State considers how to spend nearly half a billion dollars available after collapse of Los Vaqueros Reservoir expansion project
Nearly six months after the stunning collapse of a $1.5 billion plan to enlarge Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County to provide more water to Bay Area residents, state officials are trying to figure out now what to do with nearly half a billion dollars in state funding they had committed to the now-defunct project. On Wednesday, they provided their first clue. A majority of the seven board members of the California Water Commission, a state agency that distributes funding to build reservoirs and other water projects, indicated they are leaning toward dividing up the $453 million left over from the Los Vaqueros project and giving it this year to six other major new reservoir and groundwater storage projects currently on the drawing board around the state.