The Turlock Irrigation District agreed Tuesday to sell some of its Tuolumne River water to a treatment plant proposed for three cities.
The 5-0 decision by the district board was a major milestone in a 28-year effort to reduce reliance on wells in Turlock, Ceres and south Modesto. Their leaders have not yet decided to go forward with the project, estimated at $150 million to $200 million, but it clearly has momentum.
The project would be roughly similar to a Modesto Irrigation District plant that for 20 years has provided Tuolumne water to the rest of Modesto. This has meant less pumping of wells that can be stressed during drought or shut down because of contaminants.
“For every drop of surface water, cities don’t have to take that from the ground,” said Tou Her, assistant general manager for water resources at TID.
Representatives of the three cities, acting as the Stanislaus Regional Water Authority, could vote on the agreement Thursday.
The 50-year pact provides for up to 30,000 acre-feet of water annually. TID’s farmers have topped 500,000 acre-feet in years of abundant rain and snow, but the extreme drought this year has cut the supply by 62 percent.
As part of the deal, TID will get some of the recycled wastewater that Turlock and Modesto have been planning to sell to farmers in the Del Puerto Water District, a West Side supplier with even more severe cutbacks in recent years. Del Puerto had raised concerns about this, but they have been allayed in the agreement.
TID would sell the river water to the cities at the highest rate tier for its farmers, currently $20 per acre-foot. The urban users would face the same dry-year reductions as the irrigation customers.
The cities created the authority in 2011 to work toward the river treatment plant, planned for where Geer Road crosses the Tuolumne. Its general manager, Steve Stroud, said it could be operating as soon as 2020 if the environmental study, design and construction go smoothly.
http://www.modbee.com/news/local/turlock/article27246400.html