Despite significant early season rainfall, Russian River watershed diversion curtailments likely to resume in April

Katherine Minkiewicz-Martine, SOCONEWS

Curtailments on Russian River watershed diversions will likely resume this April as the outlook for a “miracle March” in rainfall looks grim.

Curtailments for certain water right holders were suspended in October after Sonoma County received significant rainfall, however, flows from the October and December storms are starting to taper off, according to Sam Boland-Brien, a supervising engineer with the California State Water Resource Control Board, Division of Water Rights.

“It’s going to be a really dry summer,” Boland-Brien said.

Boland-Brien and other experts from the California Department of Water Resources, Sonoma Water, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Sonoma County Farm Bureau convened on March 10 for a virtual drought town hall to discuss water supply and drought conditions for the coming summer season.

The March 10 event was the first in a planned series of drought town halls as the county navigates through another year of dry conditions. Future town halls will focus on specific topics such as the Russian River, water quality, river recreation and groundwater conservation.

Read more at https://soconews.org/scn_county/despite-significant-early-season-rainfall-russian-river-watershed-diversion-curtailments-likely-to-resume-in-april/article_8659e4b2-a3b0-11ec-965b-cf5841671d2e.html