Local Consequences:
Policy Analysis
WATER CRISIS IN SONOMA COUNTY
PART TWO HERE
Jenny
Blaker
October
9, 2004
Sonoma County faces a water crisis. The Sonoma County
Water Agency supplies water, mainly from the Russian River
system, to 570,000 people in Sonoma County and Marin. The
Agency has told the cities and water districts it contracts
with that their water rights are “not secure” and
has recommended that they pump groundwater to meet 40%
of their peak demand. Meanwhile, natural reserves
of groundwater are in overdraft, being withdrawn faster
than they are replenished.
It has been stated that “the history of California
is the history of water” (J. Letty, October 2, 2004). Water
has been a controversial and highly politicized issue in
California for decades and its importance is exploding
at the current time. Books have been written warning
of global water wars in the forthcoming decades. The
U.S. Department of the Interior is taking this threat so
seriously that it has published a map of Water Supply
Crises by 2025 showing “areas where water supplies
are not adequate to meet existing water demands for people,
for farms, and for the environment,” and showing
areas of potential conflict over water rights. (U.S. Dept
of Interior, 2003). The Bay area is included in this
map as an area of substantial conflict potential.
click on image for larger size (source
link)
“The American West is facing a serious crisis. In
the long run, we will not have enough water to meet the
fast-growing needs of city residents, farmers, ranchers,
Native Americans, and wildlife. The demand is increasing;
the supply is not. It is time for Americans to become proactive
in our efforts to resolve the problem. Crisis management
is not a long-term solution.” (U.S. Dept of
Interior, 2003)
To start with the basics: Fresh water is a finite
resource and only a tiny proportion is freshwater available
for human use. 97% of the Earth’s water is
contained in the oceans. Of the 3% that is left,
most is locked in icecaps and glaciers. Streams and
lakes contain about one fiftieth of 1% of Earth’s
water, and ground water about one half of one percent.
(Sonoma County General Plan Update 2020).
It is important to understand the hydrologic cycle, which
begins with the evaporation of water from the surface of
the ocean. As moist air rises, it cools and water vapor
condenses to form clouds. Moisture is transported around
the globe until it returns to the surface as precipitation.
Once the water reaches the ground, some of the water may
evaporate back into the atmosphere or the water may penetrate
the surface, soaking into underlying sands or fissures
in rocks, and becoming groundwater. Groundwater either
gradually seeps its way into the oceans, rivers, and streams,
or is released back into the atmosphere through transpiration. The
balance of water that remains on the earth's surface is
runoff, which empties into lakes, rivers and streams and
is carried back to the oceans, where the cycle begins again.
click on image for full size (source link)
The
vast majority of the water available for our use is
stored in the ground. The main source of surface
water for Sonoma County is the Russian River and its tributaries.
Groundwater has been used in California since the first
inhabitants began using water that seeped from springs. Although
surface water and groundwater supplies have been regarded
as separate in California, they are the same resource. However,
they are dealt with separately by law. The permit
application process for appropriating surface water in
California is contained in the California Water Code. By
contrast, rights to use groundwater have evolved through
a series of court decisions dating back to the late 1800s
(Department of Water Resources, 2000). Overlying
property rights allow anyone in California to build a well
and extract groundwater, but underground the water sources
may be connected. This situation can lead to conflicts
over water rights.
In Sonoma County, the Sonoma County Water Agency, created
in 1949, has “the authority to produce and furnish
surface water and groundwater for beneficial uses, to control
floods, generate electricity, and provide recreation in
connection with its facilities. Legislation enacted
in 1994 added the treatment, disposal, and reuse of wastewater
to the Agency’s responsibilities” (SCWA, 1999).
With increasing population, and increasing economic demands,
water demand in Sonoma County has risen exponentially over
the decades. In 1908 a large, steep, mile-long tunnel
was drilled through a Mendocino County ridge by Chinese
laborers to divert water from the upper Eel River into
the Russian River to generate electricity for Ukiah (Griffin,
1998). The water was used for farming in the
north of Sonoma County, whilst residents in the south relied
mainly on groundwater wells (SCWA, 1999). According
to the SCWA report, 50 Years of Caring for Sonoma County’s
Water Resources, there were 73,000 people in Sonoma
County in 1947 and the population was mainly dependent
on farming, thanks largely to available irrigation water. A
series of winter floods between 1935 and 1947 caused $6.1
million damage. Flooding and declining groundwater
quality were regarded as “significant threats to
continued economic growth,” and the US Army Corps
of Engineers (USACE) recommended the building of Coyote
Valley dam, on the east fork of the Russian river just
north of Ukiah. It was completed in 1959, creating
Lake Mendocino to control winter floods and store water. By
the 1950’s population in the county had risen to
103,405. In the 1970’s “New freeways
and commuter routes to San Francisco and Oakland, combined
with the building and baby booms following World War II,
drew businesses and families to Sonoma County. The
demand for water grew apace.” By the end of
the decade the Agency was faced with demands it could not
meet. Droughts in the 1970’s prompted new water
conservation methods and the Agency drilled several emergency
wells in the Santa Rosa Plain to supplement the reduced
flows in the Russian River. Eventually, after many
legal and environmental battles, Warm Springs Dam was constructed,
creating Lake Sonoma in 1983. By the 1990’s
the population had reached 388,222 (SCWA, 1999). As
of July 2004, the SWCA was supplying 570,000 people in
Sonoma County and Marin. (source
link) During the years 1950-90
global demand for water tripled. Its use in the
North Bay has doubled since 1975. (D. Keller, October
2, 2004).
