Ridgewood's October Runs on the Water Calendar: Paving, the Canal Shutdown, and What's Still On Around Phoenix Lake Road
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
"TUD's only sources of water during this outage will be from storage tanks, reservoirs, and wells." That line comes from the Tuolumne Utilities District's fall 2026 outage notice. Ridgewood is one of the 30 service areas the notice lists as at risk of running out of water if residents don't conserve.
From Sunday, October 11, through Sunday, October 18, PG&E will repair flume sections of the Main Tuolumne Canal, and the water that normally flows from Lyons Reservoir into the TUD system will be shut off. Some areas will be affected until October 21. That week sets the rest of October around Phoenix Lake Road. Road crews work on either side of it, the theater and the brewfest fall in the middle of it, and the conservation request runs a week past it.
Most of the time, the water reaching a Ridgewood tap starts a long way off. TUD says about 95% of the water it distributes comes from the South Fork Stanislaus River and is held in PG&E's Lyons and Pinecrest reservoirs. PG&E owns Lyons Reservoir and the 15.7-mile Main Canal that runs to its Phoenix powerhouse. Off that canal, TUD's water splits into three branches. One serves Twain Harte, Soulsbyville and Tuolumne. A second feeds the ditches and treatment plants for Crystal Falls, Big Hill and Columbia. The rest flows into Phoenix Reservoir to serve Phoenix Lake, East Sonora, Sonora and Jamestown.
The lake in the neighborhood's backyard is part of how this works. TUD describes Phoenix Lake as raw-water storage in a system with 10 treatment plants, 60 treated-water storage tanks and 72 miles of ditch, some of it dug in the 1850s. When the canal goes dry, that stored water is what's left to carry the system. That's why TUD asks treated-water customers to limit outdoor watering, turn off automatic lawn and drip timers, skip washing cars and fix leaks. It also asks everyone to keep conserving for one more week after the outage so storage can refill.
On the same list, Ridgewood sits next to Phoenix Lake, Big Hill, Meadow Brook, Scenic View and Sonora. The whole Phoenix Lake Road corridor shares the same buffer that week. That makes a dripping hose bib or a forgotten irrigation timer a shared problem.
Over the past few years, the Phoenix Lake Road corridor has been rebuilt piece by piece to move water between systems, and this October's road work belongs to that effort.
TUD's completed Ridgewood Water Transmission Line Improvement added about 13,000 feet of 8-inch main between Ridgewood Drive and Meadow Brook Drive. TUD describes it as linking the Upper Basin/Crystal Falls and Phoenix Lake/Scenic View treated-water systems. In 2022, TUD paved Phoenix Lake Road after installing new main under the Ridgewood Pipeline Project. That paving was forecast for early July, pushed to August 8 through 19, and was still underway on August 23.
The current project is called Midland Drive Distribution Improvements. TUD says the 4-inch main on Midland Drive is undersized and at the end of its useful life. The project installs 1,800 feet of 6-inch main on Midland Drive, then runs a new line along the shoulder of Phoenix Lake Road to connect it to the new main on Sommette Drive. TUD says the goal is better system reliability in the area. In May, myMotherLode reported that main installation along the Phoenix Lake Road shoulder between Midland and Sommette was set to start May 4 and take about a month.
On September 28, TUD announced that it has hired K.W. Emerson Inc. to pave two areas off Phoenix Lake Road. The advisory doesn't say what work the paving follows. Midland Drive is on the list either way.
Paving on Midland Drive begins Monday, October 5. Work on Brook Drive and Turner Court follows on Wednesday, October 7. Both run weekdays from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Residents keep local access, delays can run up to 10 minutes, and TUD suggests other routes when possible. The county road index lists Brook Drive in three segments that start and end at Alder Lane, with Turner Court along the way.
Sierra Repertory Theatre opened Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors on October 2 at the East Sonora Theatre, 13891 Mono Way, a quarter mile east of The Junction Shopping Center. It's a 90-minute farce with five actors playing dozens of roles, rated PG-13 for some mature content.
The ditches stop running Sunday. The Columbia, Eureka, Main Canal, Matelot, Roaches, San Diego, Section IV and Soulsbyville ditches will have no water from October 11 through October 19. Normal ditch service should resume Tuesday, October 20. Columbia, Matelot and San Diego stay off through October 21.
Paving is still underway in the first half of this week and wraps up Friday, October 16. Sierra Rep's second show of the fall, The Thanksgiving Play, opens October 9 and plays in rotating repertory with Dracula at the same Mono Way theater.
Saturday, October 17, brings the Mountain Misery Brewfest to Mother Lode Fairgrounds at 220 Southgate Drive. Gates open at 1:30 p.m., the event runs 2 to 7 p.m., and it's 21 and over with photo ID required.
The canal comes back after Sunday the 18th, but TUD's conservation request doesn't end. The district asks all customers to keep conserving for one more week while storage recovers. If you shut off the drip timer on October 11, the request is to leave it off through about the 25th.
The fall schedule doesn't end with the canal. TUD's raw-water calendar lists the Phoenix Ditch outage for October 25 through November 1. A TUD vicinity map for the Ridgewood pipeline work labels the Phoenix Ditch near Meadow Brook Drive.
Saturday, October 31, is the last day of the season for the Sonora Certified Farmers Market at Theall and Stewart streets. It's free and runs 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. Dracula closes the same day. The Thanksgiving Play runs one day longer, through November 1.
This section applies only to properties with a raw-water ditch connection. For them, the annual maintenance schedule continues well after the treated-water side returns to normal:
TUD's notice also states that water users are responsible for their own privately owned equipment connected to the public supply. The district posts the full schedule as its 2026 Fall Ditch Outage PDF, linked from the outage notice. For questions about the paving, TUD's office number is 209-532-5536.
If ditch history on your own parcel has ever come up, our earlier piece on ditch easements around Lambert Lake covers how those rights work. For warmer months, here's Ridgewood in July.
Projects like the new main on Midland Drive and Sommette Drive are the kind of neighborhood detail that rarely appears in a listing description. If you'd like to know how your Ridgewood home compares on today's market, Charlie Rowland and the Tuolumne Homes team can give you a clear read with no obligation. Get Your Free Home Valuation, and see more about the area on our Ridgewood neighborhood page.
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