California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 7, 2009
2. Supply –
Lightner Tries to Recycle Sewage Vote
Voice of San Diego
AV's proposed solar plant still thirsty
Antelope Valley Press
Looking into local aquifers
Napa Valley Register
A sustainable water supply
Marin Independent Journal
Salt is found to ‘stretch,’ with possible effect on desal
Water Technology Online
Water conservation efforts force cities to rethink residential landscape policies
Riverside Press Enterprise
Stimulus money to help water district build pipeline to Vail Lake
Riverside Press-Enterprise
Goodwin Dam got water rolling for SSJID users
Manteca Bulletin
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Lightner Tries to Recycle Sewage Vote
Voice of San Diego-7/6/09
By Rob Davis
A San Diego city councilwoman is having second thoughts about the city's plan to turn recycled sewage into drinking water.
Councilwoman Sherri Lightner has asked the council to vote Tuesday to revoke a $438,000 contract it approved in March -- a key part of the city's examination of recycled sewage as a drinking-water supply.
Her push to revoke the contract demonstrates the tenuousness of the support for the potential water source by the new City Council, which added four new members in December. While Lightner has so far raised only technical issues and previously supported the concept, sewage recycling proponents worry that they may have lost their once solid majority on the council.
The city approved a multi-year, $11.8-million study in late 2007 to determine whether sewage can safely be purified, dumped in the San Vicente Reservoir and eventually consumed by humans. The council temporarily raised water rates last year to pay for the study -- the first step before the city would consider whether to dump millions of gallons of purified sewage a day into the reservoir.
And in March, City Council, in a 5-3 vote, approved a $438,000 contract for a key part of the study -- modeling how recycled sewage would mix in the reservoir and how long it would stay before being pulled out into the city's drinking water pipes. The study is needed for the California Department of Health Services to grant regulatory approval.
Council's vote on a sole-source contract for Flow Sciences Inc. should mirror its vote on the program as a whole. But Lightner, who voted to approve the contract, is now raising questions about it. She says she's concerned about the way the company is modeling how long recycled sewage would stay in the reservoir.
But some worry that it might be more than that.
Lani Lutar, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, said she believes Lightner won't consistently support sewage recycling. "There is a concern that Councilmember Lightner's concerns are on the overall concept of indirect potable reuse rather than this specific contract," Lutar said.
Lightner said she wants to delay the contract until she has assurances that the California Department of Health Services would find the study's results adequate. San Diego would be the first entity in the state to receive approval to dump recycled sewage in an above-ground drinking water reservoir.
"The California Department of Health has no standards, the federal government has no standards," Lightner said. "We're operating in a strange place right now. It would be nice to have more focused direction."
Jim Barrett, the city's public utilities director, told Lightner in a June 25 memo that the company's approach was scientifically valid. The state Department of Health Services is "pleased" with the model and the choice of Flow Sciences, Barrett wrote.
If Lightner had raised the same concerns in March, she likely would've been able to stall the project. Now, however, her effort won't go far. Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who has opposed sewage recycling, doesn't support Lightner's request, giving sewage recycling proponents a key swing vote.
Faulconer "does not support reneging on a contract with a company doing business with the city," said his spokesman, Tony Manolatos. "It sets a bad precedent and could affect future contracts."
Lightner's actions highlight the sensitivities still lingering about recycled sewage in arid San Diego, even as the region copes with a water shortage for the first time in two decades.
Orange County began pumping recycled sewage into its drinking water aquifers last year. That effort was widely endorsed by politicians and other local officials there, avoiding the stigma conjured in San Diego, where recycled sewage has been derided with the moniker "toilet-to-tap."
Scientists say recycled sewage -- purified largely in the same way that seawater is desalinated -- is cleaner than conventional drinking water supplies. But the concept has been slow to take hold in San Diego.
