The Issue of Water

By Vern Kalshan

The District must determine a fair allocation of water for each household before additional water is obtained. Historical usage data alone is not reliable because of the sacrifices that residents have made out of fear our wells will run dry.

When this allocation is established, we will know how much water is needed for current residents. A feasible source can then be determined with a consensus of the residents.

Residents should balance the impacts on their cost of living with the benefits that the additional water will bring to the community.

Desalination of sea water may not be the best solution to our water problems. I question its popularity after we continue to pay for its maintenance and upgrades every year. I have been told that Morro Bay had to pay nearly $1.5 million to activate their plant recently. Even "trucking in" water in a drought years about every ten years may cost less than maintaining a desal plant.

Wherever the discharge from the desal plant changes the sea water salinity by 10%, certain marine life will perish.

Lake Nacimiento has always had enough annual rain to provide the County's guaranteed allotment of 17,500 acre feet, which is less than 5% of the maximum storage capacity of Lake Nacimiento. Piping our share of that water from the Lake offers opportunities to restore San Simeon Creek, to ensure that our wells will not be intruded by sea water, and to allow more gray water for landscaping.

The CCSD's currrent plans to increase water storage capcity for effective fire suppression must be supported as well as the action against Chevron for polluting our Santa Rosa Creek wells.

My services have been donated to prepare a 14 page deed to transfer 88 parcels in Fern Canyon from the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County to the CCSD.

I have acted as atttorney for the Cambria Legal Defense Fund and the Citizens for Fair Land Use in administrative hearings and litigation concerning the Coastal Act.

My office has incorported the North Coast Alliance, assisted with the organization of The Friends of the Ranchland, and established two other land trusts in San Luis Obispo County.

From January 1971 to June 1975, I was a deputy district attorney for Kern County.