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A Compilation by Nadananda from letters and testimony to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
There have been numerous meetings in Ukiah with community members and the County Board of Supervisors regarding substancial growth and a proposal by Supervisor John Pinches to divert more water from the State and National Wild and Scenic Eel River during high water in the winter. Citizen input has been extensive but the Board is not paying attention to their constituents as shown by their approval of a request by DDR, probably the wealthiest mall developer in the world, and Creekbridge homes, one of the major, cash-rich home developers in California, to change the county general plan and allow the Masonite site to change from industrial to development. Then the Board approved $50,000 to study Supervisor John Pinches proposal to take more water from the Eel River at Dos Rios to transport around the county. (PG&E currently diverts 220,000 acre-feet at the diversion during spring and summer. This figure does not include what is also diverted at the rate of 340 cubic feet per second during winter high flows). The amount of water Pinches plan would divert is more water than the entire county currently uses and is more than enough water to completely build out the Ukiah, Redwood and Potter Valleys, probably Willits too. Are the local citizens speaking up? You bet they are clear, articulate and well informed. But the development trio of Supervisors Delbar, Wattenberger and Pinches are listening to a different drummer.
What follows are excerpts from letters, mostly as questions and some comment, to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors written by community members, consultants in relevant fields, land attorneys and resource agencies about Mendocino Countys proposed water diversion from the Eel River, a designated recreational component of California and United States Wild and Scenic Rivers.
Why do you wish to divert this water? Is it for domestic use or agricultural purposes or for the proposed large subdivisions and shopping malls of the inland valleys of Mendocino? Where is the demand for this project? Brooktrails and Potter Valley have urged the County not to proceed with this project as it overshadows their long-term efforts to solve their own water problems. Water diverted from the State and National Wild and Scenic Eel River can not be used for agriculture and is not likely to be approved as a tranfere to the Russian River basin or any other watershed. So where are the studies or even a plan?
In the Pinches proposal to divert water at the Dos Rios site, the confluence of the mainstem Eel and the Middle Fork Eel at the beginning of the canyon section of the Wild and Scenic Eel River, he proposes to run a pipeline along the railroad right of way all the way to Lake Mendocino and to the headwaters of Noyo River for Ft. Bragg.
What would construction cost? At what mile marker along the river and railroad do you propose to place the extraction and pumping facility? What size pumping facility would be required? How would the pump and pipeline be installed? Is there enough room on the NCRA Railroad right-of-way to accommodate a pipeline if the railroad becomes operational again? Would that create interference either way, and what would that cost? What would be the consequences of disturbing the mountainsides for construction? This is an earthquake and landslide prone area. Have you considered the predictable landslides over the next 20 to 50 years that are likely to occur between the proposed pumping station and the waters destination? What would be the maintenance budget for the pipeline for dealing with repairs after future slides? Thirty-three miles of pipeline alone would be $33 million if it were not in a landslide prone area. How much does the geological instability of the area raise the engineering cost? An engineering geologist advises that the physical and geotechnical hurdles to overcome are formidable for the proposed extraction of water from the Eel River and piping it south for many miles?then uphill 1,000 feet?and storing it along the way. Pipelines are usually suspended from bridges when they occur, are they strong and stable enough to support this? Would the bridges themselves have to be rebuilt before such a project were undertaken? How much expensive excavation will be added to the costs given the shallow rock in the region? What would power the station to extract and transport the water? Diesel? What would be the air quality consequences of such a facility? What are the noise impacts of such a pumping facility in the steep-walled canyon for those of us who live close by? What are the aesthetic consequences of such a project? Would the facility be allowed to divert its full allocation even during dry winters like the last one? How much of the diversion facility would be outside the 100-year floodplain? The Dos Rios Area experienced a flood of over 100,000 cubic feet per second as recent as 1997.
Where are you going to store 50,000 acre-feet of winter water? Thats a lot of water! Storage of 50,000 acre-feet of water at an average depth of 10 feet would require a little less than 10 square miles. Is that to be in Lake Mendocino in the Russian River basin? Isnt that during high winter flows? Is the storage capacity expected to be increased in Lake Mendocino? How so? There is also in the plan a proposal to store water along the transportation route in potential reservoirs in side canyons all the way to Lake Mendocino and over to Ft. Bragg. Where are these reservoirs to be located? What would be their capacity? Arent those side canyons full of water in the winter-time? What is the cost of building these storage reservoirs? Who owns these lands on which the reservoirs would be located? Would this involve imminent domain to seize property for this purpose? What legal battles and cost will then ensue on this issue alone?