Nonetheless, sewage recycling has had the support of a majority of council in recent years, with former Council President Scott Peters pushing it forward over the objections of Mayor Jerry Sanders. But Peters, along with fellow proponent Jim Madaffer, were termed out in December.
Bruce Reznik, executive director of San Diego Coastkeeper, an environmental group, said the departures of Peters and Madaffer raised "some worry about whether people coming in would have that commitment."
Reznik said he hopes Lightner's concerns are just technical questions. "Hopefully this isn't a more fundamental issue," he said. "If there is, then there's a problem."
Lightner said her concerns are limited in scope. She said she wants to ensure that public health and taxpayer dollars are protected as the study moves forward.
"If we're going to study it," she said, "we need to study it right."#
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2009/07/07/government/258sewage070609.txt
AV's proposed solar plant still thirsty
Antelope Valley Press-7/6/09
By Allidon Gatlin
Water remains the central issue at the heart of the state licensing process for a 250-megawatt solar power plant proposed on former agricultural land northwest of California City near the community of Cantil.
Beacon Solar LLC, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources LLC, has applied to the state to construct and operate the solar plant on some 2,000 acres of land off State Route 14 that was once used for alfalfa farming.
The plant would use a series of curved mirrors to capture and reflect sunlight on a series of tubes. Liquids in the tubes would be heated by the sunlight and in turn used to power a steam turbine, which actually produces the electricity.
The California Energy Commission, which is tasked with licensing the plant, held a public workshop on the proposed plant July 1 in Cal City, the second meeting to cover issues raised in the initial state staff assessment of the project.
The power plant application falls under the commission's "in lieu" permitting process, which combines the various permits required from local, state and federal agencies into one process.
The biggest obstacle to the plant's licensing appears to be the company's intent to use 1,400 acre-feet of groundwater from the site each year to cool the solar power system.
The California Energy Commission and the state Water Resources Control Board have policies against using potable water to cool power plants unless there is no other feasible alternative, said Eric Solorio, project manager for the energy commission.
At issue appears to be what is considered "feasible."
Since an earlier workshop in April, Beacon has changed the design of the proposed plant to use 200 acre-feet less water than originally proposed.
The power company contends enough water exists in the Fremont Basin beneath the plant site to serve its needs without affecting the water supply for surrounding communities. They cite their studies showing the groundwater levels rising since the end of water-intensive farming practices in the area. The groundwater use by the power plant would slow this rate of rise, but not reverse it, they contend.
John Fio, a hydrology consultant to the commission staff, questioned the water models, arguing that although wells show water levels rising in some areas, elsewhere in the basin they are falling, indicating shifting recharge levels.
"It's kind of a sensitive situation. There's probably not as much water out there as we thought," he said.
The state commission staff presented several alternatives to using groundwater to the company, alternatives the staff sees as economically feasible.
The first of these is the purchase of recycled water from the Rosamond Community Services District, which would then be piped some 40 miles to the power plant site.
As proposed, Beacon would pay for the pipeline, storage, a portion of the wastewater treatment plant expansion and recycled water. The estimated capital costs for this infrastructure is nearly $50 million, with annual water costs of $1.2 million, according to the RCSD.
"We are going to move that proposal forward in the staff document as a feasible alternative," Solorio said. "We will fully study this alternative and its impacts, along with mitigation."
A similar proposal would use recycled water from California City. Under this scenario, the groundwater at the project site would be pumped to Cal City for potable use, with tertiary-treated wastewater sent back to the power plant for cooling.
This plan would require additional sewer connections in Cal City - where a large percentage of residences use septic systems - in order to provide enough wastewater to the treatment plant to supply the power plant's needs.
The commission staff prefers the Rosamond proposal, as do Cal City officials.
Although the city will not receive the electricity eventually produced, "we still support the Beacon project. It's a good project," said Cal City Public Works Director Michael Bevins.
Cal City officials agreed to the alternative to provide recycled water as part of showing that support, he said.
