[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 7/3/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

July 3, 2008

 

2. Supply –

 

 

Some California Cities Living in the Last Century by Requiring Lawns to be Green

California Progress Report- 7/3/08

 

Holtville’s artesian wells are bust, not boon

Imperial Valley Press- 7/3/08

 

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Some California Cities Living in the Last Century by Requiring Lawns to be Green

California Progress Report- 7/3/08

By Robert Cruickshank

 

It sounds like one of those stories that conservatives often use to make government look bad - the city of Sacramento is fining a household $746 for letting their lawn die to save water. But the real issue here isn't government - it's whether California will abandon wasteful and even elitist 20th century values to meet the needs of the 21st century.

 

This basic tension according to the Sacramento Bee:

 

"In order to make the lawn go, I would have had to keep watering it intensely, and since the drought was declared, I decided that wasn't a good idea," said Hartridge. "Honestly, I think there's a disconnect within the city about priorities."

 

“Two weeks ago, The Bee reported that Sacramento's per capita water use is among the greatest in the world....

“The city's landscaping rule is intended to maintain neighborhood visual standards to prevent one neighbor's tastes from harming another's property values.

 

“The rule was the subject of much conflict last year when amended to provide gardeners leeway to grow more than grass.

 

Sacramentans can now grow large trees, shrubs and, yes, even food in their front yards without fear of reprisal.

 

“But the rules still require front landscaping to be irrigated, which means scores of homeowners could be penalized for growing cacti or other drought-tolerant vegetation.”

 

The problem here isn't bad bureaucrats - it's bad policy. Like so many other California cities, Sacramento maintains absurd codes that mandate green lawns and other wasteful practices simply to perpetuate a failed 20th century urban design model. The belief is that property values will be hurt if people have anything other but green lawns and shrubbery. We have to ensure our neighborhoods look exactly as they did in 1965, never mind the cost to our water supplies.

 

But it goes deeper than just water conservation - important though that is. As noted in the blockquote, Sacramento only recently allowed residents to grow their own food in their yards. Urban food production, and home gardening, is an essential step in healthier eating and energy conservation. Many cities still have bans on using a clothesline to dry your laundry, even though it saves a lot of energy (and is usually easier on your clothes!).

 

Residents ought to be encouraged to live sustainably, and use their home as it ought to be used - to produce self-sufficiency.

 

We can and do discuss density and mass transit as part of urban design needs, but the micro-level issues such as brown lawns and clotheslines matter too.

 

When I lived in Seattle from 2001 to 2007 I saw a different and better way to live. Residents there let their lawns die over the summer. Many grew food in their yards. I learned to use a clothesline there (because it wasn't kosher to use them in Orange County, sensible as it'd have been). My neighbors had chickens, who laid delicious eggs - most summers we never had to buy eggs from a store.

 

Many California cities have outlawed some or all of those practices since the 1950s or earlier. It was a class-based move - middle-class homeowners saw clotheslines and chicken coops as signs of poverty and low-class behavior, which would invariably drive down property values. To a homeowner, government merely exists to protect property values, even at the expense of sustainable practices that help the environment and the infrastructure.

 

These practices will also help preserve the middle-class. California's 20th century middle class was a product of cheap oil, which made it affordable to live in a suburban home and get your food from a supermarket. With the end of cheap oil, food inflation is going to destroy the living standards of working Californians. It just makes sense to encourage sustainable living. #

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/07/some_california.html

 

 

 

Holtville’s artesian wells are bust, not boon

Imperial Valley Press- 7/3/08
By BRIANNA LUSK, Staff Writer

Between a credit union parking lot and a crumbling laundry room for a dilapidated apartment building is a flow of Valley liquid gold.

It’s an unlikely site to find a stream of clear water, bubbling to the surface from hundreds of feet below.

It could be transformed into an oasis in the desert, a spring of artesian water to be bottled or a source of ever-flowing need in a statewide drought.

