Responding to Drought Conditions in Sonoma County, by Pamela Jeane
Our Speaker for the July 22, 2021 meeting was Pamela Jeane, the Assistant General Manager of Operations for Sonoma Water. Pam is responsible for the continuous operation and permitting of Sonoma Water’s potable water and wastewater treatment and reuse facilities. She is a registered civil Engineer and Sonoma County native.
Sonoma and Mendocino Counties are in a drought comparable to the drought of 1976-1977. Rainfall and reservoir storage in the past two years have been at historic lows. Our individual vulnerabilities vary by whether we use water from the reservoirs at Lake Mendocino or Lake Sonoma, or from groundwater sources. Lake Mendocino has the lowest storage for this time of year at any time since 1959. The last two years were two of the three lowest years of rainfall since 1976! The situation is “dire.” Lake Sonoma is better, but still bad. If you rely on groundwater, you are in ok shape, for now. Rainfall in Sonoma County has also been bad; the last two years have been two of the lowest five years since 1976.
Pam also gave us some insight into the Sonoma County water delivery system. Sonoma Water is a wholesale deliverer of water from Windsor to Marin County, serving over 600,000 people. The Russian River and Dry Creek serve as natural water pipelines; no pipes are necessary. The water from these sources goes into wells near Forestville and is then pumped out and delivered by pipelines throughout the southern part of the County. No single agency controls the water in Sonoma County; we have a patchwork of County, cities, and water districts, often with different approaches to the problem.
Sonoma Water’s approach to the current drought has been to develop water storage planning and conservation, filing water rights variances with the State Water Resources Control Board, implementing forecast informed reservoir operations (FIRO) to keep water in the reservoirs, and a public outreach campaign to keep the public informed about the drought and the need to save water. One of the public outreach techniques includes weekly publication in the Press Democrat of the status of water conditions. Pam also described the various programs in place to mitigate water shortages, including the construction of Warm Springs Dam, ongoing studies of groundwater usage and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, and developing partnerships with water users and suppliers. Pam also explained the FIRO program, in which Sonoma Water works with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to delay otherwise mandatory water releases in times of drought.
Many thanks to Pam for the interesting and informative, albeit frightening, update on Sonoma Water and its fight to mitigate drought conditions in Sonoma County. We appreciate all you do for Sonoma County residents and look forward to brighter days when water flows freely again in the Russian River Basin!
VIEW Pam's presentation HERE! It will be available for the next week.
