Faced with new cost overruns that it feared would spike water rates, along with years of delays, threats of lawsuits and other setbacks, the board of Santa Clara County’s largest water agency on Tuesday voted to kill a plan to build a huge new reservoir in the southern part of the county near Pacheco Pass after eight years of studies and meetings.

The board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District voted 6-0 Tuesday afternoon to halt planning and engineering studies, and to withdraw the agency’s application for state bond funds for the Pacheco Reservoir project.

The reservoir — for which the agency has already spent $100 million in public funds on planning, enviornmental studies, engineering work, legal bills and other costs — would have been the largest new reservoir built anywhere in th

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