A look at Mendocino County water: Rainfall gives “breathing room,” but only infrastructure, climate solutions can ease drought

By Kate Fishman | January 29, 2023

People fishing at the bottom of the stairs from the parking lot at Lake Mendocino on January 15, 2023/Kate B Maxwell

MENDOCINO Co, CA, 1/29/23 — Even while power outages, flooding, and downed trees plagued Mendocino County during the first weeks of 2023, we could take comfort in the fact that on California’s drought-ridden soil, rain is good news. Lake Mendocino hit its highest amount of water storage in more than a decade, and our past month of precipitation is on track with or better than “normal” conditions over the past 30 years. 

For Jared Walker, who manages some of our inland water districts including the parched, indebted Redwood Valley County Water District (RVCWD), seeing that influx of rain was “nothing short of incredible.” He said the water table for wells in several districts has increased dramatically. 

“The good news for Redwood Valley is that with this, it opens the door to possibly having access to surplus water from [the Russian River Flood Control District] for at least some of 2023,” he wrote in an email to The Mendocino Voice. “To feel more confident in that, we really need some of the late springtime rains that have been very helpful in years past.” 

A high water table and a near-full reservoir can no longer be taken at face value: water managers, well users, and those who watched Governor Gavin Newsom deliver a speech on water rights from the bed of Lake Mendocino in 2021 know better than to expect a couple weeks of rain to reverse decades of water insecurity.