Despite the high cost of the Rosamond alternative, the city sees value in the pipelines that would be laid, which could help Cal City's own plans for future growth, Bevins said.
The city's tertiary wastewater treatment plant has more capacity than the city currently has use for, he said.
"We have the potential right now" to provide all the recycled water needed, he said, but it would require sewer connections to individual homes.
Other alternatives suggested by staff to avoid using potable groundwater include switching to a photovoltaic system, using "dry-cooling" methods and using brackish water from the Koehn Lake area five miles to the east of the site.
Beacon does not yet have the appropriate studies of the quality of the Koehn Lake water supply to determine if that would be a viable source, company officials said.
Company officials questioned the wisdom of the Cal City proposal, noting it would use the same groundwater, but have the added impacts of a pipeline and intermediary treatment.
Solorio said the impact would be equivalent.
"It appears to us that is a viable alternative," he said.
Focusing on the economic viability of the alternatives, both the Rosamond and Cal City plans "yield greater return than dry-cooling does," he said.
Dry-cooling, which would use no water whatsoever to cool the system and is a more expensive system, was also identified as an alternative plan by the staff.
Scott Busa, project manager for NextEra, pointed out that the previous farming use on the land used far greater water than the power plant proposes, and the alternatives to using on-site groundwater will raise the costs of an already expensive renewable energy project.
"Do we take a common sense approach and use water that's already there?" he said.
The fact that Rosamond is in a different water basin - one that is embroiled in legal wrangling over water rights - may also cause difficulties with transporting the water outside the basin, he said.
"We're still not confident we're not going to get thrown in the middle of all the water fighting in the Antelope Valley," Busa said.
Jack Stewart, general manager of the RCSD which approved a tentative agreement to provide recycled water to the project, said the proposal should not pose a legal issue in regards to water rights.
Busa also questioned the impacts of the 40-mile pipeline, but agreed to cooperate with further study.
"We'll continue to watch along and give our input. But don't be fooled - there's not a cost associated with this," he said. "In the end, we hope common sense will prevail and we'll be allowed to use groundwater."
"There's absolutely a cost to this pipeline, significant cost," Solorio answered. "There is absolutely state policy against using potable water for power plants."
"The issue here is the use of water," he said. "At the end of the day, we're talking about the economic feasibility of using potable water, recycled water or dry cooling."
The power company also put forth its own suggestions for ways of mitigating the impact of drawing 1,400 acre-feet of groundwater annually, realizing this is separate from the issue of using potable water, said Kenny Stein, environmental permitting manager for NextEra.
Their groundwater mitigation plan includes the plant redesign to reduce water use to 1,400 acre-feet from the original 1,600 acre-feet, designing the site to maximize the amount of rainwater that would be collected and recharged into the basin below and continuous groundwater monitoring to ensure the level in the basin does not fall too much.
A fourth mitigation measure suggested is a program to remove non-native tamarisk trees from the region. These trees consume a great deal of water on their own, as much as 250 gallons per day according to some estimates provided by the company's biological consultants.
Water also figured into the lengthy discussion of rerouting a desert wash that currently cuts across the center of the project site.
This wash, important to transporting water across the flood plain during rain storms, will be redirected around the perimeter of the property.
Commission staff had numerous questions regarding the structure of the new channel, focusing on its ability to replicate the water-moving and ecological functions of the existing dry wash.
The new channel design must also take into account the ability of wildlife, specifically the desert tortoise, to traverse it without becoming entrapped. The commission staff questioned the slopes of the channel sides as well as their construction to ensure a tortoise would be able to climb in and out of the wash.
"I think it's a colossal experiment," said Susan Sanders, a biological consultant to the state commission, noting there is no other example of recreating a wash like this one with which to compare the plan.
Stein argued that the staff is looking to improve upon what is already there.
"We have done what we believe is above and beyond the call of duty in designing this wash," he said.
Citing her misgivings in how the rerouted wash will re-create the existing ecological conditions, Sanders also suggested that an additional 16 acres of land off-site would be required for mitigation purposes.
