[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 1/11/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

January 11, 2008

 

2. Supply

 

Folsom Lake lowest since '95; Recent heavy Sierra snowfall should help by spring

Folsom Telegraph – 1/9/08

By Roger Phelps, staff writer

 

Welcome wetness won't work to fill Folsom Lake, but it will raise it from its lowest level in more than a decade.

Recent storms dumped several inches of rain into the lake and its tributaries. Before that, lake level was a scant 371 feet above sea level, containing only some 220,000 acre-feet of water, state and federal officials said.

Seldom-seen boulders poked the surface, and it didn't look like a reservoir that's contracted to serve water needs of a sprawling, populated, lawn- and golf course-studded area. It was down to about one-quarter capacity. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons.

"The lake holds a little under a million acre-feet," said spokesman Jeff McCracken of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Art Hinojosa, a division chief at the state Department of Water Resources, said the winter of 1994-95 was the last time the Folsom Lake level slumped further than it did last week.

"It bottomed at 364 feet," he said.

Heavy snows at high elevations in the Sierra Nevada recently will help refill Folsom Lake when snowmelt comes in the spring, McCracken said.

He said the state is due to measure the Sierra snow pack soon.

When California was drought-stricken during much of the 1970s, Folsom Lake shrank to barely more than one-seventh of its capacity, McCracken said.

 

"On Nov. 21, 1977, it held only 140,000 acre-feet," he said.

Jointly, the city of Folsom and the San Juan Water District hold ancient, high-ranking rights to Folsom Lake water.

If despite recent storms a true drought winter happened, customers of those agencies likely wouldn't be affected this year, but San Juan customers could see an effect next year, said district general manager Shauna Lorance.

That's because the district has a supplemental right conferred under the federal Central Valley Project, a massive government irrigation program.

"Should this year be a dry rain year, there could be a reduction in our CVP surface-water allocation, which is controlled by the Bureau of Reclamation," Lorance said.

Bounded by the American River to the south, Folsom's northern district is supplied by the San Juan Water District, which supplies several customer water agencies in the area.

"Whether customers were required to conserve is up to the SJWD retail agencies," Lorance said. #

http://folsomtelegraph.com/articles/2008/01/09/news/top_stories/04lake.txt

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