Letter To The Editor: What's The Target For Lake Sonoma Water Levels?

The following letter to the editor was submitted by Healdsburg resident Stanley Crane. The views expressed here are the author's own.

DEAR EDITOR:

I would really like to know what the goal is for Lake Sonoma's water level, and I don't know who to approach to find out & hope you can figure that out.

I am a little alarmed at how much extra water has been let out of Lake Sonoma in the past 10 days: 9 billion gallons of water.

The lake is 100% full when it contains 244,833 acre-feet of water (which is about 80 billion gallons). But the lake has the capacity to go to 381,000 acre-feet of water for flood control, which is 155% of the "full" level (124 billion gallons of water).

On January 1, the lake had 36 billion gallons of water in it (45% full), and on February 28, the lake reached 100% full or 79 billion gallons — thanks to the many atmospheric rivers.

As one of the Healdsburg residents that had to haul water 2 years ago to keep my plants alive — I was very excited to see this milestone achieved.

The lake continued to fill until March 17, when it reached 97 billion gallons, 122% full — but it can go another 33% higher than that if needed for flood control.

But on March 18, they opened the spillway and rather than discharging 80 to 87 cubic feet per second (which is 52 million to 56 million gallons per day), they bumped it up to 1006 to 3907 cubic feet per second (which is between 650 million and 2.1 billion gallons of water per day).

I wonder if the people downstream of the dam were aware that instead of 52-56 million gallons of water in the river per day, it would be increased to 2.5 billion gallons of water per day — what did they think about that? That increased the amount of water in the river 50 times. What were the effects (if any) of that artificial "flood"?

During that time, water did continue to flow into Lake Sonoma, and while they let 15 billion gallons of water out of the lake, about 6 billion gallons of water flowed into the lake. On March 17, we hit our maximum of 122% full, and since then we have been steadily dropping to today when we are just over 110%.

I understand that they need to save some capacity in the lake in case there is a late-season pineapple express. And they may have some need to release a significant amount of water? For Salmon or Steelhead? Some other reason?

I know last year, they didn't want to release extra water from the lake because "what if the drought continues next year?" Well now that we have some extra water available to us — should they be using that same logic to hold on to that extra water in case the drought returns next year?

With this week’s atmospheric river, we may have our last opportunity to bank some extra water in Lake Sonoma, and I would really like to know if we will be taking advantage of that. It seems to me that the later into the season we go, the less likely we will have another huge downpour.

That's the real question: What's the target? Where are they trying to get to with the lake level, and why?

(Sorry for the long email, but this is an important topic.)

Signed,

Stanley Crane, Healdsburg resident