Why Has Sonoma County Water Agency Imposed Water Rationing?

Michael Cabanatuan of the San Francisco Chronicle reported last Friday that the Sonoma County Water Agency was imposing a 15% mandatory reduction of water usage by its clients. Other Bay Area water agencies have expressed concern about the reduced snowfall this past winter in the Sierras, but so far have been expressing confidence about not needing to impose rationing this year. (If this coming winter's Sierra snowpack isn't adequate, however, things willl change next year.)

Why is the Sonoma County Water Agency imposing rationing when other water agencies and districts are more confident? Cabanatuan had this to say:

The Sonoma County Water Agency was directed by the State Water Resources Control Board on Wednesday to reduce its water diversions from the Russian River by 15 percent to protect the fall spawning of salmon. That order spurred Thursday's restrictions, which will be implemented by individual water districts and other entities that get water from the agency.

While flows in the Russian River are down because of the dry winter, Sonoma's situation is complicated by reduced flows into one of its reservoirs, Lake Mendocino, because of changed federal licensing requirements for a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. hydroelectric power plant upstream.

Notice the tortured syntax of the sentence that makes up the second paragraph of that quote. Cabanatuan doesn't answer the basic questions of who, when, and why. Every journalist should have these drilled into their head early and often in their education and professional life.

Inflow into Lake Mendocino is down? Why? Because "federal licensing requirements" for a PG&E hydroelectric plant have "changed." What are these licensing requirements, how have they changed, and why do they result in less water being available for Lake Mendocino and the SCWA? Who changed them? Why?

In the context of the most corrupt federal administration since the death of Warren G. Harding, journalists should be naturally skeptical of blandly turgid description of federal rules changes that affect people's lives and livelihoods like this. It appears that the sickness in American journalism isn't just evident in the chumminess of the Washington press corps, but at all levels of the news media.

Michael Cabanatuan should drop what he is doing and read Ron Fournier's memo to Associated Press staffers and stringers about the imperative for journalists to hold government spinmeisters accountable, dig deeper, ask the next question, and not settle for predigested talking points. Then he should go back and dig deeper into the story of this PG&E hydroelecric plant and its impact on water availability in Sonoma County.