"You're asking us to double-mitigate," Stein said. "We think what we're doing here is going to create a much better thing than we have now. You need to give us a chance to show what we've designed will work."
Aside from the water-related issues, the workshop also covered concerns regarding the visual impact of the power plant, methods for surveying cultural resources that may be on the site, air quality concerns regarding emissions from truck traffic to and from the plant as well as dust control, and impacts to wildlife in the area, especially the endangered desert tortoise.
The use of evaporation ponds is also a concern for migratory birds, with the commission staff seeking to require netting over the ponds, a step the energy company asked to avoid unless monitoring showed a need for it.
"We don't want to wait until there's a stack of dead birds," Sanders said. "I think netting is the most fail-safe way to do it."
The information gathered at the public workshop will be used by the commission staff in formulating the final assessment, which will be presented to the California Energy Commission to use in their decision whether or not to license the solar power plant and with what conditions.
Solorio was hopeful the final staff assessment could be completed by mid-August.#
http://www.avpress.com/n/06/0706_s3.hts
Looking into local aquifers
Napa County and property owners cannot turn a blind eye toward the water supply
Napa Valley Register-7/7/09
If you want to kill a conversation around here, just start asking people who live in the unincorporated parts of the county how their well is doing.
Most people just don’t want to talk about it.
If a well is producing good water, the property owner might not want the neighbors to know for fear that they would figure out a way to tap the good water.
If a well is working poorly, that might reduce the value of the land should it go up for sale.
The biggest fear of all is that if people knew where the water is and isn’t, the county might seek to regulate the use of water.
Yet water — along with sunshine and good soil — is a critical resource for Napa Valley vineyards and the environmental and economic prosperity of the county as a whole. It would be irresponsible if the county turned a blind eye to what’s happening with the local water supply.
So Napa County has launched a study intended to bring into focus the state of our aquifers. It has hired an engineering firm to pore over available data, which is thought to be sketchy. The county hopes to have a meaningful snapshot of the situation within a year.
We already know that the Milliken-Sarco-Tulocay watershed — essentially Coombsville and its environs — is in a groundwater-depleted state. We know that Carneros has a spotty supply underground. Property owners in both of these areas are seeking ways to tap a recycled water pipeline for irrigation.
As for the heart of the valley, the eastern hills and western slopes, much less is known.
While property owners are right to be concerned about the study and the hand of government in regulating water, we agree with vineyard manager Jim Lincoln, who told the Register “we can’t be afraid of information.”
If studies or test wells should show that some areas are depleted or others are water-rich, it will help guide planners, property owners and even vineyard managers in how best to conserve a resource that is vital to us all, a resource we want to leave healthy for future generations.#
A sustainable water supply
Marin Independent Journal-7/7/09
By Ed Mainland
Jim Fryer, former water conservation manager of Marin Municipal Water District, has seriously dented the district's major assumptions about the need for desalination to supplement water conservation.
At his presentation to MMWD's board June 24, most board members accorded Fryer's facts a respectful hearing but gave no sign that MMWD would reconsider its controversial push for a costly new desalination plant on San Rafael's bay front.
Fryer's study "Sustaining Our Water Future" (www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/desalination) questions whether desal is needed once robust conservation measures are implemented. And based on MMWD's own figures, Fryer estimates desal's cost to be $399 million contrasted with conservation's $45 million for the same amount of water.
Ratepayer activists are now calling for the board to hold another session with Fryer to examine whether he or MMWD's manager, Paul Helliker, is closer to the truth.
Helliker claimed on June 24 that even if all Fryer's conservation recommendations are put into effect, there will still be a significant water-supply "deficit".
Activists take particular issue with several MMWD board members - President Alex Foreman and director David Behar - who, they say, play the fear card, rhetorically asking whether Marinites would prefer having desal or their faucets run dry.
