April 25, 2004

It's clear from the chart below that planners knew in 2000 that by 2010 the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) will be unable to supply sufficient quantities of water to support projected growth. Unfortunately, the "other" source of water, depicted in yellow on the chart, can be nothing else but groundwater.

This means that Santa Rosa plans to resume groundwater pumping on a massive scale. Predictions on this chart indicate pumping well over 5,000 acre/feet per year, which translates to 4.5 million gallons of water per day. This volume of water extraction rivals Rohnert Park, an excess that has caused a gigantic "cone of depression" in the water table, essentially a hole in the aquifer.

This chart does not take into consideration the Eel River court decision which will result in as yet undetermined but dramatic cutbacks in water diversions to the Russian River. With even less water being diverted into the Russian River, SCWA will have all that much less to sell to contractors.

So if we already have "water scarce" areas in the County, and permanent groundwater overdraft has reached 150 feet (as it has surroundig Rohnert Park) and the usual Eel River diversions will stop---then what will we do when the next drought hits?