UPDATE: Health and Safety Concerns
DETAILS
DATE:
February 6, 2023
On January 23, we sent a letter to all CCID landowners updating them on the sanitary sewage overflow into the CCID Main Canal resulting from a sewage line operated by the City of Los Banos. The broken sewer line has been replaced and installed with the latest specifications from CCID to mitigate this risk of failure in the future. While the City and their consultant are not operating with the urgency, we would desire to restore clean water deliveries to our farmers, District staff and Board of Directors have been working directly with the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California Department of Food and Agriculture, and Merced County to develop a plan to remediate the damages to the CCID Main Canal. We have also hired our own consultant to work directly with the experts at the UC Davis Cooperative Extension.
The primary affected area is from the Mason Weir located at Mile Station 33.437 on the Main Canal (just east of Highway 165) down to Badger Flat Road at Mile Station 37.7. This stretch of canal includes some private takeouts and the following community ditches: Bettencourt Box, Canal Farm Ditch, Johnson Field Ditch, and Airport Ditch. At this time the CCID Main Canal in this stretch has not been remediated from the damage caused by the City sewage spill and cannot be used for irrigation. District staff will be working with landowners in this area to purchase their private well water for use of the communal landowners on the appropriate facilities.
We are waiting on lab results to determine if the CCID Main Canal from Badger Flat located at Mile Station 37.7 down to the Peterson Weir located at Mile Station 46.348 (just south of Fahey Road) was contaminated by the sewage spill. We expect to have these results soon and will be scheduling a meeting with the affected landowners, if necessary, to work through irrigation scheduling. At this time the CCID Main Canal in this stretch may have been affected and cannot be used for irrigation.
We understand the disruption this is causing to your operations and we are taking aggressive action to help the City clean up their contamination. Updates will be provided as they are available. Please do not hesitate to reach out to District staff if you have any concerns.