National climate researchers predict slightly more rain on average for Marin under conditions of global warming, including more torrential downpours and more summer rains. Activists anticipate that MMWD staff will seek a paid consultant to contest these predictions and give credence to the frightful images of Behar and Foreman.
The next opportunity for the public to put these numbers to the test will be MMWD's "Water Conservation Summit" on Wednesday, from 8 a.m. to noon, at Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael. E-mail MMWD's Dan Carney for registration details at dcarney@marinwater.org.
Activists view Richard Rubin's June 14 Marin Voice column assaulting Fryer's recommendations as more asymmetrical warfare inspired by MMWD against its critics and skeptics.
Rubin failed to mention that Fryer is clearly "local" - a former MMWD conservation expert who has spent most of his adult life in the MMWD service district - even though his study's sponsor is national.
Rubin claimed Fryer proposes "conservation-only" solutions, but in fact, half of Fryer's recommendations would increase the supply, including increased recycling, better reservoir operation and reduced leakage.
Fryer compared Marin's high system leakage unfavorably with San Luis Obispo's success in reducing leakage to near zero.
Rubin decried what he calls Fryer's "radical solutions," "disinformation, misconceptions and inadequate cost/benefit analysis." But there are no "radical" solutions in Fryer's report - all the steps he recommends are well-studied by MMWD and other California water agencies.
Rubin called widespread public opposition "questionable," yet numerous public opinion polls by MMWD consistently show more public support for increased conservation rather than either more Russian River water or desalination.
Rubin claimed there is "no evidence" that conservation can be sufficient during prolonged droughts, while Fryer's report provides abundant evidence that it can.
While Rubin dismissed Fryer's report as having only "conversation value," this "conversation" would have real value if MMWD would listen to Fryer's cost estimates and water deficit numbers.
This would serve the public interest and improve odds for a Marin popular consensus.
MMWD's own chief engineer said two years ago that if Marin could cut its water consumption by 30 percent, a desal plant wouldn't be needed.
Whether conservation and efficiency can meet this target is what the debate is about.#
http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_12767021?IADID=Search-www.marinij.com-www.marinij.com
Salt is found to ‘stretch,’ with possible effect on desal
Water Technology Online-7/6/09
Salt will stretch, scientists from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Pittsburgh have found.
Announcing the discovery, a recent Sandia press release also suggested that this newly discovered property of common sodium chloride, formerly thought to be brittle, could have implications for water desalination, in which membrane pores of certain sizes are used to filter salts out of seawater or brackish water.
A report on the research, “Superplastic Nanowires Pulled from the Surface of Common Salt,” was published in the May edition of Nano Letters, a publication of the American Chemical Society. The researchers were Nathan W. Moore, Junhang Luo, J. Y. Huang, Scott X. Mao and Jack E. Houston.
The surprise discovery occurred while the researchers were looking into the mechanical properties of salt in the absence of water. As they contacted the surface of a block of salt with the gold tip of a microscope and then withdrew the tip, they saw with an electron microscope a “nanowire” of salt being created. The nanowire elongated by about 280 percent, according to a research abstract.
“In this, [the salt] resembled the behavior of the surface of water when an object is withdrawn from it,” the Sandia press release said. “But unlike water, the salt meniscus [elongated bubble] didn’t break from its own weight as the tip was withdrawn.” The salt followed the gold tip, thinning and elongating.
This property of salt was “totally surprising,” researcher Houston is quoted as saying. He theorized that the surface salt molecules are more mobile than those within the salt block because they don’t have an atomic lattice above them.
Besides desalination, phenomena that could be affected by salt’s stretching properties include cloud formation and ozone destruction, the Sandia release said.#
http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?N_ID=72186
Water conservation efforts force cities to rethink residential landscape policies
Riverside Press Enterprise-7/6/09
By Janet Zimmerman
When Pat Silvestri's historic home was built in 1928, there was no water shortage.
