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    GrokSurf's San Diego by George J. Janczyn is produced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Anything on this blog copied and used elsewhere online must include attribution and a link to the original on this blog, or a citation with the URL if reprinted on hard copy.

     

     

Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

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A rocky search for water beneath San Diego

Posted by George J. Janczyn on May 26, 2011

Last week Wes Danskin treated us to news (What’s percolating beneath San Diego?) on the new USGS deep monitoring well at San Diego Chollas Park (SDCP), part of a study of the geology and groundwater resources in the coastal San Diego area.

Here’s the latest from Wes’s log:

 

May 17: Every picture tells a story

Picture of our core at 580 feet depth

May 20: Sounds of silence

Drill rig broke yesterday; frayed the cable supporting the kelly head; dangerous not to replace; so we will.

A core we obtained from 665 feet; looks like Friars Formation to me

May 23: 875 feet, no, not yet

We all underestimated the depth to bedrock, even the drillers.

STATUS
Sunday night, at 875 feet deep. Maybe in the top of the weathered bedrock. Cuttings appear to be ground-up rock; drill times are longer, but not so long to indicate hard rock, I think. Taken cores along the way, every 150 feet or so, most recent: 440, 580, 665, 860 feet.

FUTURE
Will continue drilling, until we once again think we are in hard rock, probably the Santiago Peak Volcanics, then take a core, to make sure it is what we think.

I’d like to get 1 or 2 piezometers deeper than the production zone of National City well field, which has been producing fresh water for 50+ years. Bottom of those wells is about 700 feet below sea level; presently we are at 550 feet below sea level. Good news is we have covered the majority of the production zone, so if groundwater is flowing roughly horizontally to the coast, we will be able to sample the upgradient side of the flow field, or at least a similar flow field a bit north of the National City wells. Bad news is that drilling another 450 feet (150 to bottom of zone + 300 feet) will not be easy. But our drilling is about patience and flexibility. So we’ll see how it goes.

May 25: Bedrock and beyond

STATUS
Yes, we hit bedrock, finally, at 877 feet. And we have proof, as shown in the photo below (core of the Santiago Peak Volcanics, … same rock as what the coastal dams are anchored in). Note the fractures and related water deposits, such as calcite shown at the point of the pen. This deposit demonstrates water flow through the fractures, albeit, we don’t know when.

In the process of squeezing the sediment that we obtained via coring. Short answer I think is that the pore water is more saline (ec = 1800; tds = 1000) than I would have thought/hoped. A bit confused by why we are not seeing any 600 tds water like National City wellfield. Darn. Answer may change a bit when we install the piezometers in the more transmissive zones.

FUTURE
We’ll continue drilling in the bedrock with the goal of getting deep enough (200+ feet) to install a well, hopefully with sufficient fractures to yield water. I have a plan for 5 piezometers: 3 inch to the bottom to monitor changes in salinity and temperature; 2-inch for the other 4. Estimated completion without geophyscial logs, etc are:

	          5. Water table at 50+ feet, 
	          4. Below water table at maybe 250 foot depth in stadium conglomerate, 
	          3. Something in middle 400-500 foot zone, 
	          2. One in Friars formation at 700 feet, and
	          1. One at bottom in Santiago Peak Volcanics at 1000+ feet.

Core of the Santiago Peak Volcanics, same rock as what the coastal dams are anchored in

PHOTO BELOW. Bill Elliott, SDSU professor and local gravity/geology guru; and Adam Kjos, our local USGS man on the spot, supervising the drilling. Both are trying to figure out from the drill cuttings what might be going on, e.g.,

  1. What formation are we in, where
  2. Why the 600 feet thickness of stadium-like coarse deposits are present
  3. Whether sand at 700 feet might be the Friars formation, or something like it
  4. The weathered zone above the volcanics appears to be about 60 feet thick
  5. Do any of these geologic units really correspond to geologic units mapped at the land surface?

Thanks to Bill Elliott for coming to the drill site and sharing his expertise in local rocks to help us understand what we might have been drilling through, and to Dave Schug from URS for similarly stopping by, though I was not on site then to take photos and quiz him.

