Chris Foe comments on Nigel Quinn and Alice Tulloch’s report entitled "San Joaquin River diversion data assimilation, drainage estimation and installation of diversion monitoring stations".

General Comment. Text is confusing as it appears to be a mix of salt, selenium and flow information. What I thought the TAC wanted was the best information possible on daily, monthly, and seasonal (irrigation season) estimates of diversion and return flows by river reach. One or more tables summarizing where this information can be obtained for each diversion and return flow (web locations, correlations with Orestimba flow etc, best estimate values for last year, as a function of water year types, and our confidence in these values would be very helpful). Individuals would then turn to these tables in future years to try and get new estimates. The relationships with selenium, salt and flow, while interesting is not very germane to an oxygen depletion problem.

Page 40, figure 17. Could we get x-axis in calender months and in this figure and elsewhere in report shift to one measuring system. The present report is a mix of cfs and meters cubed per second. I think cfs is fine.

Page 10, 2^nd paragraph, line 10. The statement also occurs in the executive summary and is wrong. High algal loads at Mossdale and the maximum DO depletion at the Rough and Ready Island meter occurs between June and August. It may be that more oxygen depletion would occur if the eastside were not diverting so much water but that is conjecture at present.

Figure 18 Could we have this in a table by year so that we could assess variablility as function of water year? Please put units in cfs.

Page 13. Discussion of municipal discharges in 2 places is confusing. Why not omit here and just discuss at end of report?

Page 13. Are we sure we are gaining 28 cfs/mile between Crows Landing and Patterson?

Page 21 Does the 300 cfs include the 25-30% return flow? Also, 4 acre feet/acre seems high. We are not growing rice here. More likely to be closer to 3, no?

Page 22-24. There are no industrial discharges in the watershed? City of Tracy and expected discharge from Mountain House needs to be Table 5. Could we have a discussion of the amount and quality of wet and dry weather runoff between August and November? The valley usually experiences one or two good fall storms each year and these and/or dry weather runoff may be important. Could this information be included in Table 5? Critically important and missing from Table 5 is the inclusion of information on algal concentrations, either as chlorophyll, organic nitrogen etc from each facility. This coupled to some sort of growth model might be a way to assign loads/responsibility around the watershed to municipalities. Finally, missing from the municipal/industrial section is any discussion of how population growth is going to alter the discharge rates in Table 5 over the next 30 years. Please include.