The yard in front of his Spanish Colonial Revival-style house, like those of many of his neighbors in Riverside's Wood streets, was planted with grass reminiscent of the verdant East Coast landscapes left behind by the area's early residents when they settled here.
Silvestri recently helped start a neighborhood conservation group to educate residents about such topics as solar power and composting. Now he's worried about California's three-year drought and diminished water supply, and he wanted to trim his water consumption. So he hired a garden designer to create a new strip with drip irrigation, gravel and drought-tolerant plants.
He submitted the design to city planning officials, as required for changes to the exteriors of homes in historic areas. Silvestri's home near Riverside City College is a city landmark in a historical district.
He was surprised by the first reaction of city officials, who he said discouraged anything other than traditional turf in the stretch of the yard between the road and sidewalk, often referred to as a parkway. But after some haggling, Silvestri's design was approved.
The case illustrates the changing philosophy among cities about parkway landscaping in an era of conservation.
Nan Simonsen has designed many water-wise roadside gardens. At times, she says, she has had to fight city ordinances that favor grass. \
"We have to recognize that the times have changed," said City Councilman Mike Gardner, who intervened in Silvestri's case and urged planners to make a less rigid interpretation of policy.
City Planning Director Ken Gutierrez said it was a misunderstanding. He said the city is amenable to low-water plantings that meet requirements for height and access. Riverside offers a 40-cent-per-square-foot rebate for the removal of grass that is replaced by low-water plants. Approved replacement plants include African daisy, iris, dwarf fountain grass and penstemon.
Corona is developing a brochure for homeowners with a list of acceptable parkway plants, and doing away with the pre-approval process once required of such changes, said Jason Moquin, a senior planner.
"We want to make it easier for homeowners. With water rates continuing to increase ... we're looking at ways to help out the citizens to avoid some of those higher costs," he said.
Some of Corona's approved plantings include trailing gazania, iceplant and lantana, purple verbena, dwarf lilies of the Nile, rosemary, common periwinkle and St. John's wort. All are low-water and low-growing, Moquin said.
Redlands has no parkway planting requirements except that the strips be maintained with nonthorny landscape. Gary van Dorst, director of the Quality of Life Department, lauded the idea of a water-wise plants list and said such landscapes will probably become more common as water shortages continue.
About 60 percent of residential water use is outdoors; that is where agencies are focusing their conservation efforts, promoting climate-controlled sprinklers, drip irrigation and replacing large areas of grass with drought-resistant plants.
The issue is becoming more pressing as water rates increase. Many agencies recently passed along a 20 percent price hike from Metropolitan Water District, a wholesaler, which also imposed a 10 percent cut in supplies and hefty financial penalties for districts that don't conserve.
As a result, many local districts have called for 10 to 15 percent cutbacks. Some imposed "water budgets" that fine excessive users who go over their monthly limit.
The struggle isn't limited to historic homes. Many new developments have rules requiring front yard grass, said Nan Simonsen, the Riverside landscape designer who worked on Silvestri's project.
On one of her projects, a homeowners association outlawed the use of pride of Mediera, a perennial shrub with spiky gray-green leaves and dramatic purple blooms, because one of the members said it looked too dry, Simonsen said. On other jobs, she has received pushback for using gravel and other permeable materials for pathways instead of concrete.
"Down the road, communities won't have the luxury of being that picky or restrictive when we all need to cut back (water use) by 25 or 30 percent," she said. "All communities are going to have to ... re-evaluate some of what they had in place for years."#
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_landscape07.3010608.html
Stimulus money to help water district build pipeline to Vail Lake
Riverside Press-Enterprise-7/6/09
By Jeff Horseman
The Rancho California Water District is getting $6.2 million in federal stimulus money for a pipeline that will allow the Temecula-based district to boost its water reserves.
District officials announced the funding Monday. The money comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a massive federal effort to kick-start the stalled economy.
Rancho Water serves Temecula, part of Murrieta and nearby unincorporated areas.