But for now, it’s a city nuisance.

In the last couple of months an artesian well east of Holtville’s city square in an inconspicuous gravel alley has erupted into a producer of an estimated 14,000 gallons a day.

Although the well is not unique, there are six known sites believed to be tapped into the same aquifer. Recent seismic activity made it overflow.

The alley was flooded as city staff replaced a 1-inch drainage pipe with a 4-inch pipe to handle the additional flow.

“It definitely increased after the earthquakes but we don’t have any kind of scientific data,” Holtville Public Works manager Gerry Peacher said.

Since a series of earthquakes in May, the output has nearly quadrupled, Peacher estimated.

And it shows no sign of stopping.

Six known artesian wells exist in and around the city and four are thought to be active.

Records of when the wells were drilled have not been found, Peacher said.

Artesian wells are unique in that the water rises above ground level. Instead of creating a well below ground, water consistently flows and volumes do not fluctuate during various seasons.

Other cities in the Valley reported not having any known active artesian wells in city limits.

The seismic activity last spring has exacerbated the problem after the artesian well near Walnut Avenue and Fifth Street flooded the alley when a few minor earthquakes rattled the area.

Geophysicist Evelyn Roeloffs has studied the effects of earthquakes on groundwater levels for the U.S. Geological Survey and said Peacher may not be far off in his assumptions.

Roeloffs of Vancouver, Wash., said although no specific studies have been conducted on artesian wells in the Imperial Valley, earthquakes can cause such wells to swell in production.

“In areas where earthquakes cause underground formations to contract, it’s like a sponge,” Roeloffs said. “It’ll increase the pressure of that water.”

It is unusual for smaller earthquakes to have such an effect, Roeloffs said.

“It sounds more like a phenomenon that we don’t totally understand. Ground shaking seems to be able to cause small compaction of aquifers,” Roeloffs said.

Several hot springs exist around the Valley and in some cases artesian wells could be transformed into a source of tourism and attraction.

Historical accounts date the wells in Imperial Valley back to as early as 1853.

In the book “Imperial Valley and the Salton Sink” published in 1915 by Harry Thomas Cory and William Phipps Blak, the clay of Cahuilla Lake in the Salton Sea area was described as resting upon rock and sediment.

“Shallow wells reaching to the water table are easily and cheaply sunk within a regional of several miles on either side of the river,” Cory and Blak write.

The book describes wells being explored in El Centro, Brawley and Holtville but only at Holtville has “flowing water been encountered.”

Although the formation of the aquifers that run below the Imperial Valley are unknown, Roeloffs said the proximity to the mountains allow rainwater to collect and drain down to the basin.

“When water flows in the mountains, when it comes out at a Valley floor it can have a higher pressure,” Roeloffs said.

Peacher said the wells are estimated to go down about 800 feet.

The water is highly mineralized and not suitable for drinking, Matt Hughes said of the water tested at the artesian site off Fifth.

Hughes, the city’s underground utilities supervisor, said the city has been maintaining the wells for years.

“Over the years they silt up and stop flowing and we have to clean it out,” Hughes said.

If the city’s estimates are correct, two of the wells could generate up to 30 acre-feet a year alone.

The water flows into the city’s sewer system with the exception of the well near Melon Road and Eleventh Street, which is funneled into a canal managed by the Imperial Irrigation District.

All the wells are on private property and Peacher said although someone could find a good use for the water, the city has no interest in processing it for profit.

Peacher said the property where the Fifth Street artesian well is located is foreclosure and the property owner has not returned the city’s phone calls.

It would be expensive to treat or redirect the water to drain to another location, Peacher said.

But in this era of drought on the Colorado River an uncontrolled rush of continuous water could be an oasis in the desert.

“I don’t know that we would have any use for it. I’m sure someone else would,” Peacher said.#

http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2008/07/03/local_news/news01.txt