 

Postscript May 31, 2011

STATUS
Reached the end of the line, 1100 foot depth. Every well sort of tells you when it is done giving up secrets. When drilling took more than 3 hours 20 minutes for each 20 feet, we decided to call it a good effort. We have obtained much new information, and whatever else we could gain from drilling deeper into the Santiago Peak Volcanics, probably is better done at another location, starting in bedrock and using air rotary technique.

GEOPHYSICAL LOGS
After reaching 1100 feet, based on my request to get a good 100+ feet into the Santiago Peak Volcanics so that we can complete a well that will reliably yield water, we stopped, cleaned the well, and called in our geophysical logging experts over the weekend (never a holiday for anyone associated with drilling; got done logging at 3 am; thanks Tony and Mike).

The geophysical logs are attached so that you can see for yourself the variation in material. Don’t worry; you don’t have to understand the logs or what they mean to get the basic idea. When the squiggly line changes, that means the earth or the water quality has changed. So at a first level, big picture analysis, look to see where the lines change once or twice or three times in the span of 1100 feet. Bet you can pick out where the bedrock starts. Say 877 feet. Another package of material is from about 440 to 600; I’m guessing alluvial fan based on cuttings and drilling notes; and another unit, mostly sand, from 600 to the weathered bedrock at about 800. But the SP log shows two zones within that last zone, so again this is not so precise as to become boring, or a single answer wins. Will know more, or think we do, after several hours of analysis by several of us.

NEXT STEP
We’ll be starring at the geophysical logs, the cuttings, the drilling notes, the locations of core samples, and using our Ouija board to divine where to place the piezometers. Let you know in the next couple of days the precise well design.

In the meantime we are reeming the 7 7/8-inch pilot hole, first with a 13-inch bit down to about 350 feet to accommodate two piezometers above that level; then with a 10-inch bit down to 820 feet to accommodate 2 more piezometers above that depth, then with the 7 7/8 inch bit to clean out the debris that fell in the hole down to the total depth of 1100 feet.

The rationale for drilling a pilot hole first is that a smaller diameter hole can be drilled faster, circulation time is faster, the geophysical logs will be better, and there may be fewer problems with caving. The bad part is we will spend 4-6 days redrilling the well to make it the size needed to install piezometers. If we knew the geology ahead of time, then perhaps we could design the general size of the well bore ahead of time and only drill the well once. But in San Diego that knowledge does not yet exist. Getting there though. The geologic framework model that Carolyn and Claudia are preparing shows that we are getting to where drilling will be less wild-catting and more predictable engineering.

 

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What’s percolating beneath San Diego?

Posted by George J. Janczyn on May 17, 2011

Wes Danskin, the Project Chief for the USGS San Diego Hydrogeology Project has been busy studying what’s going on underneath San Diego. Late last year he updated us with work underway at that time. Now he’s working on a new project with a deep USGS monitoring well:

———————————

May 15, 2011:

That time again. Another deep USGS monitoring well is being installed. This is the first in a series of updates.

WHO
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is partnering with the City of San Diego. Many thanks to Greg Cross, George Adrian, and Marsi Steirer of the City Water Department and to Keith Selby and Mike Morrow of the City Park Department for their critically important help in getting this project going.

WHAT
A deep multiple-completion well is being installed to help define the geology and groundwater resources in the coastal San Diego area. This and prior USGS wells are described on the project website, http://ca.water.usgs.gov/sandiego. This well is referred to SDCP (San Diego Chollas Park).

WHEN
Started May 10, will continue through about June 10.

WHERE
Chollas Community Park, toward the westernmost end, just east of 54th Street. Drilling in the North Chollas Community Park parking lot, in a median between parking stalls, about 50 feet from a drainage from Chollas Lake.

WHY
To define the groundwater flow paths from the eastern part of San Diego County, to the western part where additional groundwater extraction likely would occur. The geochemical water samples that we have collected previously from coastal wells (stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen) suggest that the source of the groundwater is recharge from precipitation not on the alluvial plain of the coast, but further east, such as near El Cajon, or further east. This means that the groundwater would need to flow through hard rock (granites, and Santiago Peak Volcanics) in order to reach the coastal sediments west of about Interstate 805.

