South Valley farmers benefit in S.J. River plan
Alex Breitler
The Stockton Record
07/09/2010
It's been a year for milestones on the San Joaquin River.
In September, a jet of water released from Friant Dam, east of Fresno, marked the first environmental flows to restore the stream and its defunct salmon runs.
In March, the normally dry river connected with the Delta for the first time in half a century, excluding flood years.
Now comes another big step that officials hope will reassure south Valley farmers who stand to lose up to 15 percent of their water under the restoration agreement reached in 2006.
Federal officials have announced that through a combination of transfers and exchanges, those farmers will get back at least some of the water they surrendered to the river this year.
The settlement after 18 years of litigation required officials to try to ease the pain of Friant Water Authority growers, who have relied on the San Joaquin and diverted its flows since the dam was built in the 1940s. Friant farmers have been waiting anxiously to find out if water would be returned to them.
"It's certainly encouraging from our perspective," said Ron Jacobsma, Friant's general manager.
The plan relies on a concept called recirculation.
Rather than allowing the San Joaquin restoration water simply to flow to the Delta and drain to the ocean, at least some of that water could be pumped back upstream and used again - this time by farmers. The concept is not unlike how blood circulates through the human body.
Of the roughly 200,000 acre-feet of water released this year to restore the river, between 50,000 and 60,000 acre-feet - or a little more than a quarter - will be recirculated, the bureau said. Farmers also were able to buy an additional 82,000 acre-feet at a cheaper rate, since it was a wet year.
Here's the sticking point:
Delta advocates want recirculated water to flow all the way to the estuary first to help improve water quality for agriculture and recreation. The large state and federal export pumps near Tracy would then send the water south to the Friant farmers.
This year, however, the recirculating water never reached the Delta.
Instead, it was stored farther upstream, near Mendota, and exchanged with west-side farmers whose own supplies can then be pumped from San Luis Reservoir back to Friant farms.
This method worries those who hope the river restoration will benefit the area around Stockton, past which the San Joaquin flows.
"We're not going to go to war on it on this one-year basis," said environmentalist Bill Jennings, with the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "If it continues into the future, we have serious concerns."
Officials say they plan to recirculate water through the Delta in future years. Right now, however, the relatively small capacity of the San Joaquin River channel below Mendota made it difficult to send all that water any farther downstream.
