A drought emergency declaration in place over the past two years was lifted in the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. “Current conditions are not beyond the control of the services, personnel equipment and facilities of the county” after a stormy winter and spring helped replenish local water reserves, the resolution states.
With Oct. 1 marking the beginning of a new water year, Mendocino County officials reported recently that local water districts are preparing for what could be another dry year.
In the latest update from the Mendocino County Water Agency, local water managers are quoted as describing their current status and outlook.
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.”
Rich with promise and potential, the grapes that create the Russian River Valley’s famed wines are ripening in the intense midday heat.
But soon they’ll face the fight of their lives, deprived of water as the state diverts scarce supplies from agriculture to the region’s thirsty cities and subdivisions.
“Whatever water we have on the ground is all we’re going to get,” said Mendocino County supervisor and plant scientist Glenn McGourty, whose district spans the rural upper reaches of the river’s watershed, where the dance of cool nights and hot days, combined with alluvial soil, produces unique growing conditions.
Several communities and hundreds of vineyards in California’s Wine Country are being cut off from their water supply because there’s not enough water to go around. State regulators on Wednesday ordered nearly 1,000 water rights holders in the Russian River watershed to stop drawing supplies from the basin’s many rivers and creeks, the latest turn in California’s deepening drought. The order means many small water agencies and scores of growers in Sonoma and Mendocino counties will have to fall back on stored water or other sources, if they have it, or go without water entirely. State officials say the restrictions will not apply when human health and safety are at risk, though the exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis and are yet to be issued.
At the monthly Mendocino City Community Services District meeting the board declared a Stage 4 drought. It also discussed the potential ramifications to the community as the surrounding areas and the state suffer through the second year of drought. It is common during dry years for residents within the district to refill their water tanks with water that is hauled in and purchased from the surrounding communities.
Stunning drone photographs of Lake Oroville help illustrate the drought emergency declared by Gov. Gavin Newsom in two Northern California counties. Water levels at Lake Oroville have dropped to 42% of its 3,537,577 acre foot capacity.
Conditions are particularly acute in Mendocino and Sonoma counties because the local water supply depends on rainfall in the Russian River watershed.
Standing in the dry, cracked bottom of Lake Mendocino, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency Wednesday in two Northern California counties where grape growers and wineries are major users, an order that came in response to arid conditions affecting much of the state and the U.S. West.
The declaration is targeted to Mendocino and Sonoma counties, where drought conditions are especially bad, rather than statewide, as some officials and farmers in the agricultural-rich Central Valley had hoped. But the Democratic governor said a broader drought declaration could come as conditions change.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a drought emergency in two Northern California counties as he stood on the dry shoreline of Lake Mendocino. The declaration gives state regulators expanded powers to curtail diversions in the parched Russian River watershed and relax river flow standards that would require more releases from the region’s shrinking reservoirs. Newsom has been under pressure from some quarters to declare a statewide drought emergency. But the administration favors a more targeted approach.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom today declared a drought emergency for parched water systems along the Russian River watershed that serve hundreds of thousands of Californians in two counties. The emergency declaration will allow state agencies to consider relaxing some requirements for reservoir releases, allowing more water to be stored in reservoirs serving Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
Most of the state is suffering severe drought conditions due to low rainfall and snowpack, but state water officials said that the other regions aren’t hit hard enough yet to declare a statewide emergency.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
