Water-supply worries over remote Lake Pillsbury

Guy Kovner, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Water supplies for Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin counties this summer could hinge partly on the dwindling storage in a remote, drought-starved reservoir on the Eel River that serves as a cornerstone to the region’s water system.
Water managers, fisheries biologists, environmentalists and PG&E have their eyes on Lake Pillsbury, a diminishing Lake County reservoir where storage has dropped 30 percent in the past three months, leaving it at less than 55 percent of capacity. Barring a change in water policy, the situation could lead to a string of empty reservoirs by year’s end, officials said Friday.
“We get to a place where we’re threatened with dry lakes,” said Janet Pauli, a Mendocino County grape grower who has long served on a local irrigation district that depends upon the reservoir’s supply.
Lake Pillsbury’s decline most immediately affects about 300 ranchers in Potter Valley, but its repercussions could reach Lake Mendocino near Ukiah, and ripple down the Russian River to eventually touch the 660,000 customers in Sonoma and Marin counties whose water is drawn from the river by the Sonoma County Water Agency.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Grant Davis, the agency’s general manager.
It underscores the need, he said, for communities that depend on Russian River water to boost conservation efforts and develop off-river alternatives, such as recycled wastewater.
Read more via: Shrinking Lake County reservoir prompts North Bay supply | The Press Democrat