For more than a decade, the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors Water Authority, Grasslands Water District and San Luis Water District, along with the City of Los Banos, have proposed and pursued plans to reimagine how the Los Banos Creek can maximize water storage opportunities and water availability for those in the region.
Specifically, we have focused on how to enhance existing infrastructure while continuing conversations about investing in new infrastructure to better protect our region against droughts and flooding.
A significant milestone in our efforts was reached when U.S. Rep. John Duarte (CA-13) secured $5 million in March from an appropriations bill for the Los Banos Creek Recharge and Recovery Program.
The program will create a new water storage location that will help address issues related to flooding, drought and subsidence. This funding is crucial in helping our efforts to revitalize the creek and increase its resiliency against natural disasters.
Specifically, the project will add about 200 acres designated for recharge and storage ponds and add seven recovery wells along Los Banos Creek between the California Aqueduct and the Central California Irrigation District Outside Canal.
The recent funding from Congressman Duarte will help bring us over the finish line in our decade-long, two-pronged plan to help the creek.
The first program is the Los Banos Creek Detention Reservoir Regulation and Storage project, which focuses on routing natural Los Banos creek flows to lands downstream of the facility during fall and winter months to make space available for both flood and irrigation water storage in the spring.
The plan also focuses on pumping conserved water or groundwater into Los Banos creek reservoir during wet periods for use during a subsequent dry period.
The funding from the appropriations bill was a huge win for the multiple partners in the region pursuing sustainable, long-term solutions to make our region more drought resilient.
With the latest funding, we are working to execute our recharge and recovery project by constructing 200 acres of recharge and storage ponds and adding seven recovery wells along the creek. This will help provide a key solution to flooding, drought and other risks by lessening flood flows from the Los Banos creek adjacent to Los Banos, and by storing some of that water underground for later use in a drought.
The project will also receive water from the Exchange Contractors, San Luis Water District via the Central California Irrigation District outside canal, or through exchange with other contractors in the region.
Excess wet year surface water from the Delta-Mendota canal and outside canal would also be conveyed so that it can be stored for later use. By utilizing existing and new wells, the project will increase drought resiliency by returning that stored water when it is most needed during times of drought. The project is also helping to reduce or even eliminate problems related to overdraft and subsidence in the region. An additional drought resiliency benefit is that this project will assist many of our neighbors and partners who have seen reduced allocations in recent years, even in times of heavy rain and major storms.
Reduced allocations highlighted the urgent need to create new infrastructure projects to better capture, store and replenish water for users across California. This project is attempting to address all three of these needs.
We appreciate Congressman Duarte greatly for fighting for and securing funding to carry out the project. With these new dollars, we can make significant progress in ensuring our region has infrastructure that is more sustainable and has more capacity to store water for those who need it most in our region in good times and bad.
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