This well site in Chollas Park (SDCP) was chosen to be east of the La Nacion fault which is approximately 54th street. This site means the drilling will penetrate some unconsolidated sediment (maybe 500 feet), and then penetrate the hard rock. Ideally, the total depth of the drilling will be about 1500 feet. Completion of the well with about five 2-inch PVC piezometers will allow us to sample groundwater from different depths and better understand the groundwater flow system.

Another well site, referred to as SDHF is located at the intersection of Home Avenue and Federal Blvd, and is on the down-dropped west side of the La Nacion fault. These paired wells (SDCP and SDHF) will aid us in understanding groundwater flow from east to west across this major structural feature in San Diego.

SITE VISITS
Are possible by contacting me.

PROGRESS TO DATE
Will give more details in a subsequent email, but the short answer is that at about 2 pm on Sunday, we were at 410 feet in a sandy, clay, ready to take another core.

Rough stratigraphy, from my memory:

Depth – Geologic characteristics

10 feet – Sandy fill.

20 feet – Santiago Peak gravel. Scared us, thinking we maybe already hit bedrock, but it probably was gravel eroded from a construction project upslope.

40 feet – Stadium Conglomerate, or redeposited San Diego Formation. Hard drilling

100 feet – Really hard and slow drilling, scared us again; thought we’d hit bedrock, was just a hard boulder and a worn out bit.

150 feet — Stadium Conglomerate, wore out two bits so far (button carbide and tipped iron).

234 feet – Formational change to sand; obtained cores. Friar’s formation? Seaward facies of Stadium?

280 feet – Still in oxidized (red streaks) of sand with variably clay.

410 feet – Sandy clay, preparing to obtain another core. I lost my Depth to Bedrock pool; thought we’d hit bedrock by 312 feet. Monte’s gravity suggests about 480 feet.

May 16, 2011:

GOOD NEWS
We hit bedrock. We’re through the sediment, and drilling into bedrock (Santiago Peak Volcanics). Hit bedrock below 398 feet though admittedly it is a bit of a blur between zones of weathered bedrock and hard rock. We are down to 578 feet. We’ll take a core Tuesday morning to see what the material actually looks like. Water flowing into the well is limited so we are not finding highly pressurized bedrock, yet, with too much water to readily get rid of.

BAD NEWS
I may never live this depth-to-bedrock-predicted-by-gravity thing down.

DEPTH TO BEDROCK
Seems we found bedrock at roughly the depth predicted by Monte Marshall’s gravity map processed by Carolyn Glockhoff in our office. While I agree that gravity measurements are helpful at defining the general shape of a basin, which why I was eager to use Monte’s work, I’ve never been under the geophysists’ illusion that the gravity measurements are sufficiently precise to predict anything particular, much less depth to bedrock at a particular drill site.

But then when you have no alternatives, gravity makes sense to use; so we did. And it worked.

Wesley R. Danskin
Research Hydrologist
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
California Water Science Center
4165 Spruance Road, Suite 200
San Diego, CA 92101 USA
619-225-6100 office
wdanskin@usgs.gov

 

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San Diego-Sweetwater intertie could boost local reservoir storage by 100,000 acre-feet of water

Posted by George J. Janczyn on April 18, 2011

Since the end of California’s severe 1987-92 drought it has taken a 1993 Army Corps of Engineers reconnaissance study, U.S. Senate and House legislative support from Rep. Duncan Hunter (Sr.), Rep. Susan Davis, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Proposition 50 grant via the Integrated Regional Water Management Plan, and negotiations between Sweetwater Authority, the City of San Diego, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — plus another major drought — just to reach this stage.

This stage is a proposal for a pre-feasibility study of a four-reservoir intertie between the City of San Diego and Sweetwater Authority systems.

The proposal will be presented today (Apr 18) at the Independent Rates Oversight Committee (IROC) [agenda] and Wednesday (April 20) at the Natural Resources and Culture Committee [agenda] where support will be sought in bringing it to the San Diego City Council. If full Council approval is obtained an agreement will then be executed by the City of San Diego, Sweetwater Authority, and the Bureau of Reclamation.

