Lake drops below 20,000 AF
Reservoir fell below Oct. 1 benchmark Thursday
The amount of water stored in Lake Mendocino dropped below 20,000 acre-feet this week, but a local water official said meeting that benchmark early does not mean it is time to panic even more.
“Yes, we met that mark sooner than was hoped, but that does not mean terrible things are going to happen,” said Elizabeth Salomone, manager of the Russian River Flood Control & Water Conservation Improvement District.
Salomone said that the operators of the reservoir, Sonoma County Water Agency, hoped to have 20,000 acre-feet in the lake by Oct. 1 in order to “maintain adequate downstream flows for fisheries and human health and safety needs for municipal users.”
According to the water agency, “a minimum storage goal of 20,000 AF by Oct. 1, 2021, was recommended by Sonoma Water in the hopes of providing an adequate carry-over water supply entering the 2021-22 fall-winter rainy season. The reservoir’s storage level dropped below 20,000 AF on Thursday,
Aug. 26, signaling a worsening of the historic drought in the Russian River watershed.”
Salomone said that not meeting the storage goal does not mean that more curtailments are coming, but that “we need to keep doing what we’re doing, and conserve water.”
The good news, she said, is that “the agricultural season is almost over, the harvest is underway, and usage will taper
down pretty quickly in the next three to four weeks,” so the amount of water being taken from the river will be reduced significantly.
“But I know my customers have already cut back usage, and then cut back even more,” she said of the farmers the RRFC & CID serves. “They are treating every drop as precious.”
She also pointed out that water losses from the river and lake are not all due to allowed uses, because water is also being diverted to illegal marijuana farms or other unauthorized agricultural uses.
“But also there is loss to evaporation, and the land is dry, the air is dry, and the trees are soaking up water,” she said, describing just about everything as needing water right now.
Earlier this month, the State of California curtailed water rights for hundreds of water rights holders in the upper and lower Russian River regions. Salomone said that in the past two weeks, state water representatives have been doing field inspections along the Russian River in Mendocino County to make sure that water users have the proper measuring equipment, and are complying with the curtailments.