This history glosses over much of the controversy and
many of the problems surrounding water in Sonoma County. The
diversion of the Eel River had devastating impacts on the
environment and consequently on Humboldt County’s
previously lucrative fishing industry. It is estimated
that 130,000 acre feet per year are diverted into the Russian
River, leaving as little as 5% or even 2% in the Eel River,
a direct loss to Humboldt county of $15 million a year,
while the water is used to subsidize growth in Sonoma County
and Marin (D.Keller, October 2, 2004). Friends of the Eel
River have been fighting through the courts to stop the
diversions and have the Potter Valley Project decommissioned. In
May 2003 the California Court of Appeal struck down an
ambitious plan by the Sonoma County Water Agency to increase
its annual diversions of water from the Russian River by
26,000 acre-feet to serve up to 150,000 new customers in
rapidly growing areas of Sonoma and Marin Counties(Friends
of the Eel River, 2003).
Surface water running in rivers, lakes and streams is
only part of the picture. “When we think of
water resources in Sonoma County most people think of the
Russian River, various creeks and streams, lakes, the Laguna
de Santa Rosa, or massive reservoirs. Actually the County
has VASTLY more water stored out of sight underground than
it does in all of the surface water that we can see.” (O.W.L.
Foundation, 2003).
Just as surface and groundwater cannot be separated, neither
can issues of water quality and quantity be separated from
land use. Ensuring both quality and quantity of water
supply involves taking care of the whole watershed. Trees
absorb water and filter nutrients and pollutants, and cutting
them down leads to soil erosion and sedimentation. Wetlands
have an immense storing capacity, holding floodwaters in
the winter, and paving them over means that more water
enters rivers as runoff and less is available to recharge
the aquifers. With the expansion of agriculture,
commercial and residential areas, large amounts of riparian
habitat have been destroyed, decimating wildlife.
One of the issues of greatest concern in the Russian River
has been gravel mining. Gravel creates a natural filtration
system. It has been estimated that 400,000 acre feet
of water storage capacity in the aquifers has been lost
to gravel mining, and in places the Russian River bed has
fallen by 22 feet, due to the removal of gravel for the
construction industry. SCWA is apparently
discussing possible plans for a filtration plant which
would cost $1 billion, ironically using concrete from the
gravel and sand mined from the river! (D. Keller,
October 2, 2004).
Salmon species have been decimated, so that “….coho
salmon, steelhead, and Chinook salmon in the Russian River
and its tributaries have been listed as "threatened
species" under the federal Endangered Species Act
(ESA)” (SCWA, 2003).
A more recent concern is the impact of global climate
change on water supplies, and vice versa. “Climate
change is expected to impact U.S. water resources and water
availability in the western United States, including the
following: decreased snowfall and snowmelt, a major source
of drinking water for much of California; rising sea levels
threatening coastal aquifers and water supplies; increases
in lake and stream temperatures threatening fish, water
species, and critical habitats such as wetlands…” (
Community Clean Water Institute).
42% of people in Sonoma County either rely on groundwater
entirely for their water supplies, or for back up supplies. There
are 150,000 well owners in the unincorporated areas of
Sonoma County. [Other sources mention 40,000
well owners]. Sonoma County dug three “emergency
wells” in the Santa Rosa Plain in the 1970’s,
but they have been pumping almost continuously in non-emergency
situations.
The O.W.L. Foundation has highlighted the fact that, in its
May 2000 General Plan Environmental Impact Report, the
City of Rohnert Park admitted that groundwater levels had
dropped by as much as 150 ft. in 30 years. A study section
of this EIR estimated total pumping within the sub-basin
at 5.3 million gallons per day, over three times greater
than the modeling study’s estimated recharge rate
of 1.60 mgd. (Rohnert Park General Plan EIR, 2000).
