[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 7/10/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

July 10, 2007

 

1.  Top Item

 

Some Inland wells running dry

Riverside Press Enterprise – 7/9/07

By Sandra Stokley, staff writer

 

GLEN AVON - When Salvador Campos turned on his kitchen faucet in late May and only a few drops trickled out, the sudden decrease in water produced from the private well at his home in the Jurupa Mountains caused him to put his family on a conservation plan.

 

"My son used to take 10-minute showers," Campos said. "Not any more."

 

In order to allow the well to refill the home's 2,800-gallon tank, the family of three now showers at the gym when they can and waters the lawn every other day or every third day.

 

And Campos took another step. He and four neighbors asked directors of the local water agency to hook them up to its water system.

 

The Jurupa Community Service District's water committee is scheduled to discuss today what it would take to hook Campos and his neighbors into the local water system.

 

The city of Riverside received just 1.93 inches of rain in the past 12 months, and the well that used to fill Campos' tank now only provides half the water. In the rural community on Geordie Way, where scattered homes lie on expansive lots, his neighbors fear their wells may be next.

 

Neighbor Greg Ford's well has not yet shown signs of drying up, but he still takes precautions.

 

"We don't use the well to water the garden. We're always afraid we're going to run out of water," he said.

 

If the past year is a harbinger of several more years of drought to come, more and more well-users in the Inland area expect problems, experts say.

 

"That's an absolute given," said Steve Mains, an Inland hydrologist. Groundwater tapped through wells provides on average one-third of the water supplied to Inland residents. In some urban areas, groundwater provides as much as 95 percent. Mains said that like water wells used by public agencies, any number of factors such as well depth, the underlying geology and how much rain and snowmelt recharges a ground basin can impact how much a domestic well produces.

 

But unlike professional water companies that have a sophisticated system of interconnected wells to tap into when water levels start to drop, residents whose wells start drying up are pretty much left to their own devices to figure out a solution.

 

"All you can do is advise them to dig their well deeper or bite the bullet and hook up to the local water purveyor," Mains said.

 

Every year thousands of domestic wells, which are used for everyday household demands including cooking, showering and doing the laundry, are drilled in California, said Eric Senter, senior engineering geologist at the California Department of Water Resources.

 

In 2005, the last year for which complete records are available, 7,441 well-completion reports were filed with the department. But Senter stressed that the number may not reflect the actual number of wells drilled.

 

Between March of 2004 and June of 2007, San Bernardino County issued 1,561 domestic well permits, said Daniel Avera, of Environmental Health Services.

 

Riverside County has about 16,000 private wells, said Gary Root, the director of the Department of Environmental Health.

 

Because no one monitors private wells, it is impossible to say how many are in use and how many have been abandoned, Root said.

 

People opt to have their own domestic wells for a multitude of reasons.

 

Some people live in a remote area where water service is unavailable. Others are looking to save the thousands of dollars it might cost them to hook up to a nearby system.

 

Cherone "Chonie" Wlaschin, a 67-year-old retiree, said two wells had already been dug in 1995 when she and her husband, Gerald, moved to their 3,000-square-foot dream home in Glen Oaks, a rustic mountain community above the Temecula wine country in southwest Riverside County.

 

Experts told them they were in a "negative water area," meaning the couple had to haul an average of about 1,000 gallons of water a day to supply their household needs and for their horses, goats and other assorted animals, she said.

 

In 2005, homeowners passed a bond measure that cost about $55,600 for each property owner to connect to Eastern Municipal Water District's system, said Wlaschin, the former homeowners association president. Some residents chose to pay the cost in cash. Others, like the Wlaschins, will pay it over 30 years through an assessment district. She said she pays $3,000 a year for the system.

 

The system cost $5.3 million to build, said Debra Deremiah, Eastern's special funding district manager.

 

Hooking up to a water system can be an expensive and complex proposition. But the alternative is equally grim.

 

"It's really, really scary up here when you don't have enough water to fight fires," Wlaschin said.

 

The Campos family had experienced a water shortage during an especially dry year in late August or early September 2004. At that point, Campos said he installed the storage tank at a cost of $3,200.

 

This year's dry spell came much earlier, he said.

 

In a report to the water committee, Jurupa Community Services District general manager Eldon Horst estimated it would cost $200,000 to run a water line to Campos and his four neighbors.

 

A question remains about how much residents will be expected to pay.

 

"If we need to pay, we'll pay whatever is fair," De Leon said.

 

Campos echoed those sentiments.

 

"We just want peace of mind," Campos said.  #

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_drywells10.274f491.html

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