Western Nevada County's water officials offered to help meet the water needs of rice farmers in southern Sutter County, but appeared unmoved Wednesday by arguments in support of doing so by building a reservoir at Garden Bar Crossing on the Bear River.

“Agriculture needs water. I don't think there's any question in any of our minds,” Nevada Irrigation District's Division 2 Director John Drew said after a presentation outlining the early concepts of the reservoir.

“I don't think this is the project for that water.

“But if we're not doing the Garden Bar project, what are we doing to get water for agriculture that is amenable to all the folks that have concerns in this?” said Drew, who raises specialty organic produce at his Bakbraken Acres in Chicago Park.

NID directors and staff will study the reservoir project “to look at any benefit it might be to NID, look at other alternatives, and bring it back to the board,” NID board President and Division 1 Director Nancy Weber said.

They will take up the matter at the 9 a.m. Nov. 8 meeting of NID's Water and Hydroelectric Operations Committee, led by Weber and Division 5 Director Nick Wilcox.

Their recommendation will go to the full NID board at the meeting set for 9 a.m. Dec. 14.

Nearly 170 farmers grow mostly rice in South Sutter Water District, downstream on the Bear River. The district is mostly in southern Sutter County, serving some parcels in far-western Placer County, district General Manager Brad Arnold said.

About 3 percent of South Sutter's water supply — about 10,000 acre-feet — comes through NID. That water comes to NID through a 50-year contract with Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which co-operates the Yuba-Bear hydroelectric project with NID.

The contract providing that excess water expires in 2013, creating uncertainty for future water supplies for South Sutter's farmers. (Aspects of the PG&E contract that could be renegotiated to benefit South Sutter will be included in NID discussions, at Drew's request.)

Most of South Sutter water comes from wells, and nearly one-third comes from water stored at Camp Far West, fed by the Bear River. The district worked with three Southern California water districts and two Napa County districts on the $1 million preliminary study sketching out the Garden Bar Reservoir, which would be just upstream of Camp Far West.

Looking at alternatives

A new reservoir would offer no direct advantage to NID, said consultant Lyndel Melton of RMC Water and Environment, the firm that prepared the study.

But NID could reap indirect advantages, he said.

“You as an agency have a fixed amount of reservoir capacity,” Melton said. “By having downstream capacity available to you, it might provide an advantage to you to capture water ... and utilize that to other ends.”

Water could be sold to serve western Placer County and supply future development near Lincoln that lies outside NID boundaries, Melton suggested. (NID serves northwestern Placer County nearly to Lincoln.)

Larger water districts are necessary partners to a reservoir because of the financial capacity they bring, Wilcox noted.

Bringing those thirsty districts into a partnership could be dangerous for NID during dry years, one water expert said.

Figures used in the preliminary study to calculate the amount of water available to partner districts did not include the benchmark drought year of 1977-78, said Otis Wollan, who added he served 20 years on the Placer County Water Agency board.

The result of the figures used to calculate water availability, Wollan said, results in “a greater annual yield of acre-feet and a lower price per acre-foot.”

Wollan then sketched a drought-year scenario of local water sold under contract to Southern California, while NID customers did without.

“NID, as the upstream neighbor, would like to keep South Sutter whole” for the water NID already sells the district, Wilcox said. “We want to do so in a way that would benefit both you and us.

“The (reservoir) project, it's hard to see the ups in that,” Wilcox added. “If there were other projects, perhaps increasing upstream storage, that could be jointly utilized by South Sutter and NID, I think you'd find this would be a much easier sell to the community here and to the environmental community.”

Greater flow in western Placer County streams as the water heads toward South Sutter would benefit both South Sutter and area environments, Wilcox said.

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To contact Senior Staff Writer Trina Kleist, e-mail tkleist@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4230.