WATER

By Debra Diane "Debbie" Peterson

"We will never know the worth of water 'til the well runs dry." - Scottish proverb

Because Grover residents have been so responsible with their water use, many are finding it a hardship to reduce consumption a further ten percent, as required by the City's Stage III Drought declaration. The declaration was made because we truly are in crisis. Here's the story behind the story.

59% of Grover Beach's water comes from our wells and 41% from Lopez Lake.

Grover Beach has an excellent track record for conservation:

· Since the `70's all new development retains water on site.

· Grover residents use 30 indoor gallons water per capita per day. In 2005 Californians were using 101-125. [1]

· Grover was the first local city offering 'cash for grass, water efficient washing machine, and irrigation rebates.

· Grover replaces old toilets with low flow toilets including installation, free of charge.

· Grover stays within its entitlement to Lopez Water and uses less than its entitlement to ground water.

Our water entitlement is established by adjudication. If existing water sources are reliable, the City can reach build out without the need to acquire more water.

Five Cities well water comes from the Arroyo Grande Basin, a sub-basin of the Mesa Basin, which is a sub-basin of the Santa Maria Basin. Groundwater in the Santa Maria River Valley Groundwater Basin generally flows from the Southeast near Sisquoc toward Santa Maria, then to the Nipomo Mesa, and finally to the Coast between Point Sal and Grover Beach.

Five Cities well water comes from the Arroyo Grande Groundwater Basin, also known as the Northern Cities Management Area (NCMA). The NCMA is the northern most sub-basin of the Santa Maria River Valley Groundwater Basin. We are bordered on the East by the Mesa sub-basin, also known as the Nipomo Mesa Management Area (NMMA) and the NMMA is bordered on the East by the Santa Maria Valley Management Area (SMVMA), the last of the three sub basins within the overall Santa Maria groundwater basin.

In 1965 the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) identified a pumping depression on the Mesa. This depression has continued to grow dramatically and now threatens groundwater flow to the Five Cities (NCMA). Groundwater depressions are most prominent under the new development and under the wells that supply water to Nipomo.

As far back as 1980 the State identified our basin as being in overdraft.[2] In 2002 the DWR said,

"As the population of San Luis Obispo County has increased in recent years, concern about the adequacy of its water supply, particularly its groundwater supply, has also increased. Nowhere is this more true than in the Arroyo Grande-Nipomo Mesa area. In 1979, when the Department of Water Resources conducted an assessment of the available groundwater resources within the Santa Maria Groundwater Basin, it mentioned that groundwater extractions had resulted in declining water levels in all parts of the study area."[3]

As of June 10, 2014 the State of California lists the Santa Maria Basin as the 11th highest priority basins in overdraft out of the 515 basins identified.[4] The Paso Robles Basin is number one.

Even so, for these 49 years the County has approved new development on the Mesa without first requiring a sustainable water source.

"There is a disconnect between County land use policy and local basin management that must be fixed. On the Mesa there are 19 water purveyors. Of the 19, only two are public agencies. The for-profit water companies benefit from expanding their customer bases and extracting as much groundwater as possible. The water that is allocated to Grover Beach by adjudication cannot reach our wells because we are downstream of a basin managed by a collective of competing landowners and water purveyors who benefit by depleting a finite water supply and whose unsustainable growth is managed by an outside agency disincentivized by donations of hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars from developers and residents overlying the basin."

Debbie Peterson, Mayor, Grover Beach

The 2013 Annual Report prepared by the Nipomo Mesa Management Area Technical Group acknowledges that there is now a landward gradient from some of their coastal sentry wells toward the main groundwater depression on the Mesa, meaning that water now flows "downhill" from the ocean to NCMA wells, rather than "downhill" to the Five Cities' wells.

Also according to the 2013 NMMA Annual Report, the consumptive water use on the Mesa exceeds 12,000 acre feet per year, yet a 2002 report by DWR indicates that the dependable yield of that area is between 4,800 and 6,000 acre feet per year, i.e. they are overdrawing the safe yield by at least two times year after year after year, while continuing to approve new development and depriving Five Cities wells of the water allocated to them by adjudication.

Other information in prior NMMA Annual Reports, supports the theory that the pumping depression on the Mesa is intercepting at least 1,300 acre feet per year that historically flowed to NCMA.

Early this year NCMA (Five Cities) sentry wells reached a very low level, similar to that reached in 2009, when markers for seawater intrusion were seen in the NCMA sentry well just off of Pier Avenue in Oceano. NCMA agencies drastically reduced groundwater pumping at that time and that reduction in pumping has continued to the present.

"When you drink the water, remember the spring."
- Chinese Proverb -

A key water resource to Grover Beach and other NCMA agencies has been Lopez surplus water. Lopez surplus is created when an agency does not utilize all the water it is entitled to in any given year and in that case, the unused entitlement water is carried over into the next year and becomes available as surplus. The County is contractually required to declare surplus water after April of each year.

It is vital that all NCMA agencies receive all of the Lopez entitlement water we have previously set aside in order to minimize groundwater pumping and thereby preserve the groundwater aquifer. If seawater intrusion contaminates Grover Beach wells, water use in the City would have to be drastically reduced until alternative water supplies are developed or found. In 2010 Philips Refinery had seawater intrusion.

To date it costs the City about $300 per acre foot of groundwater pumped and the City currently has an entitlement to over 1,400 acre feet per year of groundwater. Recent studies have put the cost of supplemental water supplies at near $1,100 per acre foot for State Water if it is available, and $1,500 to over $3,000 per acre foot for recycled wastewater, depending on what project can be funded and built. Even at the lowest price of $1,100 per acre foot the cost to replace 1,400 acre feet of groundwater would be well over $1,000,000 per year.

THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MUST:

Protect the health and safety of Mesa and Five Cities residents and our water supply by suspending land use approvals, developing supplemental water sources, ceasing well drilling and refusing new water hookups on the Mesa until the basin achieves sustainable levels of use.

"The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives."
- American Indian Saying -

The information contained in this article has been verified with public works and city engineering staff. Citations to reports are noted below.

[1]. Water data from USGS, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2005. http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/our_water/tomorrow_beyond.html

[2]. Jan 1, 1980 ... Ground Water Basins in California. A Report to the Legislature. In Response to. Water Code Section 12924. January 1980. Huey D. Johnson. http://www.water.ca.gov/...basins..._/b118_80_ground_water_ocr.pdf

[3]. Introduction, Department of Water Resources, Southern District, Water Resource of the Arroyo Grande-Nipomo Mesa Area, 2002 http://www.dpla.water.ca.gov/sd/water_quality/arroyo_grande/chapter_i.pdf

[4]. CASGEM Basin Prioritization http://www.water.ca.gov/groundwater/casgem/basin_prioritization.cfm