[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 8/25/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

August 25, 2008

 

2. Supply –

 

Assembly GOP dismisses Dems' water bond measure

Fresno Bee

 

Silicon Valley's water bank: underground storage in Central Valley

San Jose Mercury News

 

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Assembly GOP dismisses Dems' water bond measure

Fresno Bee – 8/23/08

By E.J. Schultz

Assembly Democrats on Friday unveiled a $9.8 billion water bond proposal, but Republicans immediately rejected the plan, and time is running out to get a measure on the Nov. 4 ballot.

 

The plan is similar to the $9.3 billion bond pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been trying to broker a water deal for two years.

Both include $3 billion for storage – possibly including dams – and money for conservation, recycling and ecosystem improvements in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

But there's at least one key difference. Democrats want to be able to oversee water-storage spending yearly.

 

Republicans, fearing that Democrats will pull the money for dams, are seeking a continuous appropriation, which is included in the governor's plan.

"They don't have a vote in the Republican caucus for this kind of a water plan, that's a guarantee," said Assemblyman Tom Berryhill, R-Modesto, one of the lead water negotiators for Republicans.

 

But Assemblyman Juan Arambula, D-Fresno, who unlike most other Democrats has supported money for dams, said the plan is a good compromise, "the best that we have seen to date."

 

The latest deadline to get the bond on the Nov. 4 ballot is Sunday. However, some lawmakers believe that, in reality, they may have all of next week to strike a water deal.

 

The Democratic plan will be given an informational hearing Monday. No vote is scheduled.

 

"If we finish work and are able to get it on the ballot this year we will," said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles. "But if not, we will continue to work diligently and hopefully get on a subsequent ballot."#

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1179654.html

 

Silicon Valley's water bank: underground storage in Central Valley

San Jose Mercury News – 8/23/08

By Paul Rogers

 

WASCO - This farm community 25 miles north of Bakersfield, where billboards advertise new homes for $119,000 and almond trees stretch from dusty roads to the horizon, is a world away from Silicon Valley.

 

But one thing ties them together: water.

 

In an innovative arrangement that may become more common as California struggles to quench the thirst of its growing population, Silicon Valley has been using the hardscrabble ground of Kern County, 200 miles south, as a giant subterranean piggy bank to store water.

 

For more than a decade, the Santa Clara Valley Water District has been steadily transferring its excess water during wet seasons to underground aquifers east of Interstate 5. It has built a considerable aquatic balance: 86 billion gallons - enough for 1.3 million people for a year.

 

But now, facing a dry year, the agency that provides South Bay residents their water has made its first withdrawal - and plans to make another this fall.

"It's like any bank. You put money in, then take it out when you need it," said Will Boschman, general manager of the Semitropic Water Storage District, which manages the aquifers near Wasco. The agency is made up of about 300 farmers who grow almonds, alfalfa and cotton on 220,000 acres.

 

Lucky geology

 

Boschman's agency benefits from serendipitous geology. It is located in a giant basin, where huge amounts of water can be stored in sand and gravel below the

surface. That water is kept in place by thick layers of clay and rock.

 

"The whole valley is like a bathtub," he said. "And we're at the bottom."

 

To manage it, Boschman runs a system of canals, percolation ponds, pumps and pipes, some 10 feet in diameter, to put water in the Semitropic aquifers 250 feet deep and lower and pump it out again.

 

Five other water districts, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, also have contracts to collectively store 1 million acre-feet in the ground here.

 

If that amount were stored above ground, it would rank among the state's 10 largest reservoirs, as big as the lake behind Folsom Dam.

 

A study last year by the Environmental Defense Fund found that since 1990, California had added at least 5 million acre-feet of new storage capacity in underground water banks. That's roughly the amount of water that 25 million people use in a year.

 

"Projects like Semitropic are part of an absolute explosion in new water storage that we've seen in the last 15 years," said Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a San Francisco environmental group.

 

As Sacramento politicians deadlock again this year on whether to spend billions of dollars building new dams, backers of groundwater banks note it is cheaper to store water underground. The water doesn't evaporate. To be sure, there have been skeptics in some farm communities who are uncomfortable with transferring water stored in local aquifers to other places. But storing water underground almost never sparks the environmental battles - over endangered species and lost habitat - that can tie up dam projects for decades.

 

"This is a place where there is remarkable agreement," Nelson said.

 

District's decision

Silicon Valley's decision to take the plunge was simple.

 

The Santa Clara Valley Water District provides water to 1.8 million people in San Jose and surrounding communities. Half comes from local wells. The other half comes from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. In wet years, all 10 of the district's local reservoirs fill up. Yet the agency often has rights to more delta water under its contracts with the state and federal governments.

 

"We have all this water in wet years that we can't use," said Larry Wilson, a board member of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. "The important thing for us is how can we level it out and have a water supply that will be available for us in dry years? We had to find some place to put it so we could use it later."

 

By the mid-1990s, the district considered building a new reservoir somewhere south of San Jose. It would have cost $500 million or more and sparked long environmental battles.

 

Buying into the Semitropic project cost $46 million in capital costs. After paying pumping fees, delta charges and other expenses, Santa Clara pays about $450 an acre-foot for Semitropic water. That's still cheaper than building a new reservoir, desalination plant or recycled water plant.

 

There's no way to pump water north from Bakersfield to San Jose. So in wet years, the Santa Clara Valley district sends some of its delta water down the California Aqueduct, a canal that runs along I-5, to Wasco. There, it is either put in percolation ponds to seep in the ground, or given to Semitropic farmers who consume it instead of pumping groundwater, thus allowing the water table to rise over time.

 

When it's dry

When it's time to make a withdrawal, the Santa Clara Valley Water District takes water from the delta that would have otherwise gone to Semitropic.

Wilson stressed that his agency still may one day propose a new dam in Santa Clara County. But he said of the underground deal: "It's a good value, and I feel really good about where we are."

 

In December, the district requested 20,000 acre-feet from the water bank - about 5 percent of the South Bay's annual need. The district has asked for an additional 10,000 acre-feet this fall.

 

Farmers were initially uncomfortable with the idea of transferring water from under their fields to other places, said Boschman of Semitropic. But the extra water that has been stored in their aquifers has raised the water table 50 feet, reducing their PG&E bills for pumping, he said, and now they are supportive.

 

There are downsides. Underground water stored far away could be stranded if an earthquake or lawsuit disrupts delta pumping.

 

Although Semitropic monitors the 265,000 acre-feet that Santa Clara Valley banks underground, there are few statewide rules regulating groundwater pumping.

"In places like Kern County where they have been doing this for years, they have worked out agreements with their neighbors as to how fast they'll draw water out," said Mark Cowin, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources. "They are pretty sophisticated. But in other areas, these concerns still have to be solved."

 

Wilson said he can envision Silicon Valley - and other California communities - storing more of their water in underground water banks in the years ahead.

"These days, water districts have to be more creative," he said.#

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10283776?nclick_check=1