MWD OKs Reservoir in Riverside County

Directors of the Metropolitan Water District on Tuesday gave final approval for construction of a reservoir in the Domenigoni Valley in Riverside County, which would nearly double the MWD’s water storage capacity in Southern California.

In approving the site, the board also appropriated $189 million to complete design work and purchase additional land. Construction is to begin in 1994 and be completed by 1999 at a cost of about $1.3 billion.

The reservoir southwest of Hemet will hold about 800,000 acre-feet of water, enough to supply about 1.6 million homes for a year. At 4,410 acres, it would be the largest body of fresh water in Southern California.

“Construction of this . . . reservoir is a vital component in a series of facilities that will be necessary to help restore and maintain the reliable delivery of water in the Southland into the next century,” said Carl Boronkay, general manager of the MWD. The last major reservoir built in the region was Castaic Lake, completed in 1974.

“This reservoir will also help to avoid future water shortages such as we had in 1991,” Boronkay said.

The Domenigoni project was selected from three possible sites. One project would have placed a reservoir in the Potero Creek area south of Beaumont and another would have increased storage capacity at Vail Lake and combined it with a smaller reservoir at Domenigoni.