[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY -12/3/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

December 3, 2008

 

2. Supply –

 

 

Businesses, watchdogs clash on water policies

San Francisco Chronicle

 

Deeper wells defy drought

As state dries up, company goes extra 40 feet for water

Merced Sun Star

 

Drought emerging as water panel topic

Chico Enterprise Record

 

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Businesses, watchdogs clash on water policies

San Francisco Chronicle – 12/3/08

By Kelly Zito, staff writer

 

What do a computer company, an office chair manufacturer and a soft drink maker have in common?

 

Aside from dealing with the economic slump, all three firms - IBM, Steelcase and Coca-Cola - use vast amounts of water each year. And each is trying to learn to use less.

 

This week, leaders at some of the world's largest corporations are gathering in San Francisco to talk about dwindling freshwater supplies, gray-water recycling technologies and the risks of rising water costs. Among the attendees are Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, MillerCoors, Nestle Waters, Dean Foods, Cadbury, Cisco and Adobe.

"Water is the most critical ingredient for beverages we make around the world," said Lisa Manley, director of environmental communications for Coca-Cola. "But in doing business in 200 countries, we're also a local business. We know we can only be as sustainable as the communities where we're working because water is the No. 1 resource people need for health and economic prosperity."

 

Manley said the soda company is working on a global program that would return all of the 300 billion liters of water it uses each year back to local communities and the environment. But water watchdog groups compare such statements to greenwashing - the term used to describe companies that tout the eco-friendliness of products and services that may be quite the opposite.

 

"This constitutes 'bluewashing' when you get down to it," said Mark Schlosberg, spokesman for Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group. "We welcome efforts to increase sustainable water use, but such discussions can't be led by the companies that are some of the biggest water abusers in the world."

 

Today, the group plans a news conference and a series of sidewalk skits that parody big corporations' use of a resource that is widely described as "the next oil."

The location for the protest and a two-day conference on water that drew not only big industry but government, nonprofits and the scientific community could not be more appropriate. With a continuing drought, crumbling water infrastructure, dying fish populations and hard questions about how water is divvied up, California is home to some of thorniest water supply dilemmas in the nation.

 

Although the food and beverage industry generally has not been an overwhelming part of the water debate in the state, pockets of controversy exist.

The Siskiyou County town of McCloud, for example, is embroiled in a bitter battle with Nestle Waters after the company several years ago proposed a 1 million-square-foot bottled-water facility that would have siphoned about 1,250 gallons per minute from tributaries feeding into the McCloud River. According to published reports, the company would have paid about $350,000 to the local water district for a 100-year contract.

 

After protracted community resistance forced Nestle Water to pull out of the contract this summer, the company is asking the McCloud Community Services District to consider a scaled-down version of the plan that would pull about 600 gallons per minute from the waterways.

 

Environmentalists still question the impacts the project would have on the pristine landscape and an important feeder river to the nearby Shasta reservoir. But some local authorities see their rich water supply as a way to create jobs - an alluring prospect for a former lumber town whose economy relies mostly on tourism.

"There are people who say don't touch the water and leave the springs pristine," said Beth Steele, general manager for the services district. "While I understand the emotional reasons for that, it's not realistic in the state of California."#

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/03/MNOH14GARV.DTL

 

Deeper wells defy drought

As state dries up, company goes extra 40 feet for water

Merced Sun Star – 12/3/08

By Jonah Owen Lamb

 

Armando Blas gripped a 3-foot-long mud-covered metal drill bit as a long drill shaft spun into place from above. The tall rig holding the shaft stood 42 feet above the ground from the back of a truck whose engine was running.

 

On Tuesday afternoon the rig groaned away on a cold, empty lot just north of Merced.

Beside the rig, two muddy trenches filled with water. As the drill sunk deeper into the ground, a pump sucked up the muddy liquid from the trench and shot it back down the drill hole to lubricate the two-day well-drilling process.

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After pushing down past mud and rock and sand, the well will tap 300 feet below the Valley floor. At that depth it won't catch any of the chemical runoff that floats at the top of the water table, said Joe Silveira as he watched Blas at work.

 

In the midst of a drought, with water tables continuing to drop and farms and cities with their never-ending thirst for water, Silveira's Atwater-based Quality Well Drillers has been working overtime to drill ever-deeper holes in the soil of the Central Valley.

