Russian River water emergency declared

A short-term water emergency was declared Wednesday on the Russian River because of a black plume of water that originated from a ranch on the Laguna de Santa Rosa, water officials said.

Runoff from the recent rains is being blamed for causing the discoloration in the river, which prompted the Sonoma County Water Agency and other water districts to stop pumping operations, affecting several thousand residents.

"Our facilities at Mirabel, the three collector wells, are shut down, and we are not using them until they can determine why the water is discolored," said Pam Jeane, deputy operations director of the Sonoma County Water Agency.

State Water Regional Quality Control officials said Wednesday they believe the discoloration may have been caused by decaying material that washed into the river, but that it does not appear to pose a hazard.

"We have water samples we are shipping off, looking for pesticides, because ludwigia was sprayed in the laguna," said Dave Evans, a senior engineer with the state Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The state Department of Public Health called for the water agencies to turn off their pumps Tuesday night as a precautionary measure and rescinded the order at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

The discoloration was seen Tuesday and Wednesday in the laguna, in Mark West Creek near Forestville and in the Russian River at Steelhead Beach, Vacation Beach and the Hacienda Bridge.

Using the sheriff's helicopter, biologists from the Sonoma County Water Agency followed the plume back to the 240-acre ranch owned by Val Aggio.

A portion of the ranch, which sits adjacent to the laguna between Occidental and Guerneville Roads, had recently been tilled, and the ludwigia that was on the land had been plowed under, Evans said.

The land was tilled before the recent rains, which he believes washed material from the top of the land into the laguna.

Evans and officials for the state Department of Fish and Game both said that there is nothing to indicate that anything illegal has occurred, but they will make a final determination after they get the water samples back.

"We are not making those decisions until we find out what the impacts were," Evans said. "We know it was visual. We have nothing that looks like intent or negligence was involved."

Aggio was not available for comment.

The Sonoma County Water Agency continued pumping from its Wohler Bridge intakes, which provide enough water -- 30 million gallons a day -- for its 600,000 customers, Jeane said.

"We grabbed a couple of water samples," Jeane said. "The water is colored, there is not a lot of sediment in it, there are the little bugs that normally live in the water and they are still swimming around in it."

Jeane said that they won't turn the pumps back on until there is no color in the river at all.

Sweet Water Springs, which serves 4,400 customers and 10,000 residents in the Guerneville area, called for emergency conservation measures Tuesday night, but rescinded that order Wednesday afternoon, said General Manager Chuck Howell.

Howell said they initially turned off their pumps in the river and were relying on water stored in tanks, which have about another day left.

Even though they resumed pumping from the river, they asked customers to continue to conserve so they could recharge their storage tanks.

Occidental Water also turned off its Forestville pumps, but continued using its pumps farther downstream, officials said.

You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or bob.norberg@pressdemocrat.com