Woodbridge Irrigation District focuses on EBMUD practices
After filing a lawsuit in January against the East Bay Municipal Utilities District for withholding water from the Mokelumne River, a Woodbridge Irrigation District official still has concerns about EBMUD’s practices.
WID manager Andy Christensen said on Friday that EBMUD has been storing more water than it would need until November to keep its Camanche and Pardee reservoirs full through the winter for years, despite WID’s water rights having seniority over EBMUD’s, then dumping excess water in the winter.
“In 2017, they actually dumped water for four and a half months because they had so much excess,” Christensen said. “Rather than dumping water at the beginning of a rain year, we wanted them to release it in the summer so we could use it for irrigation.”
Christensen said that releasing the water during the summer months could have alleviated EBMUD’s need to dump their excess water during the winter which he said led to flooding in the district, while still respecting WID’s water rights.
“Earlier this year, we filed a suit against them in civil court over that issue alone,” Christensen said.
EBMUD released up to 5,000 cubic feet per second of water in 2017 which damaged trees along the Mokelumne River from the Woodbridge Dam down to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Christensen said, expressing concern that similar flooding might occur again this year.
“The way EBMUD operates their reservoirs is detrimental,” Christensen said. “It doesn’t provide the flood protection that was originally promised.”
In a Tuesday press release, Christensen said WID requested 12,713 acre-feet of water under their senior licenses, which EBMUD reportedly denied on the grounds that “they have no obligation to make any releases to Woodbridge outside of the regulated base supply.”
Jim Ehlers, who owns an 80-acre vineyard approximately one mile down river from the Woodbridge Dam, said on Friday that his vines have suffered damage from EBMUD releasing too much water into the Mokelumne River going back as far as 1998.
“I was planting a new vineyard at the time, and when I called them they told me their maximum release would be 1,100 cubic feet per second.” Ehlers said. “I planted my vineyards and within a few months, they released 3,000 to 4,000 cubic feet per second which saturated my ground with moisture and killed about 10,000 vines. They could have just told me how much water they were going to release, I would have waited.”
Ehlers replanted his vines, he said, but suffered further losses between 2005 and 2006 when levees along the Mokelumne River eroded.
Ehlers’ vines were not the only plants to suffer due to flooding that he believes was caused by EBMUD releasing too much water, he said, claiming that between 200 and 300 trees along the river died when water levels rose in 2017 and fell into the river, blocking the flow of water.
“It’s like a beaver dam around some of those corners,” Ehlers said.
EBMUD spokeswoman Andrea Pook said in an email on Friday that their agreement with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife limits their flows to a maximum of 5,000 cubic feet per second — although they try to stay below that limit — and that EBMUD has a protocol to inform customers of any changes to river flows before they occur.
Pook also denied that EBMUD has been withholding water from WID.
“EBMUD is meeting its obligations under the agreement with Woodbridge to release 60,000 acre-feet of water for their use, in compliance with the agreedupon schedule,” Pook said.
EBMUD works to accommodate numerous requests from users such as WID, Pook said, adding that those requests can vary from year to year.
“Just last week we responded to North San Joaquin Water Conservation District to lower water levels so they could safely work to do necessary pump repairs. That allowed their contractor to get a new pump station connected in time,” Pook said. “Pulse flows are starting this weekend. As part of partnership coordination on the Mokelumne (River), we are pushing out short bursts of water to attract fish — which is good for the river, and good for the environment.”