Coastal
Post Online
June, 2003
Sonoma Water Expansion Beaten Back
By Elena Belsky
In a long-fought battle, environmental advocates, sportfishing, and
Native American groups have managed to head off the Sonoma County Water
Agency's (SCWA) grab for extra water from the severely impacted Eel River, in
Humbolt County.
The plaintiffs-Friends of the Eel
River, Friends of the Russian River, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's
Associations, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Wiyot Tribe of the
Table Bluff Reservation, and three individuals: Coyote (Fred Downey, Ph.D.), L.
Martin Griffin, M.D., and Frank Egger-were vindicated by the appeals court
ruling. In mid-May 2003, the 1st
District Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the SCWA's Environmental
Impact Report (EIR) failed to include adequate review of pending reductions of
water diversions from the Eel River to the Russian River. The Court said that, without such an
analysis of less water than SCWA expects, the EIR "Éfails to alert
decision-makers and the public to the possibility that the agency will not be
able to supply water to its customers in an environmentally sound way."
Friends of the Eel River's president,
Nadananda, praised the court's ruling: "The Ell River's salmon and
steelhead now have a fighting chance to make a comeback. Had the [Sonoma County] Water Agency's plan
been upheld, this incredible natural resource-the cornerstone of the North
Coast's former world-class salmon fishery-would have been doomed to
extinction."
The Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC)-which oversees the Potter Valley Dam Hydroelectric plant, the
reason for up to 180,000 acre-feet of Eel River water (98% of summer flow) into
the Russian River-is reviewing a 15 to 22% reduction in diversions recommended
by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). NMFS's recommendation was lauded by environmentalists and
fisheries advocates, as it attempts to save the Eel River run of endangered
fish species, long damaged by excessive water diversions to the Russian River.
The SCWA has said that it needs more
water from the Eel River to serve the demands of its customers within the next
four years. The water agency provides water to more than half a million
customers in Sonoma and Marin Counties (see note below)
The agency is a remnant of another
time, in that the SCWA board of directors is actually the Sonoma County Board
of Supervisors which is viewed by some as a potentially serious conflict of
interest. The Board of Supervisors, through the County General Plan, set the
numbers for projected build out and preferred development; those numbers, in
turn, by state law, drive the water district's necessity to supply water to
those developments. Then the Supervisors approve specific developments. Thus,
the same people who act as water district directors assign the water to developments. This gives the
Board of Supervisors tremendous power over development in Sonoma County, as
well as control over the revenue generated by water sales from the SCWA.
Plaintiff, and Vice-Mayor of Fairfax,
Frank Egger stated, "The question is how many rivers will the Sonoma
County Water Agency be allowed to destroy in order to quench their thirst for
water?
Toeing the SCWA/County party line,
Sonoma County Counsel Steven Woodside said of the appellate court's ruling,
"Our project is not an Eel River project," referring to the claim
that the expansion would draw water from Lake Sonoma, hotly disputed by
environmentalists. Water from Lake Sonoma is released upstream of SCWA's water
collectors (pump stations) and therefore there is no way to distinguish what
water flows from what source, since all water is taken from the Russian River.
Mr. Egger asserted, "The Agency
misrepresents it as a Lake Sonoma project. If that's what it is, then they
should pipe Lake Sonoma water to Santa Rosa, and stop using the Russian River
as a canal to move its water."
The group's environmental lawyer,
Stephan Volker, hailed the decision as a landmark victory: "The Water
Agency's plan would have been the final nail in the Eel River's coffin. The
court saw through the Water Agency's doublespeak and insisted on honest
disclosure of this plan's hidden impacts and fair consideration of alternatives
including water conservation."
NOTE: North Marin Water District (NMWD) purchases over 80% of its stock
of water from SCWA, and the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) less than 25%
of its total demand. MMWD has been
moving away from reliance on building a new pipeline for future water purchases
from Sonoma County, and has been exploring building a desalination plant
instead. Concerns over damage to North
Coast fisheries, explosive growth in Sonoma, and the potential unreliability of
the Eel and Russian River as sources of water, are all important factors.