Merced residents, leaders fear environmental proposals for dam relicensing

More than 250 Merced County residents, farmers and political leaders expressed concerns about proposals to cut the amount of water stored for agriculture at Lake McClure during a public hearing on the relicensing of New Exchequer Dam, authorities said.

The hearing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was held last week at the Merced County Fairgrounds.

At issue, local officials said, are proposals in the application that would decrease the amount of water stored for agriculture at Lake McClure for the next 50 years, according to the Merced Irrigation District.

Dozens of local farmers and concerned members of the community converged on a meeting with federal regulators Thursday night to request a more balanced approached to local water management.

The requirements are outlined in a 674-page draft environmental impact statement, a federally required analysis that proposes offsets for perceived environmental impacts, released in March, MID representative Mike Jensen said.

MID General Manager John Sweigard described the meeting as “crucial.”

“At this meeting we had a wide cross-section of our community share their concerns about FERC’s draft license conditions, which will severely reduce MID’s surface water supply, especially in dry years when it is needed most,” Sweigard said.

“We are all hopeful that FERC will carefully review the comments and reconsider their flow proposal in light of the impacts it will have on our community’s surface water supply,” he said.

He said the proposals to increase the flow of water down the Merced River and away from Lake McClure and eastern Merced County would harm farmers.

John Pedrozo, chairman of the Merced County Board of Supervisors, said the environmental proposal’s aim to help fish populations, although important, should not be considered more important than the needs of Merced County’s agricultural community.

“This couldn’t have come up at a worse time for us,” Pedrozo said Friday. “We’re in the middle of a four-year drought, the worst drought we’ve ever seen, and now we have to deal with this at the same time we have an unemployment rate of 12.9 percent and we’re based almost entirely on agriculture. It’s just not right. It’s mind boggling.”

Pedrozo said he hopes the commission will “leave the farmers alone and let them do what they need to do.”

Planada resident Irene De La Cruz echoed Pedrozo’s sentiments. The proposal “affects people in our community who are already extremely disadvantaged,” she said Friday. “It makes it harder on farmers, and that has a domino effect on labor and everything else.”

Public comments can be made until May 29 by providing the commission with written statements on the draft environmental report. A final statement is expected from FERC before the end of the year.

More information can be found at MID’s webpage: www.mercedid.org. Additional resources can be found there, including letter templates.

This story was originally published May 4, 2015 at 8:08 AM with the headline "Merced residents, leaders fear environmental proposals for dam relicensing."