About
Our coalition aims to protect Santa Clara County’s ratepayers and the environment, as well as working ranchlands, from this wasteful and high-risk project. In 2025, Valley Water officially stopped pursuing the Pacheco Dam project—a major victory for our coalition and all those who opposed it. This decision reflects growing recognition that large-scale, outdated water infrastructure projects often carry unacceptable environmental, economic, and community risks.
While the immediate threat of the Pacheco Dam has passed, our coalition is prepared to respond if the project is revived in any form. We are deeply grateful to the community members, partner organizations, and technical experts whose contributions helped stop this project, and to all those who continue to advocate for more sustainable, community-driven water solutions for the region.
For more information on related conservation efforts, please contact coalition partners:
"(The expansion project) would add no long term drought supply to our community, it would provide no new water supply to our community, rather would merely be ait a receptacle for water. And in this case the proposal is to spend $2.5 billion to hold the water here that we can easily have in other counties at a far, far lower cost.
About The Risk
Compared to other water projects, the Pacheco Reservoir expansion project has much higher cost and implementation risks than any other water projects that Valley Water is considering (see green and orange bars below).
Proposed Impact Area
