[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 13 (Tuesday, January 24, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H617-H618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SITES RESERVOIR IS OVERDUE

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, while it might be raining lately in 
California, we still need additional water supply infrastructure to 
meet the needs of agriculture and a growing population. The Sites 
Reservoir is the only project in California that will improve the water 
supply for cities, farms, as well as for the environment.

[[Page H618]]

  If the Sites Reservoir were in place today, California would have an 
estimated additional 600,000 acre-feet of water stored so far this 
winter in addition to similar amounts from last year and even water 
that could have been impounded during the high flows during the drought 
years. Had we had this infrastructure in place, we would have had 
enough water to supply 4.8 million Californians for an entire year just 
on this winter's flows, and the winter is not even over yet. The Sites 
Reservoir will not only capture enough high winter flow, but it will 
also allow for the reuse of water released from Lake Shasta so that 
human and environmental water use are no longer mutually exclusive.
  Madam Speaker, let's not lose this opportunity to conserve water and 
to not be delayed again and again.

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