The money will go toward the Vail Lake Water Storage Pipeline and Pump Station project, which will build a pipeline to store imported water in the lake east of Temecula.
By storing water during off-peak periods, Rancho Water hopes to have more water on hand when demand is high and imported water deliveries are light.
The project will create 283 jobs over the next several years, according to Rancho Water.
The project is scheduled to go out to bid in October, with construction starting in January, said Perry Louck, the district's director of planning. The project also needs federal environmental approvals before it can start.
In a news release, Rancho Water board President Ralph Daily thanked the Inland congressional delegation for helping to secure the funding.
"Without their leadership and the able assistance and hard work of the Bureau of Reclamation officials and staff, meeting this milestone would not have been possible," he said.#
http://www.pe.com/localnews/temecula/stories/PE_News_Local_S_stimulus07.458c25e.html
Goodwin Dam got water rolling for SSJID users
Water has been flowing over the Goodwin Dam for 96 years to the benefit of Manteca, Ripon, and Escalon
Manteca Bulletin-7/7/09
By Dennis Wyatt
Nestled in the rustic Stanislaus River canyon below the western horizon from busy Highway 108-120 in the bottomland of Tuolumne County is arguably the most critical chunk of concrete ever poured when it comes to powering the Manteca economy.
It is here, some 35 miles to the northeast of Manteca, you’ll find Goodwin Dam. The 400-foot high dam was completed in December of 1912 primary as a storage and diversion point for the South San Joaquin Irrigation District and its century-old partner – the Oakdale Irrigation District.
The SSJID share was $342,500 – the median price of a new home in Manteca today.
Goodwin Dam was the first part of the SSJID system constructed after voters authorized the formation of the district on May 11, 1909 as well as authorized the issuance of $1,875,000 in bonds.
The dam site is two and a half miles above Knights Ferry on the river. It was named for the first president of the SSJID governing board – Benjamin A. Goodwin.
The dedication of Goodwin Dam on April 6, 1913 featured California’s famous reform governor Hirman Johnson opening the head gate. He delivered the dedication speech to a crowd newspapers at the time estimated at well over 4,000 people.
One newspaper – the Manteca Enterprise – inventoried the picnic grounds near the dam that day and counted 927 autos, 107 motorcycles, and over 100 buggies.
As soon as work was completed on the dam, the SSJID started the next phase of 300 miles of tunes and ditches to bring water to the Manteca-Ripon-Escalon area.
It included a 2,000-foot long wooden flume carrying water 68 feet in the air bridging a major depression some six miles south of Knights Ferry.
Two giant dry land dredges worked 20 hours a day digging the main canal. Four months after Goodwin Dam was completed, water started rushing through the ditches.
The first water released was on Aug. 13, 1913 to the E.N. Pierce Ranch on the southeast corner of Austin Road and Highway 120 where Calla High stands today.
Spring of 1914 was the first season for full water deliveries.
Manteca went from 15,539 acres under cultivation to 51,095 acres of farm production almost overnight. The South County’s growth mirrored the increased farmland production irrigation water made possible as the population soared from 3,000 in the years prior to the dam being built to over 15,000 once water was flowing.
The next phase was building Woodward Reservoir that provided 36,000 acre feet of in-district storage. That reservoir some 16 miles northeast of Manteca was completed in 1916.
The SSJID tried to float a bond for a component board members thought was critical for the long-range economic health of South County farming – the Melones Dam. Voters rejected the bond. It wasn’t until the drought of 1924 that public opinion changed. Bonds for Melones Dam were passed that year clearing the way for the dam’s dedication on Nov. 11, 1926.
An agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation allowed the Melones Dam operated jointly by SSJID and OID to be replaced by the New Melones Reservoir that was completed in 1979 creating some 2.4 million acre feet of storage on the Stanislaus River.
A large chunk of the two district’s water supply is factor into the inflow into New Melones that replaced the original water rights of the two agencies.#
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/article/5182/
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