As described in a San Diego Integrated Regional Water Management document:

“Connecting the San Vicente, El Capitan, Loveland, and Murray Reservoirs would create an enhanced and integrated reservoir system to more efficiently use the reservoirs and increase accessibility to approximately 100,000 acre-feet of surface storage without creating new reservoirs or new storage capacity. The environmental effects of the future conveyance system would be minimal because each reservoir has been in place since the 1940s or earlier, and reservoir footprints would not increase. The Sweetwater Authority is serving as the lead agency for the regional intertie project.”

[Update: at the IROC presentation it was announced that the lead agency has been changed from Sweetwater to San Diego]

Since that report was written, of course, one reservoir footprint is increasing due to the San Vicente Dam Raise Project currently underway that will give it a more significant role within the potential intertie system.

Source: http://www.sweetwater.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=1451

As things are now, overall reservoir capacity is underutilized. To give one example, San Diego’s El Capitan reservoir (110,120 AF) is rarely full because its small imported water supply connection has very limited ability to supplement local runoff. An intertie connection would facilitate more optimal reservoir levels.

[I've since learned that another reason El Capitan water levels often appear to be low is that its catchment area produces the greatest amount of runoff of all the reservoirs in the San Diego area, so the city intentionally keeps water levels low there in order to capture the maximum amount of water during wet years and not lose any to spillway overflow].

Further south, Sweetwater’s Loveland Reservoir (25,225 AF) relies solely on watershed runoff which is usually not enough to keep it filled. An intertie would allow adding more water during drier times. On the rare occasions that very wet seasons such as we recently experienced result in spillway overflow, excess runoff at Loveland could be diverted to the larger El Capitan or San Vicente reservoirs instead of being lost.

A bay in the San Vicente Reservoir. Water cascades down the fill chute from the San Diego Aqueduct tunnel portal. Water level has been drawn down while the dam raise project is underway.

San Diego’s much smaller Murray reservoir (4684 AF) was included because of its Alvarado Water Treatment Plant supplying a large part of the city.

The shared connections would permit more water overall to be stored in local reservoirs. That translates into increased reliability in the event of a cutoff of imported supplies due to disaster or other problem. The 1993 Army Corps of Engineers reconnaissance study of San Diego’s water supply (not available online*) also estimates that 23% of the total benefits from an intertie system would be from increased flood control.

Because an intertie system would be an immensely expensive and complicated undertaking, the pre-feasibility study would carry out “an appraisal investigation to determine the prudence of a full-scale feasibility study for the proposed intertie system” according to the Army Corps study.

(A subsequent Army Corps Executive Summary of Lessons Learned from the California Drought (1987-92) says one confirmed lesson is that “local and regional interconnections between water supply systems are effective and flexible options against severe water shortages.”)

If the pre-feasibility study recommends it, then a full feasibility study could be performed as a phase 2 project.

Funding for the pre-feasibility study will be shared between the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ($344,332), state grant funding from Proposition 50 ($112,832), the City of San Diego ($171,500), and the Sweetwater Authority ($60,000) for a total of $688,664.

Background:

* Thanks to Marguerite S. Strand, Assistant General Manager of Sweetwater Authority for allowing me to examine the Army Corps reconnaissance study and answering my questions.

 

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Sand mining dominates EIR public hearing on Helix recycled water project

Posted by George J. Janczyn on March 30, 2011

The Helix Water District held a public meeting last night on the final day that comments could be submitted on the scope of an environmental impact report (EIR) for its El Monte Valley project. [correction: today is the final day for comments]

The project involves a sand mining operation to generate income and reshape the valley floor to accept a series of percolation ponds using purified recycled water to augment the groundwater supply and to restore the land with a variety of environmental and recreational improvements.

The meeting, held at the Lakeside Christian Church on El Monte Road, follows the notice of preparation for the EIR held March 8 at the water district’s headquarters in La Mesa. Last year there had been three stakeholders meetings at the church and other community presentations to gather public input on the project prior to the announcement of the EIR preparation.

Many of the comments made at the earlier stakeholders meetings expressed worries about “toilet to tap” water quality issues as well as about the sand mining operation, but this time the number one issue was overwhelmingly sand mining.

It seemed that the Helix district staff already sensed that would be the case because their standard project overview included a new segment with additional slides and descriptions of what the sand mining operation would look like.

After the brief presentation, person after person from the assembly of 25-30 people complained that the sand mining operation would destroy the valley; meanwhile one woman was soliciting people to add their names to a signup sheet for an opposition group that is organizing.

