[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 4/4/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

April 4, 2008

 

1.  Top Item

 

Aquifer is drying up in Borrego Springs; For the first time, desert town sees its water won't last forever

San Diego Union Tribune – 4/4/08

By Mike Lee, staff writer

 

The desert oasis of Borrego Springs has long seemed immune to Southern California's periodic water shortages, thanks to an aquifer that keeps the town's groves, yards and golf greens lush even in the searing summer heat.

 

Borrego Springs residents use about twice as much water on average as homeowners elsewhere in San Diego County, according to the Borrego Water District. The agency has some of the lowest residential rates in Southern California, giving its customers little financial reason to cut back.

 

Each year, water users in the Borrego valley remove roughly five times more water from the aquifer than it collects.

 

“People have taken the idea that there is plenty of water here pretty seriously,” said Richard Williamson, the district's new general manager.

 

But Borrego Springs' mentality about water is changing as the volume of its aquifer – the town's sole source of water – is shrinking rapidly. In recent months, the push for conservation and the search for ways to secure a stable water supply have sometimes pitted farmers, homeowners and developers against one another.

 

The community's water officials have held several public meetings to discuss possible solutions for the water crisis. They're looking at raising water rates and tapping water from the Colorado River, which would require spending about $60 million to install a major pipeline.

 

“Borrego is a microcosm of what's happening through the Southwest,” said William Mills of Yorba Linda, a consultant for the Borrego Water District. “There is just a conflict over water being used for the environment, water being used for agriculture and water being used for the growing population.”

 

From Sacramento to Phoenix, millions of residents face lifestyle questions as basic as how long their showers should last and whether to keep their grass lawns.

 

In Las Vegas, water officials have proposed tapping the water in a national wildlife refuge about 90 miles north – a move that has drawn protests from environmentalists and ranchers.

 

Farmers in California's Central Valley are digging new wells because water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have been complicated by court-mandated efforts to save the smelt, an imperiled fish.

 

In communities throughout San Diego County, water bills are rising quickly. Proposals seen by some as too expensive and environmentally destructive – such as building and operating desalination plants – are advancing in the region. And public agencies are developing media campaigns that urge water conservation.

 

Similar efforts have sprouted in Borrego Springs, a town of about 3,000 people whose population more than doubles each winter when sun-seekers flock there from all over the nation. The unincorporated community is surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

 

Borrego Springs residents and small businesses together account for about 10 percent of the town's water use; golf courses make up roughly 20 percent, according to the water district. The rest goes to irrigating a few thousand acres of crops – mostly grapefruit, lemons and palm nurseries.

 

All the groups tap into the same aquifer, but farms and golf courses typically have their own wells. They aren't subject to the water district's rules or rates and they generally aren't factored into the town's figures for per-capita water consumption.

 

Over the years, there have been periods of concern about the water level in the Borrego aquifer. But they haven't led to major changes.

 

“Because this is underground . . . many people can pretend that we don't have an issue,” said Mark Jorgensen, superintendent of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and honorary mayor of Borrego Springs.

 

A 2001 report from the Borrego Water District said the aquifer had nearly 100 years of life left, though few locals seem to put much stock in that number.

 

“We have been told 50 years and we also have been told 300 years,” said Erica Savage, executive director of the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce.

 

Part-time Borrego Springs resident Richard Russell, 72, said, “It looks like we are heading into an apocalyptic situation.”

 

A glance around town makes Russell's prediction seems possible. In early 2007, one of the water district's major production wells went dry. At the state park, two campground wells are in “dire condition” because of the dropping water table and one of them appears to need replacement, Jorgensen said.

 

Equally telling is how the hardy mesquite trees on the eastern edge of the park are dying from lack of water, he said.

 

“Here you have a tree . . . with the deepest documented roots of any tree in the world . . . and it appears that even this tree cannot keep up with the (aquifer) drawdown,” Jorgensen said.

 

Borrego citrus grower Scot Fortiner also has documented the falling water table at his family's wells for nearly two decades. The Fortiners' patch of farmland is one of the northernmost green spots in Borrego Springs, squeezed up against the barren hills.

 

Fortiner's parents broke ground there in the 1940s, and they were heralded a few years later in a Redbook feature story.

 

“This is the life!” the magazine proclaimed.

 

It's not clear how long Fortiner can hold on to that life. As the aquifer's level drops, it costs him more money to pump water. At some point, the process will be too expensive to be worthwhile, he said.

 

“We are either going to have to find another crop, use less water or go out (of business),” Fortiner said.

 

He says farmers' impact on the aquifer is overstated by town residents, especially because growers such as him use devices to save water – including computerized weather programs that guide irrigation cycles – while the number of homes in Borrego Springs has increased.

 

As an act of civic good will, Fortiner recently made the unusual concession of letting the water district measure his well withdrawals.

 

“We are trying to come up with a solution,” he said.

 

Borrego Water District officials have formed a multifaceted plan to deal with the water problems.

 

In November, they completed a $720,000 deal to leave fallow 50 acres of private farmland and “retire” the property's water rights.

 

They've also proposed new rates that would double to quadruple water costs for the largest customers. Water districts commonly use tiered pricing to encourage conservation, but the size of the proposed increases has set Borrego Springs abuzz.

 

“This is a huge emotional upheaval to throw at people,” Russell said. “They will have to do away with many of their trees, their grass and maybe even their swimming pools. It would really create a serious problem.”

 

On Wednesday, concerned residents and the water district's board agreed in theory to phase in conservation goals with rate increases that would top out below the first proposal. The board is expected to take up the latest ideas next week.

 

Beyond reducing water consumption, district officials are pondering whether to build a pipeline from Borrego Springs to an Imperial Irrigation District canal about 38 miles away.

 

In concept, Borrego Springs would buy water from some out-of-town source and trade it for water delivered via the Imperial district.

 

Pipeline construction bills of roughly $60 million would largely be covered by grants and loans from the federal and state governments. It will be hard to obtain that money unless residents prove that they've started to conserve water, said Borrego Water District manager Williamson and other water experts.

 

“We have lived with such abundance that the idea of limiting the use of water is alien,” said Lane Sharman of the Borrego Water Exchange, the company that helped negotiate the farmland-fallowing deal. “We must learn to . . . live within our water means.” #

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080404/news_1n4borrego.html

#####