Grower floods vineyard
Acampo vintner seeks to replenish groundwater
In an effort to recharge the overdrafted groundwater basin, grape grower Al Costa for the past week has been flooding his 14acre vineyard in Acampo with approximately 4,000 gallons of water per minute.
“In about half of that area, the water really goes fast because there’s a big sand strata right there and the water goes right through it into the water table,” Costa said on Thursday afternoon.
Costa conducted similar flooding back in 2006, he said as he leaned against his truck near his water pump on the Mokelumne River, but had to stop due to a lack of funding.
The controlled flooding started up again this year, however, when the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District started a pilot project with Sustainable Conservation, according to NSJWCD President and Lodi grape grower Joe Valente.
“We’re overdrafting (our groundwater basin) and we need to do something about it, and what this project is trying to do is show that surface water can be used to recharge the groundwater basin,” Valente said. “We’re providing the pumping facility and electricity, and our board budgeted $15,000 (for the project).”
Joe Choperena, Sustainable Conservation’s project lead, said that vineyards such as Costa’s are ideal for this type of projects as vines are more tolerant to large amounts of water than other crops and do not use as much fertilizer, resulting in less nitrates making their way into the groundwater.
“We’ve been working on projects similar to this since 2011, looking at different types of crops and vines are very suitable to this,” Choperena said.
Tera Clark, Costa’s granddaughter, said grape vines can withstand the large amounts of water as long as they remain dormant.
The vine’s roots could become damaged if the water is too hot, Costa said, although the Mokelumne River’s temperatures are low enough that he is not worried.
Some of Choperena’s duties include monitoring moisture levels in the soil to see if the surface water is penetrating into the basin, he said, as well as looking at crop health.
Daniel DeGraff, lead district engineer for the Provost and Pritchard consulting group, said his job is to ensure that the flooding stays within NSJWCD’s water rights.
“(I’ve also been) contracted to monitor the water levels so that we can show that the water is not just flowing back into the river, but actually recharging the groundwater basin and flowing northwest of the river,” DeGraff said.
The project is anticipated to run until the end of the month when NSJWCD will no longer be allowed to pump water from the Mokelumne River due in part to the beginning of the salmon run in November, DeGraff said, although they are applying for an extension.
Should this pilot prove successful, DeGraff said their goal is to expand the project by encouraging more grape growers to participate.
“A lot of people have fears that it’ll negatively impact their vineyards, but if we can prove that it won’t affect their crop yield, hopefully more people will want to take part,” DeGraff said.