Water district still longing for Lodi water

A local water district is still hoping to convince the city of Lodi to give it 1,000 acre-feet of water — free of charge — to help replenish the area's groundwater basin.

Meeting this morning, the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District board voted to send a letter to the Lodi City Council requesting the water.

District Manager Ed Steffani told the water board, which serves roughly the eastern half of Lodi and rural areas to the north and east, that Lodi hasn't used water it purchased from the Woodbridge Irrigation District the past five years because the city has yet to construct a water treatment plant.

While the city of Lodi has 30,000 acre-feet "banked" in storage, Steffani questions whether the city will be able to store all that water once the water treatment plant is completed.

Steffani and North San Joaquin board members have an idea — give 1,000 acre-feet to North San Joaquin for its Calfed-funded recharge project on the Mokelumne River near Woodbridge and Dustin roads.

The pump and fish screen for the Calfed project are in place, and a pipeline will be installed on Monday, and that should take a week to complete, Steffani said. So the district will be ready — except that it doesn't have any water to use.

North San Joaquin normally would have the water it needs for the project, but it hasn't received any Mokelumne River water because of the dry winter this year.

For more of this story, see Wednesday's News-Sentinel.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

First published: Tuesday, September 2, 2008