A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 22, 2007
2. Supply
PROPOSED WATER STORAGE:
County loses rights to water storage project - Lodi News Sentinel
MOKELUMNE RIVER WATER:
State says S.J. can't have Mokelumne water - Stockton Record
DESALINATION:
Water project set to launch; Plants will increase supplies, end saltwater intrusion into the Pajaro Valley groundwater basin - Monterey Herald
BAY AREA DRINKING WATER:
Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants - San Francisco Chronicle
PROPOSED WATER STORAGE:
County loses rights to water storage project
By Ross Farrow, staff writer
A state water agency has canceled a major
The staff of the State Water Resources Control Board, earlier this month, canceled the county's application to divert water from the
The state board cited the county's failure to produce an environmental document in a timely manner and to document the availability of
The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors has the option to appeal the state's decision to the full Water Resources Control Board.
"It's too critical for
The board, acting as the Mokelumne Water and Power Authority, applied for a state permit in 1990 to divert up to 120,000 acre-feet from the
The idea was to use most of the water for storage at Duck Creek, a tributary of the
A majority of the water, collected only during years of heavy rain and snowfall, would be used to replenish the parched groundwater basin, although some of it could be used for municipal and industrial purposes, Kauffman said.
"We're maxed out on the Calaveras and Stanislaus rivers," said Mel Lytle, the county's water resources coordinator. "We will get some water from the Delta, but we need additional projects."
With last winter's heavy rainfall and snowpack, a reservoir at Duck Creek could have been filled twice, Lytle said.
The State Water Resources Control Board's cancellation of the county's application mirrors the state board's decision to rescind most of the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District's right to 20,000 acre-feet during wet years.
The North San Joaquin District hasn't had the equipment to pump more than 3,000 acre-feet of
Kauffman and Lodi Public Works Director Richard Prima said the State Water Resources Control Board's action conflicts with that of another state agency, the California Department of Water Resources.
DWR told water purveyors from throughout the state to work on a regional basis to solve local water problems rather than for a single city or water district to submit its own water proposal, local water experts said.
However, another state agency — the Water Resources Control Board staff — penalized San Joaquin County because the county failed to submit environmental documents on the Duck Creek project, Prima and Kauffman said. It takes a lot more time to work collaboratively with several agencies than for one agency to prepare a water project, Prima said.
The regional effort is being manifested in the form of the Mokelumne River Water Forum, where water agencies from San Joaquin, Calaveras and Amador counties, along with the East Bay Municipal Utility District, are working together to develop a water project that would benefit the three counties and the East Bay district.
EBMUD is involved because it has water rights to pipe
Ironically, the state awarded
Prima and Kauffman admit that they hadn't done much to further the Duck Creek Reservoir project during the 1990s, although they have worked harder in the current decade.
However, Lytle said the county's inactivity in the 1990s was due to some extenuating circumstances, such as state hearings on the Delta and on
"Since Camanche (Dam) was built in the 1960s, nothing big has happened on water issues," said Gerald Schwartz,
Schwartz added that the state's cancellation of the Duck Creek application may be somewhat of a benefit because it will get water interests to be more creative and either resubmit the Duck Creek application or think of something else. #
http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2007/03/22/news/8_mokelumne_070322.txt
MOKELUMNE RIVER WATER:
State says S.J. can't have Mokelumne water
By Alex Breitler, staff writer
Plans to secure water for
More than $1 million already has been spent on plans for an off-stream reservoir that could be filled during wet winters with flows from the Mokelumne. It is water that otherwise ends up in the ocean, said former county Supervisor Jack Sieglock, who championed the cause during his years on the board.
County supervisors in December allocated another $1.2 million in studies, and federal officials chipped in $3.3 million last year. Countless more dollars were spent on securing Mokelumne water long before officials envisioned the proposed Duck Creek Reservoir on rangeland northeast of
Now, the state says the county cannot have the water since it did not submit environmental documentation in a timely manner.
"It's disappointing, and it's ridiculous," said Sieglock, who traveled to
"We have invested money every year, and we've moved forward with the project. We've done exactly what the state has told us to do."
Not so, according to the cancellation notice from the State Water Resources Control Board.
The saga started in 1990, when the county first filed its request for water. Six years later, the application was put on public notice and protested by a variety of other water users.
Other delays pushed the issue to 2001, when the state asked when environmental documents would be finished. A draft time line was supplied the next year, but none of the target dates have been met, according to the notice sent to the county last week by Victoria A. Whitney, chief of water rights for the state board.
In 2003, the board said it was not sure the water would be available anyway. Most of the river is diverted by the East Bay Municipal Utility District to its 1.3 million customers in
And finally, in 2005, the board warned the county that its application would be canceled if environmental documents did not show up soon.
Some of the documents that the board wanted were in fact submitted, said Mel Lytle, the county's water resources coordinator.
Others were delayed because the county was seeking regional agreements on using the Mokelumne's water, perhaps creating a "water bank" in cooperation with the upstream counties and the East Bay Municipal Utility District.
"There aren't a lot of sources of water," Lytle said. "The amount of water we think we could have supplied us to the Mokelumne could go a long way toward helping us solve that problem."
Each year, more water is drawn from the ground than is naturally replenished by rain. So the underground water supply has been shrinking.
The county can appeal the board's cancellation, which could ultimately lead to a hearing to decide the matter. The board faces a backlog of work with hundreds of water rights applications and petitions pending.
