State amends curtailment orders

City of Ukiah can draw ‘small amount’ from Russian River for coastal residents

To expedite the delivery of much-needed drinking water to coastal Mendocino County residents whose wells have gone dry, the California State Water Resources Control Board has amended its previous curtailment orders to allow the city of Ukiah to draw water from the Russian River for emergency supplies.

“The State Water Board has pre-approved a health and human safety exemption allowing the city of Ukiah to provide emergency supplies to (coastal Mendocino County communities),” said Erik Ekdahl, deputy director of the Division

of Water Rights, explaining Wednesday that the board did not want “bureaucracy to get in the way of providing emergency drinking water to people who really need it.”

Ekdahl said representatives of the board and the city of Ukiah have been discussing for months how water could be provided to the coast, and that the city could have applied for the exemption itself, but “it has some philosophical differences” regarding the board’s ability to curtail certain water rights, specifically its pre-1914 right.

Ekdahl said amending the curtailment order allows water to be delivered to the coast without the city having to concede its position on whether the state has the authority to curtail its pre-1914 water right.

When previously discussing the city’s intention to violate the state’s curtailment order by drawing from the Russian River and face fines, Sean White, the city’s director of water and sewer resources, admitted that the State Water Board would have allowed the city to draw needed water

without incurring fines, “but it would have been under a difficult premise” that the city was unwilling to accept.

White said that the premise proposed by the State Water Board would have required the city to impose conservation measures on its own residents that would limit water usage to 55 gallons per resident per day, measures that White described as “draconian,” which is defined as “excessively harsh and severe.”

Ekdahl said Wednesday that the amended curtailment orders allowing the city to draw water from the river do not impose a conservation mandate of 55 gallons of water per person per day on the city of Ukiah residents, only to the recipients of the water on the Mendocino Coast. Previously, Ekdahl had said that such a conservation mandate would not have applied to city of Ukiah residents from the beginning.

In terms of how much water total is expected to be provided by the city to the coast, Ekdahl said his understanding was it would not be more than “50 acre-feet over the next three months,” which he described as a relatively small amount. (One acrefoot is about 326,000 gallons of water.)

Ekdahl said the curtailment order exemption was “pre-approved based on information provided by the city” regarding how much water it intends to draw from the Russian River. White described that as “a very small amount” of water that is within the 1.4 cubic feet per second that the city describes as being allowed under its “water right that dates back to 1874.”

The city of Ukiah would not be delivering water, but would be providing access for approved water haulers to fill up their trucks — a typical water truck carries 3,500 gallons — then drive the water to Fort Bragg. From there the water would be treated and distributed to those needing water.

The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors last month approved allowing qualified haulers to drive water from Ukiah to the city of Fort Bragg, and just this week the deliveries began. On Wednesday, 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams confirmed that the first deliveries from Ukiah had begun.

“I am sure they will find somebody,” White said previously when asked if the discussions regarding the city providing water to the coast were in fact moot. If a hauler is indeed found and hired, White said the city would likely charge them three cents a gallon for what he estimated would be about 65,000 to 75,000 gallons a day, or about $2,000 worth of water.

When asked if the city could provide water to the coast without drawing from the river, White said no, that “we’re maxed out in our capacity right now. We’re meeting needs (for potable water) through our wells, but just barely. And it’s not a supply issue, it’s a pumping capacity issue.”

Last week, White told the Ukiah City Council that his staff will be using its existing equipment to pull water from the river “16 hours a day, one day a week, then putting that water into storage and drawing off of that for seven days.”

White could not be reached for comment Wednesday on the State Water Board’s amended curtailment order. However, City Manager Sage Sangiacomo said that the city began providing water Wednesday, allowing access to 10,000 gallons of what he described as groundwater only.