Healdsburg council hears proposal for new Alexander Valley Water District
Organizers behind a proposed water district in the Alexander Valley put forward Monday their vision for a new entity that would seek to safeguard legal standing of agricultural landowners in the famed grape-growing region. They made their presentation at the Healdsburg City Council’s regular meeting where they called for the formation of the Alexander Valley Water District. It would give valley property owners, many of them grape growers, a stronger legal foothold to protect their rights to draw on Russian River flows and connected groundwater. … The move comes in response to a host of factors, such as the multi-year drought that has spurred state regulators in recent years to curtail water rights for thousands of water rights holders along the upper Russian River, forcing some to cut back on irrigation with surface water flows or turn to groundwater.