Your story "Sites reservoir might be beneficiary of new bonds" (Thursday) needs correction. Per capita water use in California has been cut in half over the last 40 years due to the state's investment in water efficiency, not the three years cited in the article.
The editorial that accompanied the article perpetuates the myth that Sites would only divert water from the Sacramento River during high flows. Government studies show that diversions to fill the Sites reservoir could take as much as 67 percent of the flow of the Sacramento River during April. Sites would also depend on using the Red Bluff Diversion Dam, which acts as a barrier to 70 percent of the threatened spring run chinook salmon that migrate upstream of Red Bluff to spawn.
Water from Sites will be far too expensive for local farmers to buy. Sites is a key facility in the Northern California Water Agency's plan to force local farmers to rely on groundwater so they can sell the Sacramento Valley's surface water to fuel new urban development in Southern California.
Sites is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
-- Steven L. Evans, Sacramento