| Nickname: | RRWPC954 |
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Rain, rain, come today, river streams too dry these days……
Why must a threatened water crisis be necessary for agencies to get serious about mandatory water conservation? As this article is written, less than two weeks remain in 2013 and Santa Rosa has experienced barely more than 8” of rain for the entire year, compared to the usual average of 32”. (West County averages are generally almost double that amount, yet area trends are comparable as indicated by extremely low reservoir levels.)
According to San Francisco Chronicle article on Nov. 10, 2013, entitled “California on course for driest year on record”, Arthur Hinojosa, chief of hydrology and flood operation for the California Department of Water Resources said that all state reservoirs were well below their carrying capacity. “Generally speaking , it has been dry across the state, and it has been remarkably dry where …. the bulk of the water storage is,” he said and, “…most operators plan on multiyear dry years, but nobody plans on as dry as we’ve seen.”
Dear RRWPC Supporter:
If the contents of your mailbox look anything like ours this time of year, you have somewhere between 3 to 15 daily donation appeals from national, state, and local nonprofit organizations, most doing important work and providing needed services. Yet, RRWPC requests your special attention this season in acknowledgement of our 35 year history of tracking water quality and quantity issues in the lower Russian River.
2014 promises to be a busy year for RRWPC….
RRWPC will be following many critical issues next year including: Fish Flow Project EIR (i.e. ‘low flow’), septic regulation issues, especially as applied to lower Russian River, new water quality studies on bacteria, temperature, and nutrients, nutrient trading, and mandatory conservation policies needed to protect summer flows.
Important Regional Board Meeting November 21st….
This year included two rounds of comments to the Regional Board concerning Santa Rosa’s new discharge permit. So far we have not seen the responses to comments even though the meeting is only two weeks away. This meeting will start at 8:30 am with the Permit item #5 on the agenda and will probably be heard around 9 AM.