POTTER VALLEY — Rich with promise and potential, the grapes that create the Russian River Valley’s famed wines are ripening in the intense midday heat.
But soon they’ll face the fight of their lives, deprived of water as the state diverts scarce supplies from agriculture to the region’s thirsty cities and subdivisions.
“Whatever water we have on the ground is all we’re going to get,” said Mendocino County supervisor and plant scientist Glenn McGourty, whose district spans the rural upper reaches of the river’s watershed, where the dance of cool nights and hot days, combined with alluvial soil, produces unique growing conditions.
“We hope and pray that we can make it to harvest without our fruit becoming raisins and the leaves falling off the vines,” he said.
This week, in a contentious step, the State Water Resources Control Board unanimously approved an emergency regulation to halt agricultural diversions for up to 2,400 of the region’s water rights holders. Citing state law, the regulation prioritizes “health and safety,” saying agricultural use is “an unreasonable use of water and is prohibited.”
Behind the arcana of water law, a larger conflict is playing out, one rooted in a profound disagreement over agriculture’s rights to a dwindling resource. Even as there is less water to go around, their share is shrinking, fear farmers and ranchers. The new regulation sets a dangerous precedent for the agriculture industry and the consumers it serves, they say.
While health and safety concerns deserve top priority, “Safeway and our farmers markets are going to look a lot different if we let California agriculture be blown away by our failure to proactively plan” for future water needs, said Chris Scheuring of the California Farm Bureau.
Even before the water board’s Tuesday vote, farmers and ranchers along the upper river north of Healdsburg were told there is too little water in the system for them to take any more this year.
Now those along the lower river, below Healdsburg at the confluence of Dry Creek and the Russian River, are braced for cutoffs. This includes vineyards in the prestigious Alexander Valley.
“We know curtailments are coming to lots of wine grape growers in this area,” said Bret Munselle of Munselle Vineyards in the Alexander Valley, a world-renowned appellation of 82 growers and 31 wineries, including the Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Rodney Strong Winery and Robert Young Estate Winery.
For now, homes and businesses are facing voluntary cutbacks. Sonoma County’s water agency is cutting flows, so its contractors — including the cities of Santa Rosa and Petaluma, as well as the Marin Municipal Water District — face 20% water reductions.
The state’s step comes after California recorded its driest two years in nearly half a century. As the climate changes, farmers and ranchers fear that increasing urban and environmental demands will threaten the state’s venerable crop.
In April, declaring the Russian River watershed to be in a drought state of emergency, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state’s Water Resources Control Board to identify ways to ensure there is sufficient water supply in the area, particularly in Lake Mendocino. The order has since been widened to include the Klamath River, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Tulare Lake watersheds.
As of Friday, the region’s two reservoirs — Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma – stood at 27% and 35% of capacity, respectively. That’s the lowest on record for this date. Without curtailment, Lake Mendocino could be completely dry by the end of 2021, according to the state water board.
“Supplies in the system are well below what’s sufficient to even get us through the rest of the summer,” said Sam Boland-Brien, supervising engineer with the State Water Resources Control Board.
An alluvial landscape set between steeply forested hills, the Russian River watershed is a manmade system, with many layers of engineering and legal complexities.
Historically, water flowed only during winter and spring storms; by summer, the land was dry. Until 1922, when Scott Dam was built to store Eel River water, Potter Valley and all of the downstream agricultural areas except those immediately adjacent to the river were farmed without water.
This severely limited what could be grown. Before the dam, the region subsisted on some corn, pears and a single harvesting of hay, she said. Its aquifer is fractured, so offers little groundwater.
“Once the water became available in the summertime, the whole growing season expanded,” said Janet Pauli, vineyard manager of Potter Valley’s 1,500-acre Pauli Ranch who serves as a director on the Potter Valley Irrigation District Board.
Then grapes were introduced, “and things really took off,” said Pauli, a sixth-generation Mendocino County grower. Grapes are less thirsty than other crops, she said, and the climate offered unique advantages.
The Russian River region became esteemed for restrained, savory and nuanced wines. The Alexander Valley is known for primarily Cabernet Sauvignon; Potter Valley’s Pauli Ranch grows Sauvignon Blanc. Outside Ukiah, McGourty grows three French cultivars: Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier.
To survive, growers are contemplating the next steps.
One strategy is to water now to accelerate ripening, then cut off water and harvest early, said Pauli. “It isn’t ideal, but maybe we can get them to the place where they’re at least big enough and starting to soften … and keep the vines alive,” she said.
Another is to reduce the fruit to decrease the stress on the vine, said Munselle. That’s a painful step for growers, he said, “because you’re cutting off your crop before you get a chance to harvest it.”
Ordinarily, growers plant grass between rows to minimize weeds and improve soil health. But that requires water. So instead they leave exposed dirt, sealing it to prevent evaporation. Drip irrigation has created water efficiency in vineyards, they say. But it has an unintended effect: Vines no longer have vast root systems to support themselves in drought.
Reducing the vines’ foliage will reduce evaporation, said McGourty. He’s also adding potassium to aid fruit development.
By the end of the season, grapes will be more dehydrated, according to Munselle. This means reduced earnings for vineyards, he worries, because they’re paid by the ton.
In areas with sudden and complete water loss, such as Redwood Valley, some plants may perish, predict growers. In the Alexander Valley and other areas still awaiting cutoffs, where the growing season is farther along, survival is more likely.
But this summer’s thirst could scar the next generation of Russian River Valley grapes, said Pauli. That’s because they’re setting buds now, even in a parched landscape. Stressed vines are less productive.
“Water is what makes this valley,” she said. “If we don’t have any water at all in this valley, we couldn’t survive economically. We’d be back to dry farming.”
“It’s hard to live in a desert,” she said. “And that’s what we would become.”
Read the emergency regulations:
