Sonoma County still doing its part for water conservation, March rains helpful
While Sonoma County is slightly behind its normal rainfall totals, last year’s record rains and continued good water conservation is keeping the county safe from “the D-word” and heavy March rains have kept our water supplies at good, healthy levels.
“I think we can definitely say we’ve had a pretty miraculous March because we’ve gotten just about 20 percent of our winter rainfall in the month of March,” said Brad Sherwood, spokesperson for the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA). “So much that, we’re not saying ‘that D-word.’ Our reservoirs are fairly healthy.”
According to the water agency, the three main water sources in the county are Lake Mendocino, Lake Sonoma and the Russian River. “Lake Mendocino relies on year-to-year rainfall to fill and water diverted from the Potter Valley Project. Lake Mendocino is a key drinking water source for the cities of Ukiah, Healdsburg, Cloverdale and Hopland, and also provides water to the Water Agency’s Russian River water supply system. Water releases from Lake Mendocino support flows in the Russian River for the threatened Chinook salmon and steelhead trout during the fall and winter seasons.
“Lake Sonoma is about four times larger than Lake Mendocino and can provide multiple years of water supply,” says the SCWA website. “Lake Sonoma relies on rainfall to fill and supports a dynamic and fragile ecosystem in Dry Creek that includes the endangered Coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout. Lake Sonoma provides a majority of the water agency’s service area with its drinking water.”
The SCWA website also states: “The Russian River is a managed river system with reservoir releases controlling river flows, especially throughout most of the summer and fall. When tributary stream flows are low, the water agency releases water stored in the reservoirs to supplement the natural flows in the Russian River to provide adequate flows for water supply, recreation and aquatic habitat. A release from a reservoir can be categorized as being of ‘pass-through water’ or ‘stored water.’ The term ‘project water’ is often used instead of stored water and is used to describe water that is present because of the dam and reservoir project.“
According to Sherwood, as of March 18, Lake Sonoma was at 85 percent of water supply capacity and Lake Mendocino was at 87 percent of water supply capacity. In the Ukiah Basin, there has been 16.49 inches of rainfall, which is 53.5 percent of normal (average is 30.82 inches) and in the Santa Rosa basin there has had 18.09 inches of rainfall, which is 70.25 percent of normal (average is 25.75 inches).
“I would say that the reservoirs are in a healthy stage given the dry winter that we’ve had,” Sherwood said. “They were in a healthy stage before March hit us. Eighty percent is a good level. We’re not concerned about water storage in those reservoirs. We were definitely concerned with the lack of rainfall before March, however we were not concerned about our water supply, because of how full they were from last year. We really do rely on the mid-spring rainfalls to top off our reservoirs before we get into the spring to summer months when water use typically increases.”
According to the Tribune’s archived rain totals from Western Weather, from Oct. 1, 2017 to March 15, 2018 Healdsburg has experienced 13.87 inches, compared to 52.31 for the same period last year (2016-2017). Average annual rainfall is around 22 inches.
While there have been reports from around the state of other regions showing a troubling degree of laziness on water conservation, Sherwood says Sonoma County has not fallen victim to that apathy.
“We’re finding that in our specific region we are still seeing drought-like behaviors being implemented, so we have not seen a spike in water use like other water agencies have experienced across the state,” he said. “We truly do believe our community is being resilient and carrying forward those drought-like water behaviors, rain or not. Conservation is a California way of life. We are very fortunate that our community is aware and conscious of how priceless water is. Our water supply comes from our own backyard; we don’t rely on the state or federal government. The water in in the Russian river, in Lake Sonoma that’s our supply.”
While Sonoma County is in better shape than most areas of California, Sherwood continues to beat the drum of conservation. “Rain or shine, continue using water wisely and we’ll keep repeating that message, because its essential to our long term water supply,” he concluded. “So far our community is doing a fantastic job, keep it up, good work and it’s good news.”
