Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District has announced it will use more groundwater after farmers in its service area got news Wednesday that they’ll see further surface water cutbacks.
Wednesday night Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District turned on pumps at five wells in Glenn County, which span an area from Hamilton City to Oro Bend. Thaddeaus Bettner is the general manager at GCID.
“We’re currently looking at other alternatives, you know one of them being turning on additional groundwater wells to make up that reduction in capacity,” Bettner said. “You know absent that there could be some real challenges in keeping crops that were planted in the spring continuing to have a water supply.”
Bettner estimates GCID will pump about 3,000 acre feet of groundwater for a month from the five wells in order to replace the lost surface water, which he said equates to about a 10 to 20 percent reduction.
The cutbacks were announced by state and federal agencies yesterday. They’re due to a decrease in water releases from Shasta Lake into the Sacramento River in order to keep more cold water stored for winter-run salmon. They’re experiencing a large die-off because of warm water temperatures.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says winter-run salmon are at risk of extinction. This is the third water cutback farmers in GCID have seen this year.