Although the purpose of the meeting was to gather more suggestions for issues that should be covered by the EIR, most people appeared to consider the meeting a forum for protesting the project. Many complained about the negative effect the project would have on the quality of life for valley residents and neighboring areas. Several people sharply criticized the water district saying that it was ramming the project through without allowing sufficient input from stakeholders. Someone from East County Magazine also asked some pointed questions implying that public input had been inadequate.

One man disputed the district’s estimate regarding income flow from the sand operation, saying that in today’s market existing sand businesses in the county can’t find enough customers. He also suggested that imported water is so much less expensive than the purified water that he couldn’t see the justification for it.

There were some variant points raised. One gentleman wondered if water in the percolation ponds would even be able to penetrate into the aquifer since the nearby El Monte Dam and reservoir contains so much water that it probably percolates into the aquifer and creates hydraulic pressure that would prevent any water on the valley surface from penetrating downward.

Another individual raised a related concern, saying that water from the percolation ponds (and injection wells) constantly supplying the aquifer could disrupt or stop the natural flow of groundwater coming into the valley so that the portion of the aquifer that is upstream from the operation would cease its natural flow into the valley and become stagnant and less usable.

One man claimed that a Golden Eagle nest had been discovered near a dairy in the valley which meant that mining operations would not be permissible within at least 4000 feet of that place, at least during nesting season.

Another concern was that power lines for the various support facilities would not only cause aesthetic problems but could be a safety hazard as well, with a request that underground lines be used instead. Also mentioned was the possible negative effect on neighboring homes by wildlife displaced by the project.

Jim Peugh from the Audubon Society spoke briefly to commend the effort to expand recycled water use. Disclaimer: I also spoke briefly about possible misconceptions about water quality and purified recycled water.

While public perception about indirect potable reuse and water quality will no doubt continue to be a delicate topic to address in the future (as it is with the City of San Diego’s recycled water purification project), it would seem that the most difficulty in bringing the El Monte Valley project to fruition will be in satisfactorily addressing the widespread dissatisfaction over sand mining.

 

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Ecologically integrated water management: the Da Vinci challenge

Posted by George J. Janczyn on March 21, 2011

(Norman Allenby wrote this guest column)

Leonardo Da Vinci had a relevant thought on this subject. His Ideal City postulate #6 states, “ Require that each house have its own sewerage system and be built on aesthetic and environmental principles with access at ground level.” The Da Vinci challenge is to design such a system, not just for homes, but buildings, subdivisions, shopping centers and micro watersheds that comprise greater San Diego. Homes, buildings, subdivisions, shopping centers are all parts of our urban water shed. They each take in water and give back wastewater. With each having its “own sewerage system,” the Da Vinci challenge would be met and the opportunity for onsite recycling created.

Under our present integrated water management system there is insufficient recognition of the potential for on site reuse of water. We have done a great job in corralling water from Imperial County to augment waters received from the Metropolitan Water District. We largely ignore storm water allowing it to contaminate our beaches. We discharge 180 MGD of wastewater into the Pacific Ocean at our Point Loma treatment facility. We continue to delay the intended use of the North County reclamation plant’s reclaimed water, augmenting San Vicente reservoir. We do distribute a modest amount of reclaimed water for irrigation through our purple pipe system, but our wastewater is largely wasted. That waste can be avoided through an ecological approach to water management.

Ecologically integrated water management utilizes process water, storm water and “waste water”. It first calculates how much water a facility needs, how much storm water is site available and how much “waste water” is site available. Any deficit between site available water and needs is met by process water purchased from the local provider. The focus of ecological water management is conservation and reuse and, yes, more reuse.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Helix Water District holds public scoping meeting for groundwater recharge IPR project in El Monte Valley

Posted by George J. Janczyn on March 9, 2011

El Monte Valley. El Capitan Dam is around the bend a couple of miles.

The Helix Water District held a public meeting yesterday to give notice that it is beginning preparation of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the proposed El Monte Valley Project (or more completely, the El Monte Valley Mining, Reclamation, and Groundwater Recharge Project).

