[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 3/7/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

March 7, 2008

 

2. Supply

 

WATER RIGHTS ISSUES:

Fee may cost water district - Stockton Record

 

SNOWPACK:

Mendocino snowpack bodes well; Water content 156 percent of normal points to healthy runoff this year - Santa Rosa Press Democrat

 

 

WATER RIGHTS ISSUES:

Fee may cost water district

Stockton Record – 3/7/08

By Alex Breitler, staff writer

 

LODI - Ed Steffani believes in second chances - and third chances and fourth chances.

 

His North San Joaquin Water Conservation District is likely to get a fourth chance at putting its 52-year-old water rights to good use, according to a draft decision by the state.

 

More time to grab Mokelumne River water could be a lifesaver for water-strapped San Joaquin County.

 

"Amen and hallelujah," Steffani said this week.

 

But there is one remaining hurdle.

 

The state's decision is based in part on a hotly controversial fee that charges rural landowners who pump groundwater from the depleted aquifer.

 

And that fee, approved by the district in May, is being challenged in court this week by some landowners as well as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

 

If the district wins, it will immediately begin collecting fees, said Steffani, the district's general manager. The money will pay for pipes and canals to take flows from the Mokelumne.

 

If the district loses, it probably loses its water rights also, he said.

 

Most of the Mokelumne's water goes to the Bay Area through water rights issued in 1956. But in wet years, North San Joaquin can take as much as 20,000 acre-feet, enough water to cover the entire city of Lodi 2 1/2 feet deep.

 

The problem is the district hasn't used the water. The most it has taken from the Mokelumne was 9,487 acre-feet in 1973. And in the water world, you must use it or lose it.

 

The State Water Resources Control Board threatened to take away the district's water rights after it applied for a fourth time extension. But water officials appear to be giving North San Joaquin one more chance.

 

"This case is a close one," according to the draft order, which board members will act upon at a future meeting.

 

Why has it taken so long for the district to sip from its own river? Steffani said the unreliability of Mokelumne River water in the past deterred landowners, who knew they wouldn't get water every year.

 

Nowadays, however, river water can also be injected into the ground. And the district plans to give away its surface water in the hope that landowners will use it.

 

Those landowners could have thwarted the fee if a majority had filed protests under Proposition 218. Of the 5,501 landowners in the district, 974 protested, an attorney for the district said.

 

Critics called for a full vote.

 

"I know they probably did everything legally, the way they were supposed to," said Anita Quiroz of Lockeford.

 

"Morally, I think they went about it the wrong way."

 

For years, the district knew that groundwater tables were dropping but did nothing, she said. Now residents must pay.

"They're just hitting the backs of the little people who can't afford it," Quiroz said.

 

The hearing over the fee began Thursday and was expected to continue today in Department 41 of San Joaquin County Superior Court. #

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080307/A_NEWS/803070323/-1/A_NEWS

 

 

SNOWPACK:

Mendocino snowpack bodes well; Water content 156 percent of normal points to healthy runoff this year

Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 3/7/08

By Mike Geniella, staff writer

 

Federal officials said Thursday that snow depths of up to 10 feet have been measured at Anthony Peak in the Mendocino National Forest, nearly twice the accumulation recorded last year.

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The U.S. Forest Service's first surveys of the year also showed the snow's moisture content at a whopping 156 percent of normal at 6,900-foot Anthony Peak northeast of Covelo in Mendocino County.

Unless there's an unusually warm spring melt, the measurements are likely to mean longer and heavier runoffs in streams and rivers across the 913,360-acre forest. The waters of the Mendocino National Forest flow westward to the Pacific Ocean through the Eel River system, and eastward through the Sacramento River system to San Francisco Bay.

Anthony Peak is in the northwestern part of the Mendocino forest, the only one of 18 national forests in California not crossed by a paved road or highway. The forest sprawls across rugged backcountry in four counties: Mendocino, Lake, Tehama and Glenn.

Federal surveyors said Thursday that snow in the Anthony Peak area was even deeper a month ago when they were unable to make it to the peak's weather station to collect data.

"I've never seen so much snow up there," said Jordan Saylor, a Covelo Ranger Station employee. Saylor and colleague Conroy Coleman were finally able a week ago to reach the Anthony Peak survey site.

Saylor and Coleman found snow depths of up to 120 inches in some areas, with an average of 106 inches recorded. The historical average is 61 inches since measurements at Anthony Peak began in 1944.

This year's moisture content of the snow was measured at an average 38.5 inches, compared with the historic average of 25 inches.

"Mother Nature has been good to us," said federal hydrologist Robin Mowry.

The next snow survey is scheduled for April 1, with the last taken in early May. The information gathered at Anthony Peak and other measuring points statewide assists the state Department of Water Resources in forecasting runoff for stream flows, agriculture uses, and hydroelectric power generation. #

http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080307/NEWS/803070361/1033/NEWS01

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