In November of last year, U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett ordered San Luis Obispo County to implement a new water release plan for the Lopez Lake Dam. Now, the county is appealing that decision, citing a "catastrophic impact on South County water supply."
Per the order, the county has to release 7.9 CFS or cubic feet per second over the entire year and have two "pulse flows," which is a greater amount of water released over a shorter period of time broken down like this:
- Over the course of 5 days, the county will release 30 CFS on day 1, followed by 50 CFS on day 2, 40 CFS on day 3, 20 CFS on day 4, and 10 CFS on day 5.
"The concern I have with the enhanced release schedule that's been proposed is that it essentially would drain the lake, so I think there's more work that needs to be done before we willy nilly start letting all the water out of the lake," said Brian Talley, President and CEO of Talley Farms and Talley Vineyards.
He sits on a committee for the county that advises on the operations of Lopez Lake, specifically regarding agriculture. He has been very vocal against this new plan.
"The concern that I have is that this is not sustainable, that eventually we run out of water and that impacts us, but it has a bigger impact on the folks that live in the city that really rely on Lopez Lake as their water supply," Talley said.
Christopher Sproul, Senior Counsel for Environmental Advocates, disagrees.
"Lopez reservoir's full now, and you know, the stream, the Arroyo Grande Creek upstream of the dam continues to flow at a good rate. So the amount of water that the county is under order to release is not going to cause water shortages, not this year," he said.
He adds that this new plan will help steelhead trout and salmon get to their spawning sites because the pulse flows the county is required to conduct will mimic the natural flows that tell the fish to migrate back to their spawning sites.
"The construction of the dam on Lopez dam, on Arroyo Grande Creek has truncated that. It's interfered with the natural rise and flow and that dam holds back these pulse flows. This is a key thing that we won from the district court is that the county has to release something that mimics these natural high flow events," Sproul said.
While the new water release plan is already in motion, San Luis Obispo County's appeal aims to stop it. In a press release, the county said the releases "are predicted to result in Lopez Lake completely running out of water during droughts, which will have a catastrophic impact on the communities' water supply, fire suppression and environmental habitat downstream of Lopez Lake."
County officials say they've already been working with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan for Arroyo Grande Creek and that this court order interrupts that process.
