Water use study begins in January

A disputed monitoring plan for ground-water usage in the Sonoma Valley will get started in January after agriculture interests agreed to participate.

Operations such as vineyards and dairies account for about 70 percent of the valley's use of ground water, so including them in the monitoring program was crucial to efforts aimed at reducing demand and ensuring water quality.

"Without ag, this wouldn't work," said Bob Anderson, executive director of the United Winegrowers for Sonoma County. "The wine families in the valley and the old-guard dairy operators had to be convinced the county was not out to steal their water."

Ground-water monitoring has been a contentious issue in recent years, evidenced by an especially prickly debate over 2020 General Plan proposals to monitor usage of well water. Environmentalists say ground-water sources are being depleted and contaminated, while property rights advocates staunchly defend their land and water rights against government regulation.

Proponents of a ground-water management plan for an area that spreads from Kenwood to San Pablo Bay praise the "nonregulatory" nature and say the plan could be a model for other areas of the county where ground water is an issue.

County supervisors recently approved establishing a ground-water management plan for the Sonoma Valley, a step essential for a Sonoma County Water Agency application for a state grant for $250 million to pay for dedicated monitoring wells.

Jay Jasperse, the Water Agency's chief deputy engineer, said the monitoring plan will cobble together measurements taken at about 50 existing wells.

"A ground-water management plan will allow us to expand monitoring, with our goal being roughly 75 to 80 wells that will provide the data for scientific monitoring of the basin," Jasperse said.

Supervisor Valerie Brown, who represents the Sonoma Valley, said that when discussions of the need for ground-water management began in June 2006, she wasn't sure "the stakeholders even agreed there was a problem they wanted to solve."

A couple of months later, the Sonoma County Water Agency convened a 20-member Basin Advisory Panel with members representing "stakeholders" such as agriculture and business interests, citizen and environmental groups, well owners and representatives of the Valley of the Moon Water District and city of Sonoma. During 13 meetings, the panel developed monitoring protocols and debated the technical aspects of ground-water measurement.

"We had our own ideas and concerns, and we were less than certain that they would be respected or understood," said Vicky Mulas of Schellville's dairy ranching family. "If we could do this, then the ground-water problem in Sonoma County can be addressed."

Much of the impetus behind ground-water management stemmed from a joint Water Agency and U.S. Geological Survey study that had determined there was a decline in ground-water levels in different areas of the valley. Overall, the study found demand had increased from 6,000 to 8,500 acre-feet annually between 1974 and 2000 while there was a 17,300 acre-foot decrease in storage.

Similar studies in the Alexander Valley and Santa Rosa Plain are likely to raise red flags among environmentalists concerned about draw-down of the aquifer and could rattled landowners worried about adequate supply as well as government regulation.

Jane Nielson of the Sebastopol Water Information Group said she attended about half the basin panel's sessions as an observer because "eventually, this is an issue that is going to reach the Santa Rosa Plain and beyond."

"This was a group of people that was pretty divided according to where they came from," Nelson said. "Each community really got educated about water."

Schellville vintner Tito Sasaki, representing the North Bay Agricultural Alliance, a group of ranchers and landowners dedicated to farming and property rights, said, "In the big picture, we wholeheartedly support ground-water sustainability. (The plan) does this without putting the brakes on our economic progress."

You can reach Staff Writer Bleys W. Rose at 521-5431 or bleys.rose@pressdemocrat.com.