Storm Boosts Marin's Water Supply

MARIN COUNTY, CA — A historic storm wasn't enough to pull Marin from the throes of a historic drought, but it sure helped.

The storm dumped more than 13 inches of rain on Mount Tamalpais in a day and 16.55 inches over a 48-hour period, according to the National Weather Service, triggering widespread flooding and power outages throughout Marin, among many other parts of the Bay Area.

The Marin Municipal Water District, which serves over 190,000 residents, reported that its seven reservoirs in the Mount Tamalpais watershed went from 33.03 percent of capacity on Friday to 50.47 percent on Tuesday.

But Marin's water crisis is not over.

The district has far less water than it did a year ago at this time, and lags even farther behind historical averages.

Marin currently has 40,153 acre-feet of water. A year ago at this time it had 50,326, and its average supply for this time of year is 53,222 acre feet, the district reports.

Marin remains under mandatory water restrictions that went into effect earlier this year, and additional penalties are scheduled to go into effect Dec. 1.

The district has scrambled to develop alternative sources this year.

It has allocated $23.2 million towards construction of a $90 million water pipeline that would run across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to bring in water from the Central Valley among other areas, The Marin Independent Journal reports.

Desalinization is among other options Marin has considered, KQED reports.

“The pipeline really ties us into regional water supplies,” Marin Water Communications Manager Emma Detwiler told The San Francisco Chronicle.

“Right now we’re only tied into the Sonoma County Water Agency’s Russian River water system.

“Having come off these two years of super-dry conditions and extreme drought it showed us we need to diversify where our water comes from so we can be more resilient when we face these conditions again.”