"All this does is cloud the water issue," Sieglock said. "If it was murky before, it's muddy now." #
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070322/A_NEWS/703220336
DESALINATION:
Water project set to launch; Plants will increase supplies, end saltwater intrusion into the
By Kevin Howe, staff writer
Construction of a $60 million water recycling and distribution project for the
The projects are intended to increase water supplies and halt saltwater intrusion into the
More than 8,500 acres of prime coastal farmlands are threatened by seawater intrusion or have high levels of salt, said Bruce Laclergue, general manager of the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency. All of the water, he said, will be used for agriculture.
The $32 million water recycling plant project is being initially funded by the city of
Built on a 14-acre parcel east of the city's wastewater treatment plant at the end of Panbaker Lane off West Beach Street, the water recycling plant will produce approximately 4,000 acre-feet of treated water each year, operating during the March-October irrigation season.
The water agency will build a $28 million distribution system, consisting of 10.4 miles of 36-inch pipeline drilled under the
Since 2002, eight miles of pipe in the water system has served 2,000 acres surrounding the
The wastewater recycling facility and water pipeline will deliver 7,000 acre-feet of blended, recycled, surface and groundwater to 5,000 acres of farmland to replace groundwater pumping in the areas most affected by seawater intrusion.
Major construction will begin next month, and the projects are expected to begin delivering water by summer 2008.
The ceremony will take place at 4 p.m. March 30 at the future water recycling plant site. #
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/16951610.htm
BAY AREA DRINKING WATER:
Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/21/07
By Carol Ness, staff writer
At a small but growing number of sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants, bottled water has become as much of an outcast as farmed salmon and out-of-season tomatoes. Instead of bottled water, diners now are served free carafes of -- gasp! -- tap water.
It's filtered and comes still or sparkling, fizzed up by a soda-fountain-style carbonating machine.
Incanto, in
Then Nopa, the San Francisco North of Panhandle hot spot, took the plunge when it opened last summer. And so did Ici, the
And now, Chez Panisse, the godmother of the sustainability movement, is jumping on board, serving East Bay MUD's finest, filtered and bubbly in carafes approved by Alice Waters herself.
"Our whole goal of sustainability means using as little energy as we have to. Shipping bottles of water from
At Nopa, "Our goal is to be local,'' says co-owner Jeff Hanak. "We can't do it with a lot of things, like Scotch, but we try to do it with the things we can."
Water is fundamental, and it used to be that the questions about it, at least in restaurants, were as simple as "still or sparkling?"
Among the new questions about bottled water: Is it spring water or filtered tap water? Does it come in plastic or glass? How much energy is spent to bottle and ship it, often thousands of miles from
Bottled water habits
When it comes to water, Americans chose bottled stuff to the tune of 26 gallons per person last year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation. That's $11 billion worth.
Restaurants are a small, but influential, part of that.
Their move away from bottled water reflects concerns not about the bottom line, but about the environmental costs of bottling and transporting water, the energy spent recycling the glass, and keeping plastic out of landfills.
At Chez Panisse, which typically goes through 24,000 bottles of Santa Lucia a year, the only hard part of the switch has been logistical -- carving out space for a carbonator in what's essentially an old house crammed to the gills with two busy restaurants, Kossa-Rienzi says.
First, local sparkling waters like Calistoga were considered an option. But they proved too heavily carbonated for the Panisse palate.
The solution turned out to be simple: a $400 carbonator the size of a big toaster, which Kossa-Rienzi found online. It's basically a tank of carbon dioxide and a water line connection. The carbon dioxide is injected into the water, creating fizzy bubbles.
Chez Panisse's was delivered last week, and installation involved little more than hooking into the reverse-osmosis charcoal filtering system already in use, and running a plastic line from the carbonator to a tap at the bar.
Selecting just the right decanter was almost more complicated. But Chez Panisse hoped to be in the sparkling water business in time for World Water Day -- tomorrow.
It will be interesting to see if the trend takes off nationally. Bottled water is a big money-maker for restaurants, which can buy it for $1 or $2 a pop, and sell it for $7 or $9.
The profitability of bottled water overall -- not just in restaurants -- has created another issue that plays into decisions about what kind of water to drink.
Municipal supplies at risk?
That's the potential risk to municipal water supplies, according to the authors of a new book "Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water," (286 pages,
The book, by Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufman and Michael Fox (reviewed in last Sunday's Chronicle Book Review), follows a 2004 public television documentary also called "Thirst." It reveals the extent to which public water supplies are being privatized by corporations that sell bottled water, and recounts fights by communities, including
Both Chez Panisse's Waters and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission general manager Susan Leal will speak at a private
Leal is campaigning to wean
Chemical concerns
Not all decisions about bottled versus tap come down to food miles and bottle-clogged landfills. Other issues include how it tastes, chlorination and, for the immune-impaired, some microbes. There are concerns about industrial chemicals that can infiltrate water supplies and worries about chemicals that leach from plastic water bottles. But those questions cut both ways, since most bottled water starts as tap water.
For those who, like the restaurants, choose to stick with tap water, home filters have become a popular choice. And people eager to make their own sparkling water can find what they need with a simple Google search.
The restaurants that have banished bottles find that most of their customers are happy about it, once they find out the reason.
At Chez Panisse, it's possible that a few customers may be miffed -- free bottles of sparkling Santa Lucia water were a common perk handed out to regulars.
But Kossa-Rienzi doubts it will be much of an issue.
"I think most people in the area where we live are going to be very open to it," Kossa-Rienzi says. #
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/21/FDGU1OMMT61.DTL
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