Rains that hit Hollister in mid-December are drops in the right direction but haven’t lifted the state out of a three-year drought or refilled San Benito County’s three reservoirs.
Hernandez and Paicines reservoirs are mostly dry and San Justo Reservoir—the one with notable water—has been closed since 2008 following the discovery of zebra mussels, an invasive non-native species. The lack of access to three former fishing grounds has left locals seeking catches in private ponds or outside the county lines.
That didn’t deter Hollister resident Victor Guerrero, 29, from trying to catch some bass the day after Christmas when he stopped by Hollister Bait and Tackle on 139 Fourth St. to purchase bait. Guerrero doesn’t fish in Hollister much these days and was uncertain how recent rains would affect his planned day at South Bay Salt Pond in nearby Merced County.
“I can’t really tell because like I said I haven’t been fishing in a month,” Guerrero said.
For Jeff Cattaneo, the district manager of the San Benito County Water District, the recent rains are good, but they certainly don’t mean an end to the state drought. Through Dec. 25, 10.3 inches of rain hit Hollister compared with last year when the city logged its driest year on record with just 4.39 inches of precipitation over 12 months, according to forecasters for the San Francisco/Monterey Bay Area office of the National Weather Service. This year, there has been “some rain” but less than half of what the annual average would be, Cattaneo said.
“While we have had some recent rains and it is wetter than it normally would be, we’re still in a drought,” Cattaneo said.
It’s that drought creating the eerily low reservoir levels. At the moment, Paicines Reservoir is empty. A small amount of water that had been trapped at the bottom of the basin evaporated last year, Cattaneo said. Hernandez holds six feet of water in its deepest part near the dam, but other areas of the same reservoir are completely dry.
The only reservoir in the county with notable water is San Justo, which is closed to boaters and fishermen. The reservoir is about half full because water from the San Luis Reservoir is pumped into it.
“While we had some pretty good storms that came in, they didn’t really produce a lot of runoff because it was so dry,” Cattaneo said.
It’s not just reservoirs that water district administrators are watching, but also groundwater levels. In this county, groundwater is a source of water for irrigation, the public water supply and rural residents with wells. There has been rain, but it’s still too early to tell how this precipitation will affect groundwater levels.
“It’s really hard to tell for groundwater,” Cattaneo said. “Immediately after a storm you don’t really see any change in the groundwater levels. It usually takes a significant amount of time for the groundwater levels to rise and we only measure it three times a year.”
Employees check groundwater levels in the fall before the rains and in the spring when levels should be their highest for the year. Rainfall and weather patterns vary each year, which makes it hard to determine when precipitation will stop.
“So far, what we’re seeing is: If it continues as it has been, it will be an above-average year,” Cattaneo said. “If it continues.”
