[env-trinity] Redding.com: ACID water export to San Joaquin Valley discussed at Cottonwood town hall meeting

[Tom Stokely]

ACID water export to San Joaquin Valley discussed at Cottonwood town hall meeting
	* By Joe Szydlowski
	* Posted September 18, 2013 at 9:33 p.m.
PHOTO BY ANDREAS FUHRMANN // BUY THIS PHOTO
In this July 2012 file photo, Scott Passmore, operations supervisor for the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District, checks a gate in the canal off Evergreen Road in Cottonwood. Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh held a meeting Wednesday evening to discuss the district's sale of water to Southern California interests.
COTTONWOOD — One of Shasta County’s most valued — and contested — natural resources took center stage Wednesday night among a panel of experts who fielded questions about a local district’s decision to send water to Southern California.
The Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District will be sending about 2,400 acre-feet of water south, a “very minor amount,” ACID’s general manager, Stan Wangberg, told about 60 people gathered at the Cottonwood Community Center. Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh set up the meeting.
The district voted in May to send up to 3,500 acre-feet of water to the San Luis and Delta Mendota Water Authority in exchange for $250,000.
That decision elicited concerns from community members at the ensuing Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting. Residents said they worried the decision would set a precedent of the south state taking water from the North State.
Wangberg said, however, that the district was selling excess ground water.
The ACID canal normally refills the Redding Basin aquifer — about 70,000 acre feet of water. That’s about twice the amount pumped out, said Pat Minturn, Shasta County Water Agency chief engineer.
“The basin is overflowing,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean water rights aren’t facing outside threats, Minturn said. One of the panelists expected couldn’t appear at the meeting because he was in the Bay Area for a hearing by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on water rights.
“They’re not going to take your water. They’re going to push you out of the market with fees,” he said.
Questions also shifted to the tunnels planned to divert water south from the Sacramento River Delta. Wangberg and Minturn, along with panelists Shasta County Water Agency Professional Engineer Eric Wedemeyer and Bella Vista Water District General Manager David Coxey, agreed that the tunnel project would not be good for Shasta County.
“Right now we’re benefiting off the broken delta,” Wedemeyer said.
Minturn said the tunnels will divert twice the amount of water needed to the San Joaquin Valley.
Coxey said the Sacramento River is also the only major water source left for the larger Southern California water districts — the Colorado River has become more unreliable.
Wedemeyer said the tunnel proposal still has many uncertainties.
“It’s a giant wait-and-see for us,” he said.
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