Deal would spare Lake Tulloch this summer

By Alex Breitler Record Staff Writer

Posted Mar. 24, 2015 @ 12:01 am

COPPEROPOLIS — Water districts announced a deal Monday that would prevent scenic Lake Tulloch from being drained — at least until after the end of the summer boating season.

The deal involves temporarily relaxing fish flow standards farther downstream on the San Joaquin River at Vernalis, said Jeff Shields, general manager of the Manteca-based South San Joaquin Irrigation District.

Loosening those rules would allow more water to be held back in Tulloch and in much larger, and seriously depleted, New Melones Lake.

This year, there is simply not enough water stored in those reservoirs to meet all of the needs in the Stanislaus River watershed.

“We’ve tried not to get into a big legal fight. It’s always better if you can settle rather than litigate,” Shields said Monday.

The deal still must be approved by the State Water Resources Control Board. According to South San Joaquin and neighboring Oakdale Irrigation District, the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the National Marine Fisheries Service have signed on to the “tentative” agreement.

Officials announced earlier this year that Tulloch might have to be drained as early as July, a strategy that would keep river temperatures cooler later in the year for threatened steelhead and other fish.

Tulloch-area residents protested the plan, warning it could cut off their water supply and dry up the economy of Copperopolis.

Shields warned Monday that the agreement extends only through the month of September. It’s possible Tulloch might have to be lowered after that time.

Under the agreement, New Melones would be drawn down to about 115,000 acre-feet of water by Sept. 30, Shields said. That’s less than 5 percent of the lake’s capacity.

Very little water would be left for the months of October and November, when federal officials typically release extra water to help migrating salmon on the river. And look out if the drought drags on through next winter.

“There is still a serious problem ahead,” Shields said.

The good news, he said, is that the two water districts will get the 450,000 acre-feet of water that they expected to receive this year under their senior water rights. Even that sum is lower than normal; for the first time in its history, South San Joaquin has set a limit on how much irrigation water each farmer can use.

The district’s drinking-water deliveries to Manteca, Escalon, Tracy and Lathrop also will be curtailed.

“At least we’re going into this irrigation season with certainty,” Shields said. “But it’s going to come at some pain to our communities.”

Jack Cox, who belongs to the Lake Tulloch Alliance, called the agreement a “band-aid.” He criticized any flow releases for fish during a drought.

“This simply delays the day of reckoning,” Cox said. “It’s a fine stop-gap measure but it doesn’t look to 2015-16.”

The federal government has described the steelhead population on the Stanislaus River as “precariously small.” Dams force the fish to spawn much lower in the river than they did historically, and as a result baby steelhead been exposed to lethally warm water temperatures.

Some environmental protections for fish already have been weakened over the past year, prompting biologists to warn that some sensitive species are in serious danger.

— Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/breitlerblog and on Twitter @alexbreitler.