to fill this coming from?

Need it done yesterday!!

There’s a couple of dry lakes that they could refill also for a lot less.

After one thousand years they are finally going to save some water ? WOW .

You can build 1,000 reservoirs, but if it doesn't rain what's the point.

That Jerry Brown guy doesn't know the definition of teleport.

Environments always the #1 roadblock to solving environmental problems.

I like Tom....."Right now theres a big gap between supply of water and the demand for water...." No shit Tom???? lol

"Water is for fighting over, whiskey is for drinking." - Mark Twain

My family lived and ran cattle in the Antelope Valley during the 1860s to 1870. All of the water in the Valley is seasonal, so natural flow would never be able to fill it, but it is a perfect natural bowl with a 600ft tall narrow ridge that runs along the Eastern side and with the hills to the West an earthen dam built along the Northern opening would make it the least expensive to build and the biggest Off Flow reservoir in the State. The environmental activist group, The Center for Biological Diversity has been blocking this project for decades. So we'll see if this ever happens.

Please, let's build it ASAP.

I like the way these projects are put into place , about 20 or 30 years behind when it's needed ! California , Nevada , Arizona , Utah , and even New Mexico should have been doing more to get fresh water here 20 years ago ! THE LITTLE PACIFIC PROJECT !

“Wetter wets and dryer dries” = Normal

Finally someone with a brain that has a solution for California’s water problem.

About time we doing something good

I grew up in Massachusetts. Right on the edge of the Quabin Reservoir. The Quabin is a marvel in planning and engineering. Built during the 1930's after the Great Depression, they evacuated several towns, built two huge earthen dams, and diverted a river to fill it. It is well over 400 billion gallons of water intended for drinking water for the Boston area almost 100 miles away. I hope this reservoir in Cal. becomes so successful.

“Hold” water, in California? No way, sounds like a cash grab by developers. Watch that budget and audit EVERYONE involved.

"Over the last 25 years, we have lost more than 150 km3 of groundwater from California, which would take many many years of rain to replace, even if there were no consumptive use for municipal or agricultural purposes."

"Just as long as we get our fair share from that reservoir!" - Delta Smelt, January 2023

There was a time, very long ago, that one of the world's largest freshwater lakes was in California. That giant basin running through the center of California used to be full of water. When the natural Dam failed, the water rushing out to sea formed San Francisco Bay. I have been to some Native American ruins on the ridge of one of the mountains overlooking the basin, near Bear Valley Springs, and found so much evidence of year round rain and water in the now dry dusty desert. Personally I am confident that at the time the Native Americans lived there it was a lush forest of massive Oak Trees and wild life. It would have had to be to sustain what appeared to be a large enough community to justify grinding out a minimum of 8 grindstone holes. They must have been used for generations as the holes were deep. It makes me wonder if the lake draining forced them to migrate or if the local climate was still wet enough to sustain until the farmers arrived.

I bet those people living in that valley aren't willingly giving up their homestead but have to thanks to eminent domain. Plus, with the population increasing (I'm being an optimist or pessimist depending on your point of view) or even if it stayed the same for awhile, California needs more than 2 of these reservoirs.

Tom always does the best stories.

This reservoir should've been online 20 years ago...

There used to be Great Lakes in the Central Valley but they were drained 100 or so years ago

Nice evaporation pond. It may be necessary but that is a dam shallow reservoir.

About fucken time , it's only been over 25 years to get this thing finished

Ahh yes just in time for summer When there is no rain it will be ready Why weren’t we building more reservoirs years ago?! Instead of spending money on a high speed train that no one needs- We all need water - build more reservoirs

It's not related to the news, but that's an awesome arial view of the *Golden Gate Park:* 0:28

Where are we going to get the rain to fill it?

You don't need another reservoir, you need better water management. The gap between supply and demand exists due to corruption and mismanagement.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown has family property in the mountains out of Williams CA.Dont think for one second that there will be more Vineyards and Wineries down stream. There are a few vineyards that have popped up along I 5 as it is. Sierra Nevada Cheese Co. has expanded and already teamed up with Farmers Brewery and they just put in another facility in Chico,Rumiano Cheese Co. expanded and moved into a new facility closer to I 5 in Willows,so it seems the writing is on the wall and big plans near the reservoir have already started. Lake Sonoma is a perfect example.

They new about this in the 1950s and they're just now starting to get this project started.

One statement really bugs me . The uncaptured wasted water goes on to the sea. Well that so called waste brings sand to our ocean side beaches which without our beaches and coastal planes would disappear. Our fish that migrate to the sea would disappear. The droughts are caused by us overbuilding, removing forests by cutting or burning. Rainforests cause low pressure areas in the atmosphere pulling in rain . Buildings and roads cause high pressure zones which rain goes around and is not rained on. We've got too many people here already. But building more houses and ever expanding is killing California. Not the wasted waters that escape be captured in a dam but water that brings life from the sea.

Could have been filled over the past eight weeks - first envisioned in the 1950s. CA used to be decades ahead in water planning, now decades behind.

The problem with not allowing the deltas to flood downstream just means faster beach erosion. Mother Nature always wins when you don’t work with her.

I love how long it takes for the government to solve a foreseeable problem 🙄

Yes, we need more water.

I hope they pay those people living there quite well!

How many people are going to be put out of their lifelong homes and homesteads and I don't know we got too many people in California trying to use the same water and they're destroying the state by taking water and putting it where it doesn't belong

Yeah, we need like 12 of these. If government actually spent time doing things government is meant for (like this), California wouldn’t have water issues, homeless issues, etc

about time !!!!!!!!!!!!

Much needed.

Central California was home to one of the biggest lakes in America the Tulare Lake and drained by farmers

San Fancisco under 50ft of water sounds great.

I m happy to hear this good news especially it s raining January 2023

Jerry is a good man. Played basketball with him many times. Glad to see him helping make California better!

Reservoir is too small and too shallow. Adding 200ft elev to shasta instead would provide an additional 9 millon acrefeet of storage. Dam foundation was originally built to that spec but they ran out of funding for materials to that size during the great depression. It would also require relocation of some reservoir-side infrastructure built since the dams completion as well as several smaller saddle dams to plug in a few passes here and there.

I was a watershed project manager for USDA in Colusa County from 1998-2000. Worked on some of the planning phase already underway for almost 50 years. In a nutshell, the project is not practical or feasible. Far too expensive and complicated and displaces too much natural habitat. The cost benefit ratio is just not there.

CA doesn't have water problems. They have senior right to Colorado River water. 4.4 MAF / Yr

We could use it right now!

So, can we actually opt to cover San Fran in The 50 feet of water and pass on the reservoir. Because if so, that would be super hip.

We need to be building reservoirs like mad to capture as much water as we can. Desalination plants and grey water recycling as well. It's going to be a matter of survival, both economic and literal.

Back in the 1950’s, dammmn we missed that one. Let’s get moving!!

Great news!!

Personally, LA under 50ft of water sounds like the proper course of action.

Good idea. Can't wait to see progress

Trees shrubs and lily pads total investment 7000 dollars water retained priceless!!

Get it done ✔️

Wow! As a Californian I am shocked that an actual solution to a problem is within reach, and accepted.

Hetch hetchey?? No too easy!!!! Save the smelt!!!

The one they been fighting to build for 50 plus years? Little to late window licks. You are also 35 million short on how much the water supports.

I’m very glad to see this!

A rare example of actual common sense in California.