PD Editorial: Next steps in groundwater managment

Sonoma County, like the rest of California, is stepping cautiously into a new era of groundwater regulation.

Plunging right in might make more sense.

In a typical year, about a third of the water used in the state comes from underground wells, and the volume increases to 60 percent or more in dry years.

Unlike any other states in the arid West, landowners are free to pump as much water as they want.

The results are predictable. In parts of the Central Valley, the land is sinking about a foot a year. The results of so many straws in the ground are easy to see as canals buckle and bridges sink. What isn’t visible, but may be a greater long-term threat, is the inability to recharge aquifers because underground pockets that once held water have collapsed.

Subsidence isn’t a new problem. A famous 1977 photo shows a scientist standing alongside a telephone pole near Mendota, with signs far above his head marking ground level in 1925 and 1955.

Here in Sonoma County, groundwater pumping has resulted in saltwater intrusion in the Sonoma Valley and water tables sinking in the Santa Rosa Plain and the Petaluma area.

Three newly enacted state laws require local officials to develop mechanisms to protect those aquifers considered at greatest risk of depletion.

Sonoma County supervisors are launching a two-year project to gather input from cities, agricultural users, environmental groups and property owners. From there, they will go to work on rules that could include registration and monitoring of wells, minimum distances between new wells and mandatory reporting of how much water is pumped. Groundwater recharge and conservation projects could be funded by fees assessed to well owners.

“Monitoring and conserving groundwater is no longer going to be voluntary,” said Jay Jasperse, the director of groundwater management for the Sonoma County Water Agency.

Similar efforts are beginning around the state.

But they won’t produce results any time soon. The law gives local agencies seven years to develop groundwater plans and sets a 2042 deadline for them to show that aquifers are healthy or risk fines or a state takeover of groundwater regulation.

Passing any groundwater legislation was difficult, but California legislators should speed up the process of monitoring this vital resource.

A good first step would be approving SB 20 by state Sen. Fran Pavley.

Pavley, D-Calabasas, was an architect of last year’s groundwater package. Her new measure would open a trove of state data on wells to researchers and the public. Over six decades, the state has collected about 800,000 well logs, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting. These documents, filed by drillers, include the location and depths of wells and the type of soil in the area. They can be used to map aquifers and forecast depletion rates, but access is limited by a 1951 law that treats these records as confidential.

Pavley’s bill is opposed by big growers and their allies, just as they fought the groundwater bills last year, even as city dwellers are under orders to curtail their water use.

California’s groundwater is like a savings account or insurance, not for a rainy day, but for those times, like now, when rainy days are few and far between. Groundwater must be protected, and public policy must balance the competing needs of residents, agriculture and the environment. To accomplish that, policymakers need the best available information.

Passing Pavley’s bill would be a good start, but California shouldn’t sit idly for 27 more years before protecting its water in the bank.