 

For Silveira's 12-man crew and its five rigs, this has been a nonstop year. So far, they've drilled about 300 wells, said Silveira. Until Thanksgiving, he employed one agricultural well driller going 24 hours a day.

 

"We've been really busy the last 15 years," said Silveira. "Now, because of the drought, we're doing about 30 percent more than usual."

 

His company's good fortune has come from a sinking water table and a long dry spell.

 

With a three-year drought, the already declining levels of the water table haven't been replenished.

 

But for as far back as Silveira can remember, the groundwater has been dropping in the Valley.

 

"Around Atwater we've seen drops of 40 feet in the water level," said Silveira as he leaned against his truck watching the drill dig into the soil.

 

According to the state's Department of Water Resources' California Ground Water Bulletin, Merced's groundwater levels have sunk 30 feet since 1970.

 

The story is similar across much of the Valley. With the drought getting worse, the only place to get water is from the ground.

 

Merced Irrigation District's general manager, Dan Pope, said it has had to increase pumping with reservoir levels almost 50 percent below average. This growing season they ran 170 pumps. Typically, they have 40 or 50 pumps running.

 

"This thing's going to get really serious if we don't get some snow and some rain soon," said Silveira.

 

Silveira is no stranger to drought. He first got into drilling during the 1976-77 drought, the worst in recent history. A couple of his friends were working on rigs at the time, and he got a job. Eventually, he bought some rigs of his own and has been sinking holes ever since.

 

Besides the deeper depths, wells are pretty much the same. After drilling down beneath the water table and into sand, a 5-inch PVC pipe is placed down the hole. The perforated pipe is encircled in small rounded beach stones from Monterey that filter the water. Finally, crews cap the well with clay that prevents runoff from going down the hole.

 

"If it's done properly they don't need another filtration system," said Silveira.

But with a sinking aquifer and prolonged drought, one day there may be no water to filter.#

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/story/576019.html

 

Drought emerging as water panel topic

Chico Enterprise Record – 12/3/08

By HEATHER HACKING - Staff Writer

OROVILLE — Drought-related topics are beginning to be the norm at meetings of the county's Water Commission.

 

With the state's water picture looking more and more bleak, the county's water staff continues to monitor groundwater conditions, which are predictably dropping.

In addition to the threat of wells going dry, the county is increasingly on alert that the state will be looking at Northern California to fill in the state's water gaps.

Vickie Newlin, assistant director of Butte County's Department of Water and Resource Conservation, said the county has been working with the state Department of Water Resources on the 2009 Drought Water Bank, which is looking for water transfers through crop idling and using groundwater instead of surface water.

Butte County has Chapter 33, which is a groundwater ordinance that prohibits transfer of groundwater outside the county and prohibits transferring surface water and using groundwater, unless a permit is granted.

 

However, there are more factors involved.

 

"The projections for 2009 are pretty gloomy," Newlin said. "We don't know what will happen."

 

In Butte, and other counties, many agricultural water users receive water through settlement contracts. These users have water rights that date back before Oroville Dam was built. While these water rights are generally more stable than others, they too can be cut back if water is scarce. Many of those contracts allow for a cutback of up to 50 percent in a dry year, and up to 100 percent decrease over two years.

 

Those cutbacks would not come with a water payment, Newlin explained.

 

Additionally, those water users would likely seek groundwater.

 

"We need to start thinking about how we could help people through that," Newlin said.

 

For example, if the drought intensifies, neighbors may need to organize to talk to one another so that everyone does not start pumping groundwater at the same time, Newlin said.

 

Water Commissioner David Skinner said he recently talked with three groundwater users who use water for orchards and they said they already noted water pressure was down in August.

 

"It seems we're in a precarious situation if we don't get rain," Skinner said.

 

He said people should be aware that things could get very bad next June and July if conditions continue.

 

Butte has been working with the counties of Colusa, Glenn, and Tehama on regional water planning, and a report is due out today on talks.

New development, both agricultural and residential, continue to put pressure on the existing water supplies, county water staff explained. Also, as drought intensifies, so have legal challenges to water delivery due to environmental concerns.

 

Kristen McKillop, manager of water program development, gave a report on groundwater levels.

 

Several areas are showing groundwater levels similar to the early 1990s when wells began to go dry, prompting the passage of the county's Chapter 33, groundwater protection ordinance, also known as Measure G.

 

With those low groundwater reports, there will be much more discussion needed. #

http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_11126181

 

 

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