16. Department of the Interior · Minor
Develop additional western water storage capacity
Printed page 535 16. Department of the Interior
“Develop additional storage capacity across the arid west, including by: 1. Updating dam water control manuals for existing facilities during routine operations; and 2. Engaging in real-time monitoring of operations.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Interior approved the record of decision for the Sites Reservoir Project, authorizing Reclamation to fund up to twenty-five per cent of a 1.5 million acre-foot off-stream reservoir in Northern California — new storage capacity in the arid West, decided. Interior also reported more than 200,000 acre-feet of additional Central Valley Project water secured in a year through operational changes under EO 14181, and announced $889 million of One Big Beautiful Bill Act money for western water infrastructure on 2026-03-17. The two methods the Quote names are still missing: no allowlisted record shows dam water control manuals being updated during routine operations, and none shows real-time monitoring of operations being adopted as a program.
- Attempted
SO 3446 directs the Bureau of Reclamation to let qualified local water and power partners run part of the procurement on federally funded construction projects and to review its cost-share programs, engineering design review procedures and environmental compliance. Interior named the B. F. Sisk Dam raise — 130,000 acre-feet added to the San Luis Reservoir — as the first project under the new model. A mechanism, with no storage yet built.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Storage is being added — Sites Reservoir approved, the B. F. Sisk Dam raise moving under a new contracting model — but neither of the two mechanisms the Quote lists by name, updated dam water control manuals and real-time monitoring, appears on the record.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- Bureau of Reclamation water storage capacity in the arid West
- ID
- 1518