MID, TID reach river flow deal on Don Pedro

(The Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts and San Francisco finally have reached a deal with the state on protecting fish in the Tuolumne River.

The eight-year pact, announced Thursday, boosts releases from Don Pedro Reservoir but at a volume lower than the diverters had feared. They also will pay for about $64 million worth of nonflow habitat projects, such as rebuilding gravel spawning beds for salmon.

The Tuolumne River Trust, an environmental group, said the agreement falls short of what is needed for the waterway. It supports a previous state plan to roughly double releases from Don Pedro.

The districts and San Francisco had warned that the 2018 plan would take too much water from farm and city users.

Gov. Gavin Newsom urged them in 2019 to renew talks on a compromise

“We are pleased that our multiyear effort to find a path forward based on sound science is taking a significant step forward today,” TID General Manager Michelle Reimers said in a news release.

The partners still need to pin down technical details before the agreement

gets final approval from the district and city boards and the State Water Resources Control Board. It includes a provision to negotiate an extension beyond eight years.

Districts get half of river

About 1.9 million acrefeet of water run off into the Tuolumne in an average year for rain and snow. About 900,000 goes to farmers in the districts and to an MID treatment plant for Modesto residents. San Francisco takes about 240,000 into a system providing part of the water in four Bay Area counties. Smaller amounts are used by riverside rights holders.

That leaves only about 380,000 acre-feet reaching the ecologically stressed Sacramento-san Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.

The diverters already are required to release some water for fish under state and federal laws. The new agreement would boost this in ways that vary with drought cycles:

— 138,000 acre-feet of new releases in years defined as wet or abovenormal

— 127,000 acre-feet in below-normal years, reduced to 98,000 if this happens in consecutive years

— 140,000 acre-feet in dry years, reduced to 40,000 in a second such year

— 86,000 acre-feet in critical years, reduced to 17,000 in a second straight year.

The Tuolumne agreement adds to the many recently reached on Central Valley rivers between diverters and state and federal agencies. The partners hope that they can end decades of rancor via the emerging Bay-delta Plan.

100,000 tons of gravel The Tuolumne agreement calls for placing 100,000 tons of clean gravel roughly between La Grange and Hughson. It would aid spawning by native salmon that return in autumn after a few years in the Pacific Ocean.

The agreement also provides for 77 acres of restored floodplain, where newly hatched salmon would find food and shelter. And the partners would try to control striped bass and other introduced species that prey on salmon.

The Tuolumne River Trust said the compromise fails to provide fish with the deep, cold water they need.

“We’re disappointed that the focus is predominantly on nonflow measures, such as habitat restoration and predator control,” Policy Director Peter Drekmeier said by email Thursday. “These are important, but in the absence of adequate flows, they are unlikely to produce the results we all would like to see.”

Praise for the pact The agreement will “break the paradigm of management through regulation and litigation,” MID General Manager Ed Franciosa said in the news release.

“We have invested heavily in studying and truly understanding the Tuolumne River, the species and industries that depend on it and developing a realistic and sustainable voluntary agreement,” he said.

Dennis Herrera, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, also praised the pact.

“We’ve always been willing to do our part to further protect natural habitats, including in times of drought,” he said. “Now we have a framework agreement that strikes the right balance.”

Newsom’s resources secretary, Wade Crowfoot, was among the top state officials involved in the talks.

“We need every tool to improve environmental conditions,” Crowfoot said. “This collaborative approach holds the promise to do that more quickly and holistically, while improving water reliability to communities, farms and businesses.”