Tracy Buys Water for the Future

Evelyn's Water Background
Evelyn Tolbert served for a number of years as the City of Tracy's representative to the San Joaquin Water Advisory Commission which makes recommendations directly to the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors on water use and resources throughout San Joaquin County. The Commission also reviews projects and proposals for approval, funding allocation, and/or implementation. This Commission is comprised of representatives of all of the irrigation districts and cities of San Joaquin County. This Commission discusses many elements affecting the future of Tracy's water resources.

Water Acquisition
Based on a feasibility study completed in 1991, the City of Tracy contracted with the South San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID), which has major water rights, to receive Stanislaus River water. This water was projected to provide a secure water source for growth well into the future. Tracy contracted to receive 10,000 acre-feet of SSJID water annually through year 2010, with an increase thereafter. An acre-foot of water is 325,851 gallons (or enough water to cover one acre of land one foot deep). The average California family uses between one-half to one acre-foot of water per year. The contracted volume should be sufficient to serve 6,500 single-family homes. The higher quality of Sierra runoff water should also actually elevate the purity of Tracy's water supply, which previously came from wells and the Delta-Mendota Canal.

Feasibility studies for this project began in 1991. On July 23, 2003, Evelyn Tolbert was among the officials from the Cities of Manteca, Escalon, Lathrop and Tracy who attended the ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the South County Water Supply Project. The ceremony took place at the site of the project's proposed state-of-the-art water treatment facility on Dodd's Road just west of Woodward Reservoir in Stanislaus County. The purpose of this program is for the cities involved to receive water to supplement their supplies, which will help alleviate groundwater pumping.

The South County Surface Water Supply Project was completed in July of 2005. The project, commonly referred to as "SSJID" takes high-quality water from the Woodward Reservoir north of Oakdale, runs it through a purification plant, then pipes it to Manteca, Lathrop, and Tracy, and later to Escalon. Tracy began receiving 9,000,000 to 10,000,000 gallons of water per day upon completion of the project.

The total cost of the project was approximately $150,000,000, paid for by the participating cities. Tracy's share of that cost was approximately $50,000,000.

Tracy is slated to ultimately receive 15,000,000 gallons of water per day following some additional system improvements.

This page last updated: June 2006