Close to Home: Where is the water for new homes?

In early June, gazing downstream from the newer Guerneville Bridge toward the old, you could see more of the riverbed than the Russian River, which appeared as a thin stream running through the landscape. It was sad.

At the time, river flows were at 46 cubic feet per second. The two summer dams had not been installed, which would help a little, but it still seemed like there would be more wading than swimming this summer because of very low flows.

Sonoma Water has asked the state Water Resources Control Board to declare a “critical dry year,” which means the lower river, as measured at Hacienda Bridge, could go down to 25 cubic feet per second. (During a year of normal rainfall, 125 cfs would be the lowest flow allowed.) The purpose of lower flows is to better manage upstream reservoir levels in Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma, which were also lower than usual for this time of year, a result of no rain from January through March.

While no one has said this, and probably no one knows for sure, many doubt that water released from Lake Mendocino during a drought makes it downstream approximately 70 miles to Hacienda Bridge, where lower river flow measurements occur. To base lower river flows on conditions so far upstream, as proposed, is unrealistic.

The goal of the ruling document, state water board Decision 1610, is to protect human health, salmonid fish and recreation, while preventing unnecessary loss of water needed for beneficial uses. Yet the river is officially designated as impaired for sediments, high temperatures, pathogens and mercury — and those constituents would cause far more harm if concentrated into very low stream flows. You cannot adequately protect human health, and probably not environmental health, at those exceedingly stingy flow levels.

Sonoma County lost 6,400 people since March 2020. Santa Rosa’s planning department website indicates 5,941 new housing units have been approved or are in process since last year. Where will the water come from to serve these units, especially since demand hardening is setting in with many people already conserving as much as they can?

New buildings containing low-flow devices will still use a lot of water, and additional conservation is impossible for some. Even wastewater reuse will be limited because there is less sewage available during drought periods.

What will we do then?

Brenda Adelman chairs the Russian River Watershed Protection Committee. She lives in Rio Nido.

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