VIII. Water Management Activities

Presented in this section is a brief description of activities the District is currently involved in, which falls into the general category of Water Management. Some activities were addressed earlier, but are summarized again in this section to provide a complete listing of the District activities.

A. WATER RIGHTS PROTECTION

The District's highest priority is to protect its existing water rights. The District is determined to defend its water rights against proposals or projects that could jeopardize any part of its water supply, no matter how large or small the impact. The District receives and reviews every notice from the State Board for projects within the Cache Creek watershed. Every notice that could adversely impact the District's water rights is responded to by the District to assure the District's water rights are protected. In 1983, the District began to actively pursue water contracts with upstream appropriators and municipalities that were diverting water from Clear Lake or its tributaries, and continues to track activities that could affect the District's water rights anywhere within Colusa, Lake, and Yolo counties. By way of illustration, in 1998, the District successfully settled out-of-court with a water bottling enterprise in Lake County that was diverting water from a tributary to Clear Lake and transporting the water out of the watershed.

In 1979, as the result of a dispute over whether the water being diverted by Cache Creek riparians throughout the irrigation season was natural flow (riparian water) subject to riparian use or the District's stored water, the District and riparian landowners on Cache Creek negotiated a settlement agreement resolving the issue of riparians rights to divert Cache Creek water and the District's right to charge for water diverted.

In addition, the District successfully gained the acknowledgment of DWR and the State Water Contractors in the Bay-Delta Proceedings that the District will not be obligated to contribute water for Delta outflow because, during the periods that water is needed, Cache Creek is not hydraulically connected.

B. SURFACE WATER MONITORING

The District has a resident employee at both the Cache Creek and Indian Valley dams who monitor, regulate, and report the status of the associated surface water supply. Cache Creek Dam has telephone, radio, and cellular communications. Indian Valley Dam has two satellite telephones for redundancy, a radio, pager, and cellular telephone. Due to the remoteness of the Indian Valley Reservoir, the use of communications other than the satellite telephones requires the dam tender to be out of the valley.

The District contracts with the USGS to operate and maintain streamflow gages on Cache Creek below the Cache Creek Dam and on the North Fork of Cache Creek near Hough Springs and Spring Lake Subdivision. The District also contracts with the USGS to operate and maintain a station to measure the level of Clear Lake at Lakeport. Additionally, the District, in cooperation with the USGS, reestablished the stream gage on Bear Creek upstream of the confluence with Cache Creek, which had been abandoned in approximately 1970, and successfully lead a campaign to have DWR continue operating its gage on Cache Creek near Yolo.

The District provides 50 percent of the funding for each gage except the streamflow gage on the North Fork near Spring Lake Subdivision, which is measuring the discharges from the District's Indian Valley Reservoir and the Clear Lake level gage near Lakeport, both of which are fully funded by the District.

The District also maintains a gage that records the reservoir levels and a weather station at the Indian Valley Reservoir.

Data from all of these gages are available to the public through the Internet on a real time basis either through the California Data Exchange Center or the USGS. The USGS also publishes annually the data from their cooperative stations.

The District also contracts with the USGS to operate and maintain the precipitation gages in the Cache Creek watershed at the Clear Lake Dam, the Indian Valley Reservoir, and near Hough Springs all in Lake County. In late 1999, an additional precipitation gage will be installed at Bartlett Springs. The District has a weather computer in the office that is used to monitor both satellite and Doppler images during the rainy season.

The District operates and maintains six gaging stations on its canal system for measuring diversions and canal flows and one on Cache Creek at Capay Dam. The two main diversions into the canal system at Capay Dam are metered and automated to maintain steady flows and to allow daily adjustments in flow as desired to meet changing demand. At least once a day measurements are taken of the diversion into each lateral, the water being delivered to each water user's gate and any water being discharged at the end of the District's canals. The District does deliver water into natural waterways at the end of its canals for water users downstream who pump out of the waterway.

On a monthly basis, the District monitors boron levels for Clear Lake at Lakeport, Cache Creek at Cache Creek Dam, Bear Creek, Capay Dam and the Moore Siphon, Bear Creek upstream of the confluence with Cache Creek, and the Indian Valley Reservoir and its discharge.

Additional water quality testing by the District relates to a small community water supply system at the Indian Valley Reservoir that the District owns and operates to provide a potable drinking water supply to the District's resident at Indian Valley Dam and the associated campgrounds. Due to the reservoir being the source of supply, the District must meet the surface water supply Title 22 drinking water standards and comply with the appropriate testing and reporting regulations.

C. GROUNDWATER MONITORING

The District monitors groundwater levels through an extensive network of 153 wells throughout Yolo County. In 1967, this task, although extending outside the District's boundaries, was accepted from another agency that was experiencing budgetary problems. The continuity of the data was deemed vital to the long-term planning and viability of the District and Yolo County agriculture.

The District has no established program to monitor the quality of groundwater.

