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GA discusses health and safety, imported water

The Daily Independent - 10/19/2018

Oct. 19--Health and safety concerns became a topic of discussion at Thursday's Indian Wells Valley Groundwater board meeting when Ridgecrest resident Nick Panzer broached the subject.

Speaking during public comment, Panzer presented a letter to board addressing possible water allocations down the road as the Groundwater Authority prepares its sustainability plan.

"We must end overdraft in our basin," Panzer said. "That means we must reduce pumping from about 28,000 acre feet a year to about 7,000 acre-feet per year."

Health and safety commonly refers to a reliable source of quality potable and drinking water needed for homes and businesses to be habitable. California has strict guidelines of what that entails, as do local governments.

The Groundwater Authority has been tasked under the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, to develop a plan to bring water pumping to a sustainable yield over the next 20 years.

The plan must be submitted to the Department of Water Resources for approval by Jan. 31, 2020, and then implemented after it receives the state's blessing.

The IWV, like dozens of other basins in California, has been classified as being in high-priority critical overdraft. Current studies indicate that between 25,000 and 28,000 acre-feet is being pumped out versus a natural recharge rate of approximately 7,000 to 8,000 acre-feet.

"Our most relevant policy question is how are we to allocate equitably that 7,000 acre-feet among competing demands for it," Panzer said. "Because this 7,000 acre feet is most likely the only affordable water that we will ever have in the basin, I believe it should go to the health and safety needs of the 35,000 people that live and work in Indian Wells Valley and Searles Valley."

Resident West Katzenstein agreed.

"I think we need to recognize that we can protect the vast majority of infrastructure investments, homes and businesses and people's livelihoods if we give a basic allocation of the inexpensive water to the health and safety needs of all the users in the IWV," Katzenstein said. "That should be the critical first allocation and then you can argue about who gets the rest, if there's any left."

The sustainability plan the Groundwater Authority is working on through Stetson Engineers, Inc., the firm contracted as the water resources manager, will take into account a number of factors, including how water will be delegated, as well as feasible alternative water resources.

In addition, the IWV Water District, in partnership with other businesses, is conducting a brackish water study in the basin to determine how such water can be used as a supplemental source to potable water. While the brackish water won't be a considered a "new" source because it's being pumped from basin, it could help address demands.

Board vice president Peter Brown, who represents the IWV Water District, said the Groundwater Authority isn't ignoring anything.

"I'm what's best for the community. I represent the water district, but here I represent it in this agency. What's fair is what's equitable," Brown said. "I don't favor anyone, just what's right based on the information that we collect. Needless to say, the needs of the people are our highest priority."

However, he said people shouldn't rule out the fact that outside water will be an option down the road.

"There are always solutions. There are quantifiable problems with quantifiable solutions," Brown said. "Our job is to find the best ones that are cost effective and realistic.

Jeff Helsley with Stetson Engineers, Inc., said that modelings are being developed as part of the sustainability plan.

"Our potential scenarios looked at the different pumper groups, and looked at different ramp downs and reductions in pumping," Helsley said. "The domestic users get certain allocations and municipal districts got a certain allocation, as did the other pumpers."

He said while it hasn't been framed the way that Panzer had suggested, health and safety concerns are included in those scenarios.

"We've got those scenarios out there for comment," Helsley said. "We don't have to decide on what those scenarios are just yet, and we can continue the discussion on that."

In addition to those scenarios, Stetson Engineers is wrapping up work on concepts for importing water into the basin. A technical memorandum will be written up and provided to the Groundwater Authority's technical advisory committee for comment and recommendations.

A few of those options have included working with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power or with the Antelope Valley East Kern Water Agency.

"One of our concepts is to exchange water with the LA Department of Water and Power, get from water from them in exchange for water we get someplace else, recharge it into basin, pump it back up for use in this basin," he said.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct runs through the Sierra Nevada on the west side of the valley, and could be used as a potential source for procuring the water.

Helsley added LADWP is looking at options to bank water from the aqueduct, and had been studying both the IWV and Antelope Valley as potential options. Helsley said an LADWP consultant contacted him last week to set up a talk about a potential discussion about conceptual options.

"They are talking about setting up a pilot project," Helsley said. "We don't know what that exactly means, but they're looking at the next year or so to set something up in the El Paso Mountains [area of the basin]."

When asked about who would pay for the infrastructure, Stetson Engineers president Steve Johnson said it would be negotiable.

"They already have the infrastructure like the turnouts," he said. "Whether it gets the water to where we want it, we will work that out, but we would have a lot of other negotiation issues under that. ... The word is out that we need water here."

Johnson noted that the Groundwater Authority and Stetson have been aware of health and safety concerns for a long time and have been penciled in.

In addition, he and Groundwater Authority staff, along with its special legal council Jim Markman, sat down with stakeholder groups to discuss issues.

"The topic that was consistent with all groups was imported water, that we can't do this without imported water," Johnson said.

Other topics were the excess pumping and ramping down water production over the course of the sustainability plan's existence. Ramping down would involve any number of scenarios, but ultimately will include a staged decrease in how much water is pumped to acceptable bare minimum.

He said that would include working on conservation methods.

"What we are hearing from Jim [Markman] is that a ramp down needs to be fair and equitable," Johnson said.

He said cost of imported water was another concern.

"We know it's not going to cheap, we've all heard that," Johnson said. "We've beat it to death about what our options are and seen the costs."

He added that the Groundwater Authority would have to look at the impact a ramp down will have on shallow wells, as well as a corresponding mitigation plan. Other technical concerns had to do with whether a ramp down might pull poor quality water into the good quality areas.

Board member Bob Harrington, who represents Inyo County on the Groundwater Authority, asked when Stetson might put numbers things like to the cost of imported water.

"We are looking at different approaches to it and different ramp down scenarios," Johnson said. "Jim's general approach to it is if you ramp down, it will create a market of people who have allowed pumping but not need it, so they can lease it to those who need it more."

He said the general idea is to have people work together on that type of market system. But it's still being developed.

Panzer said the Groundwater Authority might be ignoring an important SGMA requirement: explaining the source and reliability of imported water.

"In my mind, it should not be a part of our plan until you proof up your source and your reliability," Panzer said. "I'm all for importing and all sources of new water, but let's not put them in the plan until we have them in hand."

He added that the Groundwater Authority won't have an idea of the cost of imported water until after it submits its sustainability plan "and the bidding war starts."

"I'm guessing that just about every other overdrafted basin is going to do what we would like to do --import," Panzer said. "When we go start chasing all those same scarce sources, we will begin to have an idea of what importing water will really cost. It's going to be higher than we all think, in my opinion."

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