TID board will consider selling river water for treatment

The Turlock Irrigation District board could take a key step Tuesday toward a Tuolumne River treatment plant serving all or part of three cities.

Directors will consider selling up to 30,000 acre-feet of water per year to a plant proposed for Turlock, Ceres and south Modesto. The project, which has been discussed off and on for about 25 years, would allow the cities to reduce their reliance on wells.

The 50-year contract calls for the cities to pay for water at the rate tier charged to TID’s highest-volume farmers, currently $20 per acre-foot. The cities would face the same cutbacks during drought as the irrigation customers.

The plan is similar to what the Modesto Irrigation District has done for the rest of Modesto for the past 20 years. The river treatment plant at Modesto Reservoir is credited with helping groundwater recharge, an advantage during the current severe drought.

Turlock, Ceres and south Modesto are all within TID, which serves nearly 150,000 acres of farmland. A few smaller cities in the district had considered taking part in the treatment plant but opted out.

The contract would allow TID to get recycled wastewater and nonpotable groundwater in below-average years to make up for some of the lost river supply. Turlock and Modesto are upgrading their sewage systems so the wastewater can go on crops. They plan to sell it to the Del Puerto Water District on the West Side, but TID argues that it should get some, too.

The river treatment plant would be built where the Tuolumne crosses Geer Road, using a river-bottom intake that the district completed in 2001. This would mean increased flows for salmon and other fish between here and La Grange Reservoir upstream, where water is diverted for farmers.

The three cities, working as the Stanislaus Regional Water Authority, have yet to make a decision on going ahead with the project or financing it.

This story was originally published July 12, 2015 at 7:06 PM with the headline "TID board will consider selling river water for treatment."