June 17, 2005
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To Our Fellow Citizens Who Live and Work in the Russian River Valleys of Mendocino County
We can no longer afford to stick our heads in the sand; our current water supplies along the Russian River in Mendocino County are increasingly threatened. We could be hit with water cutbacks in the next few years that will shock us.
Are we using more water than we have rights to? More and more it's beginning to look that way.
There are several problems. First, we only control 11% of the usable water in Lake Mendocino; Sonoma County owns the rest. State water authorities are now saying that some of the water pumped from wells along the Russian River in summer is not our water because it's not really "groundwater" - it's "underflow" from the River. The river flows in summer only because of releases from Lake Mendocino, most of which belongs to Sonoma County, not us.
Second, many groups want to shut down the water sent through the tunnel from the Eel River into Potter Valley and down the Russian River into the Lake. We believe we are not lowering the Eel River by diverting water into Potter Valley because before Lake Pillsbury was built that water would have already been flushed out to sea during the winter storm surges. That water is captured excess winter water.
But even if you disagree, if that water is cut off it will be a serious cutback in water supply in the Russian River region of Mendocino County.
Right now state water authorities are saying that Redwood Valley and Hopland are taking water that doesn't belong to them and they have to stop. We fear this is only the tip of the iceberg.
There's no more time to fool around. We're not talking about water for future growth - that's a whole other debate. We may lose a significant amount of the water we use in this region today. A water supply cutoff would be catastrophic.
How much water are we using in the Russian River watershed
and how much do we have secure rights to?
We've avoided answering these questions for decades, but we can't put off the day of reckoning much longer. We believe we have two choices. We either answer these questions and deal with our shortfalls, or a solution is going to be crammed down our throats by the state. We need to know the answer for every water district and for the other major categories of water users.
The current dam at Lake Mendocino was built to hold significantly more water than it has. Although raising the dam may be part of a long-term solution, it does not need to be raised to hold more water. We believe all that is physically necessary to store more water behind the current dam is to move some roads and campgrounds to higher ground, move some small sewage facilities, and perhaps make some adjustments on the spillway. We believe a project to use the current dam to hold more water would be accomplished much quicker, for significantly less cost, with fewer regulatory barriers, and with fewer political and environmental concerns than attempting to raise the dam. Further, the risk that current water supplies could be curtailed before the dam could be physically raised is too great. This is not a long-term solution, but it could secure our current water supply at a relatively low cost while a long-term solution is identified and implemented. Such a long-term solution could take decades.
As we pursue using the current dam to hold more water, the region needs to make sure that we have secure water rights to the amount of water we use. Additional rights need to be obtained if necessary to secure the amount of water currently used.
The best way to avoid the threat of a major cutback in water supply to the region in a timely fashion is to do three things in sequence.
- Review Current Water Supply Operations: Lake Mendocino is operated according to a Water Control Manual, including management of the water supply. These procedures should be reviewed to assure that maximum allowable water supply is currently being provided.
- Use the Current Dam First, Defer Raising the Dam to Later: We should defer a study about raising the dam until after we assure ourselves that significantly more water dedicated to our region will be stored behind the current dam as soon as possible. The issue of raising the dam must not complicate this priority.
- Study Raising the Dam as Part of Larger Long-Term Solution: We believe raising the dam should be taken off the table until we secure our second priority above - storing significantly more water behind the current dam. Then, a larger study of all the reasonably feasible options for long-term water supply should commence.
Return to our site as we develop further proposals and provide more information on this critical issue.
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