On an annual basis, the District's consulting engineer evaluates and reports on the condition of groundwater within the District.

D. CACHE CREEK RECHARGE/RECOVERY PROJECT

In 1990, the District formulated a conceptual plan for its Cache Creek Recharge/Recovery Project. The District filed an application with the State Water Resources Control Board to appropriate water from Cache Creek to implement the project. Additionally, the District initiated development of a groundwater model that would be used to establish operating parameters and assess impacts during the environmental assessment of the project.

The groundwater model is not yet refined; however, use of the model has been offered to member agencies of the WRA. Until now, the model has only been used by the City of Woodland in performing analyses while preparing its Water Master Plan.

Activity on the project was postponed at the time the planning and environmental process for gravel extraction along Cache Creek became very active. The County has adopted its program for gravel extraction and reclamation along Cache Creek between Capay and Interstate 5, and has indicated the proposed groundwater recharge/recovery project is compatible with the Cache Creek Resources Management Plan. Unfortunately, there is little opportunity in the mining reclamation plans to implement elements of the District's proposed groundwater recharge/recovery concept. Thus, the opportunity to develop additional yield from the Cache Creek system will be reduced from what was expected. However, since the degree of success or failure to reclaim land to agricultural production has not been proven, will vary from site to site, and may require time to determine at each site, the opportunity still exists for the Yolo County Board of Supervisors to revisit reclamation plans to determine whether recharge and/or environmental restoration may be more practical than reclaiming to agriculture.

In 1993, for the purpose of improving the management of water deliveries and in anticipation of its proposed groundwater recharge/recovery project, the District installed an inflatable rubber dam at its Capay Diversion Dam. Also in 1994, the District filed an application to appropriate water from Cache Creek for purposes of implementing its recharge/recovery project.

Previously, the District worked with others on the reclamation of several gravel pits. The District worked with the Cache Creek Conservancy to convert the "Teichert Meadows Pit," now known as the Cache Creek Conservancy's Nature Preserve, from an unsuccessful reclaimed agricultural pit into a viable wetlands demonstration project by providing surplus District water and the design to divert that surplus water from the Gordon Slough into the project. Additionally, the District worked with Teichert Aggregates to develop and provide surplus water for a Habitat/Groundwater Recharge Demonstration Project at Teichert's "Rodgers Pit," which is scheduled to be donated to Yolo County at a future date. The "Rodgers Pit" is contiguous to the Cache Creek Conservancy's "Correl Pit," which is being reclaimed to diverse wildlife habitat. It should be noted that Yolo County states that Phase IV of the Granite Construction Reclamation Plan includes features suitable for groundwater recharge. This area, which is toward the upper end of the basin's hydraulic gradient, is in an ideal location for a recharge project.

In 1998, the District filed a proposal for a grant from DWR to advance its effort on the recharge/recovery project. Although that grant request was denied, the District will continue to seek outside funding to assist in moving this project forward.

E. DISTRICT-WOODLAND-LANDOWNER IN-LIEU GROUNDWATER RECHARGE PROJECT²

The District and City of Woodland have participated jointly in evaluating a proposed in-lieu groundwater recharge project. The District has prepared preliminary costs for extending laterals to deliver water to an area north and west of the City that presently uses groundwater for irrigation. The City has evaluated the impact of the project on the groundwater basin underlying the City, and is interested in considering the project further. No communication has yet been made with landowners in the prospective service area.

F. YOLO-ZAMORA IN-LIEU GROUNDWATER RECHARGE PROJECT

In 1990, approximately 1,000 acres north of Cache Creek, in the Yolo-Zamora Water District, were annexed to the District. The District has been approached by other landowners in the Yolo-Zamora Water District to annex to the District. The area includes approximately 2,200 acres within the area bounded by Cache Creek on the south, Interstate 5 on the east, County Road 17 on the north, and the Dunnigan Hills on the west.

G. SACRAMENTO RIVER DIVERSION PROJECT

The District was involved in the initial investigation of a project to divert water from the Sacramento River and in 1994, filed an application with the State Water Resources Control Board to appropriate water to secure a priority position for Davis, Woodland, and UCD.

Although the application is in the District's name, it has been acknowledged to and by the respective parties that the District will transfer the application to those that want to maintain the priority and use the appropriation.

H. PUBLIC RELATIONS PROGRAM

The District's involvement in water resource related activities is rather extensive. However, the awareness of the District's activities within the community is limited. In this regard, the District is drafting a Public Relations Program to keep the community informed of its water resources related activities as well as activities of other programs that may affect water supplies in the District.

²Groundwater recharge can occur as "direct" recharge or "in-lieu" recharge. "Direct" recharge is the percolation of water through a soil profile to the groundwater basin. "In-lieu" recharge involves the substitution of surface water to meet water demand in lieu of pumping. An impact to the groundwater basin is immediate with in-lieu recharge, whereas an increment of time is required for the groundwater basin to reflect the impact of direct recharge.