Assistant Sebastopol city Manager Sue Kelly's comments
about Sebastopol's water supply (Dec. 23), call for amplification
and correction. Groundwater is a shared resource - everybody
drawing from the same groundwater basin or aquifer shares
the same water supply, no matter where cities and counties
draw or re-draw their boundaries or spheres of influence.
Sebastopol's groundwater basin and aquifers, which provide
its water, have never been well defined. As Kelly stated,
the sparse available information suggests that the city's
groundwater mostly comes from hills along Pleasant Hill
Road, perhaps from the Atascadero Creek watershed, and
even from the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Every homeowner, agriculture
enterprise, business, municipality, or other public agency
with a well in that area draws from the same water source
as Sebastopol.
Obviously, many of those water-supply
areas lie beyond city Limits - in some of them, private
wells are now going dry. Kelly asserted "We have no evidence," for
why those wells are going dry, and denied any city responsibility
for the problem. But the Sebastopol Water Information Group
(SWiG) has collected evidence from official well records
and through monitoring of private wells, which shows that
falling groundwater levels have dried up most of those
wells. Comparison of the original water levels at the construction
of Sebastopol's wells with recently-measured levels in
Kelly's report clearly demonstrates the same extent of
groundwater decline.
Kelly's view that the city has no responsibility whatsoever
for the impacts of the city's wells on others who depend
on that same aquifer is erroneous and dangerously shortsighted.
In assessing the effect of future additional development
on Sebastopol's water supply, Kelly also does not believe
that Sebastopol should take into account the potential
for city wells to lose groundwater to the Sonoma County
Water Agency's (SCWA) three larger and more productive
Laguna wells pumping an average of nearly 5 million gallons
of water every day - equal to a 30,000-person city.
A year ago, SWiG discovered that Sebastopol never has
obtained studies to either delineate its water supply,
establish whether the water checkbook is in balance for
the local area, or determine the extent to which the SCWA's
Laguna wells affect Sebastopol's groundwater supply. The
city of Rohnert Park also has denied its responsibility
for groundwater declines outside its boundaries. To date,
Rohnert Park has not prevailed against legal challenges
from the surrounding residents, based on property owners'
well-monitoring data. Sebastopol's present level of ignorance
about its groundwater supply also is not legally defensible
But things are changing, and we are fortunate that Sebastopol
is not Rohnert Park. The Sebastopol City Council made groundwater
management their top goal for 2004, and invited SWiG's
participation on a city water committee. SWiG hopes that
Sebastopol's city Council members will not be content with
incomplete groundwater supply information from their staff,
and will make development and adoption of a groundwater
management plan their top goal for 2005. Sebastopol should
seek available state funding as soon as possible for groundwater
studies to identify: the actual extent and sources of the
city's groundwater supply, he potential for losing some
of its groundwater to SCWA wells and the sustainable level
of extraction from this shared resource. At the same time,
the city needs to partner with representatives of all who
draw water from the same resource as it develops and adopts
a basin-wide Groundwater Management Plan, in 2005.
David Noren and Jane Nielson are members
of SWiG, the Sebastopol Water Information Group.
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EDITOR: Reading
the recently published report by Sebastopol city engineer
Sue Kelly, "Development
Impacts on City Water Supply," I am struck by its
omissions and inaccuracies. And how can this be when
the community water information group, SWiG, (headed
up by very professional scientists and in consultation
with PhD hydrologist Steve Carle) has so painstakingly
provided information and data that is being ignored?
I have to wonder if development forces in and around
Sebastopol have become so concerned about groundwater
depletion problems, that have been brought up repeatedly
by the public and documented by SWiG, that they encouraged
the city to produce this report. It appears to be a whitewash
job - an attempt to create an artificial controversy
over groundwater supplies, even though the data collected
by SWiG, as well as the evidence of many private well
owners, just outside Sebastopol city limits, shows that
the depletion of groundwater is a fact.
Not only that, Kelly blithely disavows any concern or
responsibility toward the many wells coincidentally going
dry just outside city limits.
I live on property just south/east of the city limits,
historically a water rich area. The water table in our
area has declined by 60 feet. Thus far we have gotten
by with putting in a secondary water storage tank and
pump, but several of our neighbors have had to put in
new wells. We don't blame Sebastopol city wells entirely
for the groundwater depletion. However, before considering
new development and increased water usage, we do expect
the city to work with community groups like SWiG to create
a groundwater management program that includes conservation
and a more objective and scientifically based study of
our mutual groundwater resource. And we expect the city
to acknowledge its impact on its neighbors.
