Despite all the rainfall brought by this winter and the last, Monterey County's two reservoirs entered 2017 in a relatively dismal state.
But that is quickly changing.
On Jan. 1, Lake San Antonio was filled to only 6 percent of its capacity, while Lake Nacimiento was at 25-percent capacity.
Just more than a week later, on Jan. 10, Lake San Antonio is at 11 percent and Lake Nacimiento is at 43 percent.
Considered another way, Lake San Antonio went from holding just 21,150 acre-feet of water—for context, the Cal-Am service area in the Monterey Peninsula has an annual demand of 10,000 acre-feet—to holding 37,500 acre-feet.
Lake Nacimiento, meanwhile, went from 93,275 acre-feet in storage to 163,827 acre-feet.
With more rain in the forecast for this week, and with the continued flow of water out of the watersheds, those numbers should continue climbing.
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Clarification 1/12/17: This article was changed from its original version to reflect Cal Am's service area more recent annual demand of 10,000 acre-feet, as opposed to 13,291 acre-feet.
Additionally, this article omits the Los Padres Reservoir, which has a meager 1,670 acre-feet of capacity.
(1) comment
Once Nacimiento is near full and releasing, it builds a greater case for the tunnel to San Antonio Dam which is a lot slower to fill..I'm happy to read that Alejo is still looking forward to seeing that this tunnel is accomplished..I would think that Supervisor Salinas would be more vocal on this as well...
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