Water Board OKs 5 Sites for Reservoir : Storage: County begins review process to select location for $500-million project.

The San Diego County Water Authority approved a list of five sites Thursday for a planned $500-million reservoir to store enough water to meet county needs during a six-month emergency.

The water board’s approval begins the project’s review process, including environmental impact reports that are expected to take up to three years and $10 million to complete.

The new reservoir is needed, water officials said, because the county now imports 90% of its water and falls 40,000 acre-feet short of the water needed to sustain residents during a six-month emergency.

Planners will try to quickly resolve potential problems at two of the sites, Pamo Valley and Lake Wohlford, locations that generated much public comment before Thursday’s vote.

Debbie Olmstead, a homeowner near Lake Wohlford, presented petitions signed by 486 residents and lake users opposed to the project. Olmstead told the board the reservoir could displace many of the lake’s 600 residents, some permanently.

Art Bunce, an attorney for the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, also warned the board of the legal complications involved in trying to build a reservoir on Indian land, which he said would require congressional approval.

There are existing reservoirs at the Lake Wohlford site and San Vicente Reservoir, either of which could be expanded to meet future emergency water needs.

The Pamo Valley proposal drew San Diego mayoral candidate Peter Navarro and members of the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club to the meeting.

“To flood Pamo Valley, we would be flooding our biological and cultural heritage,” said Linda Michael, a Sierra Club member. “There are other more economical and more environmental ways to provide water.”

Local environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service joined forces in 1989 to block an earlier proposal by water officials to build a dam at Pamo Valley, north of Ramona.

The other two sites at Guejito Valley, east of Lake Wohlford, and Moosa Canyon, north of Escondido, are privately owned. Water officials said they do not have a preferred site.