LAKE COUNTY — Negotiations over long-standing water rights to Lake County”s centerpiece lake are at a standstill between officials in Lake and Yolo counties.
Lake County supervisors Anthony Farrington and Ed Robey are the representatives for Lake County Sanitation District in ongoing talks with Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, which currently has the legal right to use approximately 314,000 acre feet of Clear Lake annually.
In May 2007, the Lake County district approved an amendment to a current agreement with Yolo that allows the Lake district to inject 7,950 acre feet of Clear Lake water into the pipeline that carries Lake County”s sewer water to the Geysers.
If the amendment was agreed upon by both entities, it would make that 7,950 acre feet available for beneficial use ? including for drinking ? anywhere in the county. The board approved the suggested amendment on the premise that less and less of it is needed to fill the pipe going to the Geysers as treated sewage increases with population growth.
“We haven”t had any meetings lately, but we will meet this spring. I don”t know when yet,” Robey said. He and Farrington met informally with two directors from the Yolo district group to discuss both counties” water needs.
According to the Yolo district”s general manager Tim O”Halloran, the meetings stopped after Yolo received the proposed amendment almost a year ago. “We were surprised by their approach of sending us a document out of blue,” O”Halloran said.
“Our sense was that rather than just on one side say, ?this is what we want,” we should work collaboratively to develop an arrangement that makes sense for both parties. The term is interest-based collaboration, where we identify each other”s needs and work toward mutually acceptable solutions,” O”Halloran said.
He continued, “We don”t feel it was developed in that manner. Frankly, we didn”t quite understand where they were coming from or what they were suggesting.”
The Lake board of directors also approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Yolo district, which Robey said was put before the Yolo group along with the suggested amendment. According to Lake County records, the purpose of the MOU was to “facilitate mutual support for water supply, water quality and flood control projects.”
O”Halloran said he was not aware of an MOU.
Yolo Water and Power Co., which later became the Yolo water district, applied May 28, 1912 for the right to use water flowing through Cache Creek, naming all the streams and flowing into the lake, according to the Lake County Recorder”s office. As it prepared to construct the present dam on Cache Creek, Yolo Water and Power Company had asked the board of supervisors at the time if Lake County was interested in the lake water. According to a brief history from the Lake County Water Resources Department, the answer was no.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