A “Pilot Study of Groundwater Conditions” (September
17, 2003), by Kleinfelder and Associates, revealed that
groundwater conditions in already-identified “water
scarce” areas are worse than previously suspected.
The report discovered “. . . a clear trend of increasing
well depths over time” in the Joy Road area, Mark
West Springs and Bennett Valley (Kleinfelder, 2003). Sonoma
County has other “water scarce” areas in addition
to these three (Downs, H.R).
In addition to reports of wells drying up and people digging
wells deeper into the aquifer, there have also been reported
concerns about contaminants including arsenic, solvents,
petroleum, MTBE’s and leakage from septic systems
contaminating groundwater supplies.
Although the SCWA is responsible for providing water to
the eight cities and some smaller water contractors, the
cities are responsible for their own planning process and
growth. Therefore the issues involved are multi-jurisdictional
and fraught with tension. One of the major complaints against
the Sonoma County Water Board is that it is made up of
members who are the same as the Board of Supervisors for
the County and that there is a conflict of interest between
the two – for example, over gravel mining rights,
and the sale of water by the Water Agency to Marin.
According to the Grand Jury report, Got Water? (July
1, 2004), “Since 1949, the Sonoma County Board of
Supervisors and the Sonoma County Water Agency Board of
Directors have been made up of exactly the same members. Testimony
given to the grand jury indicated a perception that a conflict
of interest exists due to the Board of Supervisor’s
political responsibilities to both rural and urban growth
development which could affect their land use decisions
to favor urban growth without regard to possible water
supply shortages in the rural areas. Additional concerns
were that each supervisor necessarily represents a specific
geographical area, but not the entire county; and that
the Board of Supervisors lacks technical expertise regarding
water issues.” (Sonoma County Grand Jury, 2004).
According to the same Grand Jury report:
According to the Sonoma County General Plan Update 2020:
Ultimately, all present and future Sonoma County residents,
property owners, and businesses, as well as some Marin
county residents and inhabitants of the Eel River watershed,
are and will be affected by SCWA policy decisions. A
wide range of environmental and citizen groups is involved
with different aspects of the issue, including Friends
of the Eel River, the O.W.L. Foundation, the Sierra Club,
the Community Clean Water Institute, Friends of the Russian
River, and many others. The Sonoma County Water Coalition
consists of 27 groups which came together to issue a joint
statement on water policy in September 2004. The
O.W.L. Foundation, in particular, has a website that is
full of information and links to many other pages including
government information.
Sonoma County has been working to update its General Plan,
and for the first time a Water Element has been included,
with input from a Citizens’ Advisory Committee. Already,
since the end of the Citizen Advisory Committee review
of the Water Resources Element last year, a number of events
with profound implications for Sonoma County’s water
resources have transpired:
“On August 11, 2003, the Sonoma County Water Agency
informed contractors that the anticipated 35% increase
in Russian River water rights from 75,000 af/y (acre feet
per year) to 101,000 af/y, as stated in their 2000 Urban
Water Management Plan, is not secure. The surprising reductions
were triggered by an appellate decision affecting the 90-year
practice of diverting water from the Eel River to the Russian
River. These diversions will be curtailed and could eventually
stop.” (H.R. Downs, October 4, 2004).
“A recent draft of the Sonoma County Water Agency
Restructured Agreement for Water Supply (May 17, 2004)
recommends that contractors maintain local production capacity
(i.e. groundwater pumping) for approximately 40% of their
peak demand. Some contractors, who had actually stopped
pumping altogether and used SCWA aqueduct water, will now
resume pumping. Some cities have already increased groundwater
pumping.” (H.R Downs).
In addition, the Kleinfelder report with its findings
on groundwater scarcity was published in September 2003,
and the Sonoma County Grand Jury Report in July 2004. Among
several reforms, the Grand Jury recommends: “The
county and each of its cities should adopt and develop
a comprehensive groundwater management plan such as that
set forth in AB 3030. The information from the existing
groundwater studies should be used to provide a bank of
information upon which to initiate a groundwater management
plan.” Until now, the SCWA shows no sign of
being willing to move in this direction.
Jenny Blaker is currently taking
a Master’s degree program “Action for a Viable
Future” at Sonoma State University. She is
involved with the Cotati Creek Critters, doing habitat
restoration work along the Laguna de Santa Rosa in Cotati;
with the Northern California Earth Institute study circles,
which are about examining and transforming personal values
and habits, accepting responsibility for the earth, and
acting on that commitment; and with other local environmental
and sustainability issues.
