Decision 1610 (D1610), is State water law passed in the mid-eighties governing Russian River flows. The Biological Opinion (BO), published in September, 2008, required the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) to petition the State Board for changes to the law. Requested decreases of summer flows from Dry Creek confluence to Jenner would go from 125 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 70 cfs, a 44% decrease. The EIR will be released around August, 2012 and adoption of new flows are expected to be adopted about a year after that (2013).
Permanent Change to D1610 and Fish Flow Project
- Water Project DEIR: submitted March 10, 2009 Comments submitted March 10, 2009 This was extensive, multi-volume EIR released in December, 2008, that assumed an increase of water rights to 101,000 AFY. The document had been in the making for about 20 years.
In August, 2009, SCWA decided to shelve the complicated document and comments submitted were never responded to. Subsequently SCWA also dropped pursuit of the increased water rights, primarily because of needing to focus their attention on implementation of the Biological Opinion (BO). They have since focused a great deal more on conservation and other means to stretch the water supply. Read More >>