El Monte Valley lies just west of El Capitan Reservoir and dam, with the San Diego River channel running through its length. Beneath the valley is a groundwater aquifer that provides water to the Helix district and many valley residents with wells on their property. The project aims to recharge the aquifer with purified recycled water (aka indirect potable reuse, or IPR) that would be piped in from a facility in Santee and emptied into recharge basins to percolate into the ground. Some injection wells might also be used for the recharge process, which would raise the water table for the slowly depleting aquifer and provide the district with an additional 5 million gallons of water per day.

Other components of the project are a temporary (8-10 years) sand-mining operation that would help pay the cost of the project. Parts of the valley and river channel would then be graded, contoured, and restored for riparian habitat with native plants and trees and recreational features including hiking and equestrian trails.

Yesterday’s “Scoping Meeting” was held as an adjourned board meeting at the district’s La Mesa offices at 7811 University Avenue at 7pm. The primary reason for the meeting was to get feedback from stakeholders and interested persons about topics of concern they would like to have addressed by the EIR.

About 75 people attended this meeting. After a brief overview of the project by Tim Smith, Project Manager, about 14 people spoke on a variety of viewpoints.

Read the rest of this entry »

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A day at the Salton Sea; a visit to Feather River Canyon

Posted by George J. Janczyn on February 6, 2011

Chris Austin has some photographs she took during trips she made to Northern California and the Imperial Valley and is now sharing them on her Maven’s Photoblog (Chris is the Aqua Blog Maven for the Water Education Foundation’s Aquafornia California water news website).

Chris has been working on a history of the Imperial Valley that will include a technical presentation on the Imperial Dam, a look at geothermal power and agriculture in Imperial Valley, and a study of the Salton Sea. I guess we can consider these Salton Sea photos a teaser for her project.

Up north, Chris drove Highway 70 through the Feather River Canyon which is considered one of the most scenic driving routes in the state. The Feather River rises in four forks that drain the upper basin and join together at Lake Oroville Reservoir. Here in SoCal we know Oroville as a major source of the water we receive via the California Aqueduct.

I think you’ll enjoy seeing the photographs. Just click on the picture below to connect to the whole series. After you view the pictures you might also like to see Chris’s Maven’s Manor, her personal blog that contains a selection of articles and slideshows on California’s Water, a “visual primer” on electricity, slideshows from Eastern California including Death Valley and the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and a link to her Maven’s Photoblog.

 

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Committee on Natural Resources and Culture stalls over action plan

Posted by George J. Janczyn on February 3, 2011

The first meeting of the reconstituted San Diego City Council Committee on Natural Resources and Culture (NR&C) was held Wednesday February 2. The committee reorganized after last November’s election that brought in two new members to replace outgoing councilmembers.

David Alvarez, Chair, is taking the place of Donna Frye who termed out of her council position. Lorie Zapf is getting Marti Emerald’s seat (Emerald is still a Councilmember but received different committee assignments for this year). Carl DeMaio remains the Vice Chair and Sherri Lightner continues with her membership.

The NR&C Committee’s area of responsibility includes Clean Water Program, Energy, Water, State and Federal Endangered Species Acts, Arts and Culture, TOT, Solid Waste Disposal, Recycling, APCD/Air Quality, Hazardous Waste, MSCP, and Regional Parks and Open Space. I follow the Committee’s doings because it is deeply involved in operations of the Public Utilities Department and especially with water.

Last December, Council President Anthony Young sent out a memo asking committee chairs to submit a 90-day action plan for their respective committees.

David Alvarez responded for NR&C on December 30, indicating that he was soliciting input from colleagues on the Council, the Mayor’s Office, City staff, and other stakeholders and hoped to have it ready by the end of January. He also stated that his own initial three priorities were: 1) Promoting water conservation; 2) Flood protection and environmental preservation; 3) Promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Wednesday’s agenda included the 90-day action plan as a discussion item.

For this meeting I thought the committee members would talk about feedback Alvarez had gotten from the various stakeholders mentioned in his memo, then discuss their own priorities and negotiate a final 90-day action plan for the committee. That’s not what happened, though.

While they were working on the last agenda item before the action plan, Carl DeMaio slipped out of his chair, exited the room, and never returned.

