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| News:
11/15/2008
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Groundwater – more questions than answers
A handful of residents showed up at the Kenwood Fire Department for a meeting on the North Valley groundwater situation sponsored by the Valley of the Moon Alliance on Wednesday, Oct. 29. Those who came were treated to a thorough background briefing on the North Sonoma Valley watershed and issues that will have profound impacts on water resources in coming years. Kathy Pons moderated the evening as both a VOTMA board member and a member of the Sonoma Valley Groundwater Basin Advisory Panel which developed the area’s first groundwater management plan last year. Arthur Dawson of the Sonoma Ecology Center provided a history of the Sonoma Valley watershed, and Tim Parker of Schlumberger Water Services provided an exhaustive account of the development and implementation of the groundwater plan by the many county groups with an interest and stake in future water management. Many knowledgeable people have suggested that water will become more precious than oil in the years to come. Sonoma County has already experienced a loss of water from the Eel River due to a federal court order and there’s no predicting how future years of warmer climate may impact water resources. Every city in the county has expanded groundwater pumping to augment limited fresh water supplies. Parker said that recent findings by the U.S. Geological Survey indicate a definite diminution of groundwater levels both in the North Valley and at the edge of San Francisco Bay, as saltwater intrusions have shifted in recent years in the Carneros district of Sonoma County. How serious these level drops are has yet to be determined, but gathering information has really just started with grant money enabling the drilling of two new multi-level monitoring wells, and several area homeowners signing on to a new water level monitoring program. The best current estimate, made from USGS data acquired through 2000, is that groundwater pumping has increased from 6,200 to 8,400 acre-feet per year since 1975, and that there has been a 17,300 acre-foot drop in local storage. While neither figure is cause for alarm at this point, they point out the direction water use is going, and a need for concern. Father Jos Altamira said, “Sonoma is a fountain of fountains,” in his 1823 exploration diary, though he noted that many streams go dry in the summertime. Physically, our watershed is 166 square miles of valley starting at Pythian Road and running to the Bay. It includes 137 miles of year-round streams and 288 miles of winter creeks for surface water, all serving as major groundwater recharge areas. Dawson, a historical ecologist, showed how the map of modern day Kenwood neatly fits into the earliest maps and drawings of the original marshlands. Cattle brought in by the early European settlers compacted the marshy soil and irrigation ditches dug in the 1840s further drained the area, the first of many developments that began to slow down groundwater recharging. Filling a groundwater basin the size of ours can take 100,000 years or more. Groundwater doesn’t collect in some huge underground bowl or flow in huge rivers, but is composed of water filling millions of cracks and tiny spaces between the fractured volcanic rocks the Valley sits on and even the water suspended in soil. Like oil, the groundwater basin consists of both connected and disconnected pockets of water of varying quality, making an accurate assessment of what’s actually there almost impossible without good data collection. Aggravating the difficulty of measuring groundwater given the physical structure of the groundwater system is the fact that California is the only state in America where drilling logs are confidential. Well drillers are required to provide information about the wells they dig; including the geological layers of soil they drill through and the water resources they find. This driller’s log is supposed to be filed with the county, however this information is considered proprietary. A course in California’s long and colorful water history might begin to explain why this is so, but for now, it is a real problem for planners who need information to make workable water use policies. Tim Parker, a hydrogeologist working for Schlumberger Water Services, consultants to the recent Groundwater Management Program, made it clear that groundwater and surface water are a single resource and that neither is infinite. On a scarier note, he also said that while natural filtration helps, it cannot remove all contaminants that get into the system from carelessly discarded toxic wastes, fertilizers and other man-made sources. Once groundwater is contaminated, it is extremely difficult to clean up. Parker outlined a voluntary water level monitoring program that encourages individual well-owners to have someone come by and measure ground water levels twice a year. The records are anonymous and provide data that is needed to track groundwater levels and movement. If you are interested in joining the program, please call Tim Parker at (707) 935-0235, or email tparker2@slb.com. Parker stressed that all records are kept anonymously; only the data, not the addresses, are stored for analysis. Several people at the meeting also expressed an interest in forming a well owners’ association to gain better representation in forming the county’s water policies. The county’s large agricultural and governmental interests are already well represented. Individual well-owners have practically no voice in water policy making decisions; although there are a growing number of groups throughout Sonoma County who are taking an interest in water issues, they are not always from the point of view of a well owner. If you are interested, please call Kathy Pons at 833-2452. On a related note, Julie Jehly of the Sonoma Creek Stewards presented a brief overview of the Ecology Center’s drive to clean out non-native plants, plant native flora, and help restore Sonoma Creek to a viable fish habitat. There will be a restoration work day on Dec. 13, starting at 9 a.m., to plant native trees and shrubs along the creek. Call 996-0712 ext. 115 for details. An Adobe Canyon stewardship group was recently organized which will join with the central reach group to provide information and restoration services for Kenwood’s section of Sonoma Creek. Email: jay@kenwoodpress.com |
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