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Sanwaqin County approves cooperative agreement to advance McCully River conjunctive‑use water project
Summary
The Board of Supervisors approved a cooperative agreement adding local water agencies as co‑applicants on a long‑standing McCully River water‑right petition, aiming to pursue a conjunctive‑use program to help address groundwater overdraft in the eastern subbasin.
The Sanwaqin County Board of Supervisors on April 28 approved a cooperative agreement that adds the City of Stockton, North Sanwaqin Water Conservation District and Stockton East Water District as partners on a decades‑old McCully River water‑right application and funds work to pursue a McCully River Integrated Conjunctive Use Program (MYUP).
Deputy Public Works Director Alex Chedley told the board the water right was filed in 1990 by the McCully River Water and Power Authority and has not yet been acted on by the State Water Resources Control Board. He said MYUP would put McCully River water to “beneficial use in the eastern Sanwaqin groundwater subbasin” and cited the county’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) groundwater sustainability plan, which lists the project among tools to reduce a roughly 95,000‑acre‑foot annual overdraft.
“The cooperative agreement adds partner agencies as co‑applicants, assigns shared costs and allocates water correlating to each partner’s contribution,” Chedley said during the presentation. Staff said the work includes finishing an environmental impact report and preparing for water‑board proceedings that could take another three to five years.
Woodbridge Irrigation District raised concerns during public comment that the MYUP petition could affect its senior (pre‑1914) rights. Dan O’Han, counsel for Woodbridge, and Woodbridge manager Keith Busman said the district had filed a protest and asked for explicit contractual assurances that their senior rights would be protected. Busman asked the board for “assurances from Sanwaqin County that we will preserve and protect Woodbridge water rights.”
County counsel and project staff said the standard water‑board permitting process includes protections against injury to senior rights and that project partners hope to resolve protests through negotiation. The cooperative agreement does not resolve protest dismissal terms, staff said; it funds work to complete the EIR, prepare petition amendments, and defend the petition through the water‑board review.
Supporters called MYUP a potentially high‑value project for the critically overdrafted eastern subbasin. One presenter said capturing opportunistic winter and storm flows under the new petition could add tens of thousands of acre‑feet in wet years — volumes that, combined with other projects, would substantially reduce the subbasin deficit if realized.
The board approved the cooperative agreement in three separate actions — as the County, as the Sanwaqin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, and as the McCully River Water & Power Authority — to reflect the multiple legal roles the county plays for the petition. Each motion passed unanimously.
What’s next: staff will complete the EIR, continue negotiations to resolve protests, and implement the technical and legal work needed to pursue the water‑right permit. The petition remains subject to water‑board review and to potential changes required to protect senior water users.