Where is the water availability analysis? What is the assessment of diversion impact on flow at points of interest downstream of this diversion? The Pacific Ocean is part of the picture here not to mention Humboldt County between here and there.
Mr. Pinches recommends that instead of spending our own money to find out whether Mendocino County can do this or not, we ask the state and feds to tell us if we can proceed with his project; Lets put the monkey on their back.? They have already told us.? They have told us it is illegal on many levels.? I doubt that approach will fly without preparing a full-blown proposal and proceeding through the mandated review process.? Some consider this to be his way out of this.
Mr. Pinches says multiple times that no state agencies have any problems with his proposal.? Thats quite a claim since the agencies have not been contacted by staff regarding his proposal. ?His perspective is that the only people who dont want to see this are Friends of the Eel River and some County residents.? My experiences suggest he is going to be in for a big surprise at agencies responses.?But we must know the truth if you have gotten an opinion from NOAA, Ca. Fish & Game, US Fish and Wildlife, or the Army Corps of Engineers? What is true and untrue? What is the potential for impact to anadromous fisheries resources that these agencies monitor? What will be the required bypass flow to maintain fish habitat downstream during and after the build out of the proposed diversion? Is there a fish screening criteria and how would that be achieved? This river is also the way to spawning grounds for salmon. The construction of the pipeline into the river and along its intended path would cause significant amounts of soil to be spilt into the river, thereby disrupting the salmon summering over in the river, as such construction would not be possible in the winter months.
Supervisor Pinches says Mendocino has water rights in Lake Sonoma. If that is true then why does Mendocino not negotiate for rights on Lake Sonoma and trade water allocations between Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino? Would it cost less to get water from Lake Sonoma than the cost of this proposed project?
We have not even talked about the millions of dollars necessary for an EIR on this project. Doing an EIR does not insure that a project will go through. It only means money has been spent for it. The EIR comes under an examination process after it is completed and can be rejected at that point, after millions of dollars have already been sent downstream. Given that there is no letter of intent from the railroad to participate in such a project, why are there continuing?formal discussions for a plan that does not exist? Do you realize how many years it will take just in research and documentation? At what cost? How many millions of dollars will have to be spent before this project will even be ready to presented for the Water Permit process?
Spending $50,000 on this proposal, in this condition, at this stage, without assessment procedures and conservation practices in place and without consideration of alternatives, is an unconscionable waste of taxpayers money in a county that does not have money to waste especially not frivolously. $50,000 wont go very far when senior water consultants charge $200 per hour and water rights attorneys go for $450 per hour. $500,000 would be a more accurate budget for an in depth feasibility study not to mention what the costs will be for Environmental Impact Studies and Reports. I understood Mr. Sanford, head of the county water agency, to advise the Board of Supervisors (BOS) that without assessment measures and conservation programs in place, Mendocino County will receive no funding from any government agency for any water project at all. He also advised the BOS that the proposed extraction from a Wild and Scenic River will result in expensive litigation and there is no budget for such activities. Mr. Sanford recommended that the BOS consider alternatives before spending money on this particular project.
Isnt this an inter-basin transfer of water in a State and National Wild and Scenic River? Surely that will be challenged by state and national river organizations? What would be the cost of the legal defense of this proposal? What about hiring a highly effective attorney instead to renegotiate the contracts for water in Lake Mendocino with Sonoma County? Could Sonoma County obtain more allocations from Lake Sonoma? Would that approach cost $217 million PLUS? Why is it preferable to try to break the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act? Some suggest that there is a desire to have a large public works program in the county. Is that for re-election purposes?
The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors must not approve our precious tax dollars for a study to divert water from the Eel River because it is designated as a Wild & Scenic River, under both the California and United States Wild & Scenic Rivers Acts. Locals want the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to be respected. Brooktrails representative said they consider this transfer of water between basins to be undesirable. To divert water from the river would be illegal and would certainly bring legal action from opponents to the project. It seems that the money would be more efficiently used for a feasibility study for the dredging of Lake Mendocino, or assessing real water needs, repairing current infrastructure failures and putting conservation and efficiencies in place before any more money for this project is spent. This project deserves no more funding.