The Turlock Irrigation District gave final approval this week to selling Tuolumne River water to a proposed treatment plant.
The 5-0 vote by the district board came two weeks after it approved the idea of providing the supply for Turlock, Ceres and south Modesto. City representatives approved the agreement, but with a slight change that required a second TID vote.
The plant, expected to cost the cities $150 million to $200 million, would reduce their reliance on wells. A similar plant operated by the Modesto Irrigation District has provided this benefit to the rest of Modesto since 1995.
The cities have not decided to build the plant, which likely would require major rate increases for their water customers. Construction could be done as soon as 2020, according to the Stanislaus Regional Water Authority, which the cities formed to pursue the project.
TID agreed to sell up to 30,000 acre-feet from the Tuolumne each year. Its farmers have topped 500,000 acre-feet in years with ample rain and snow, but drought has slashed that by almost two-thirds.
The cities would pay TID at the highest rate tier for farmers, currently $20 per acre-foot. They would face the same dry-year cutbacks as the irrigators.
To make up for some of its reduced river supply, the district would get 2,000 acre-feet a year of water recycled at Turlock’s sewage treatment plant. In years with less-than-normal precipitation, TID also could get recycled water or nonpotable well water from the authority, with a cap of 15,000 acre-feet.