[env-trinity] Trinity Journal- A wet recovery: State upgrades water year to 'normal'

[Tom Stokely]

A wet recovery: State upgrades water year to 'normal'
http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/local/article_05958092-8904-11e1-bc07-0019bb30f31a.html 
By Amy Gittelsohn The Trinity Journal | Posted: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 6:15 am
After what's been called a "miracle March," this year has been upgraded to a normal water year for the Trinity River, meaning more water will be sent down the Trinity River and more could be sent over the hill for agriculture than originally anticipated.
From the Trinity River Restoration Program, Executive Director Robin Schrock said the water-year type is based on the April 1 forecast from the state Department of Water Resources on inflow to the Trinity River. That number is plugged into Trinity River Record of Decision that gives inflow figures for a range of water years from critically dry to extremely wet.
"This year it was a cliffhanger," Schrock said, noting that with an inflow forecast of 1,025,000 acre-feet, the volume of water is just over the line from a dry year into a normal one.
With that, under the Record of Decision 646,500 acre-feet of water is to be released to the river rather than the 452,600 acre-feet under a dry year. Also, 459,100 acre-feet of water could be diverted south for Central Valley Project uses rather than the 358,400 acre-feet available in a dry year. While the amount sent down the river is a firm one, diversions to the Central Valley over the past couple of years have been lower than what they could have been due to work on power plants and good inflow at Shasta Lake allowing Trinity to recharge.
"The good part is, more water down the river" and better conditions for fish, said Bill Dickens, president of the Trinity River Guides Association.
The guides hope that the promise by restoration staff to not inject spawning gravel into the river this year is honored, he said.
The news is not cause for rejoice for everyone.
Trinity Center resident Mike McHugh, who is active in the Trinity Lake Revitalization Alliance, said he has concerns for the fisheries and the lake level.
"The economic value up here is tourists come to the lake when there's water in the lake," he said.
From a fisheries perspective, McHugh feels storing more water in the lake would be the conservative approach that would allow higher flows in the future if the forecast is wrong or next year is dry.
"Something's fishy," McHugh said, noting that in March the discussion was around if it would be a dry or critically dry year. "The curious thing is they hit the exact number it takes to be a normal year."
With just five water year types, he said, "It's such a coarse scale that when they get borderline like this there's no way to get conservative about it."
Releases will begin increasing April 21, reach the peak flow May 6 and hold for four days, then decrease to 4,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) by May 11, and to a summer base-flow of 450 cfs by July 26. A daily schedule of flow releases is available at: http://trrp.net/water/index.htm. At this Web site, the public may subscribe to automated notifications (via phone or email) of Trinity River release changes.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20120419/7696dd8b/attachment.html>