I don’t know if Alvarez had other plans and changed because of DeMaio’s absence, but he asked Lightner and Zapf only to mention highlights from their memorandums, and then he had a few comments about his items. That was it. No discussion. No debate. No action plan. In effect, that made everything a priority.

There are plenty of water-related issues in those memorandums. If you examine them, you’ll find there’s a great deal there, perhaps even too much for a 90-day plan.

Lightner wants to completely overhaul obsolete and conflicting water policies and to develop a comprehensive policy for a sustainable water supply in San Diego. Her ideas alone could take six months to plan and prioritize. Carl DeMaio is crusading to reform financial management of the Public Utilities Department and for lower water rates (it will be interesting to see how he balances Council work against his 2012 mayoral campaign). Alvarez has water conservation and flood control concerns along with Zapf.

Nobody mentioned planning a future for indirect potable reuse after completion of the Water Purification Demonstration Project, although Lightner mentions IPR in a generic sense. It’s only a one-year project and I hope more advance planning is done not only for the subsequent production phase but for possibly wider application of IPR beyond that.

An action plan should be fairly specific about things to do. A priority such as “Promoting Water Conservation” needs to be translated into concrete steps. As things now stand, the committee has a collection of memorandums with numerous ideas all competing for attention. It will be difficult for the committee to focus on a selection of them, especially with complex and sometimes mundane demands from a never-ending workflow of projects and requests from the Public Utilities Department.

Aside from the planning deficit and despite the loss of knowledge and experience that Donna Frye and Marti Emerald contributed, I think the committee shows promise.

In his role as Chair, Alvarez performed competently and cordially, the committee members were otherwise well-prepared for some difficult and complex agenda items, and they seem to get along with each other. So despite the committee lagging on a coordinated action plan for important water issues, I’m hopeful that in the coming weeks and months they’ll be able to regroup, organize their ideas, and implement their plans successfully.

 

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San Diego files second lawsuit in groundwater dispute with Sweetwater Authority

Posted by George J. Janczyn on December 21, 2010

The City of San Diego’s ongoing legal dispute over Sweetwater Authority’s project to expand groundwater pumping from the San Diego Formation aquifer has escalated with the filing of a second lawsuit.

The City’s first lawsuit, filed March 26, 2010, challenged Sweetwater’s certification of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and project approval (for background and a copy of that lawsuit see my October 28 report as updated December 8). The City alleged that its formally stated concerns about groundwater depletion/overdraft in the San Diego Formation, saltwater intrusion, land subsidence, brine discharge, and other issues were rejected or ignored by Sweetwater.

Subsequently, after some procedural errors in the approval process were discovered, Sweetwater Authority revisited its decision and again approved the project on November 10 (the U-T reported on that in this report).

San Diego’s newest lawsuit filed December 9 again challenges Sweetwater’s EIR certification and seeks to set aside Sweetwater’s November 10 action reaffirming project approval.

Significantly, going further, the new lawsuit also seeks the court’s declaration of San Diego’s Pueblo water rights in the San Diego Formation. Specifically, it asks:

For a declaration that the City was at the commencement of this action and now is the owner in fee simple of the prior and paramount right to the use of all the water of the San Diego Formation underlying the former Pueblo of San Diego, including all waters tributary thereto whether beneath the Pueblo or not, for the use of the City and of its inhabitants for all purposes and that Respondent Sweetwater and all other respondents have not and no one or more of them have any estate, right, title or interest in or to said waters, or any part thereof, or in the use of the same, or any right to take or use said waters, or any part thereof, save in subordination and subject to said prior and paramount right of the City.

Here is a copy of the new lawsuit:

 

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Panel: Signs of the tide — San Diego’s water supply

Posted by George J. Janczyn on December 9, 2010

“Signs of the tide — San Diego’s water supply” was the title of an interactive panel discussion hosted by San Diego Coastkeeper yesterday evening at the Urban Corps of San Diego County facility in the Midway area.

Panelists were David Pierce, Analyst, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Jared Criscuolo, Co-founder, Below the Surface; Bruce Reznik, Advocate, San Diego Coastkeeper; and Brook Sarson, Owner, H2Ome, and the moderator was Rob Davis, Senior Writer, Voice of San Diego.

The first speaker, David Pearce, delivered an overview of San Diego’s water supply situation. Using slides with maps and charts, he set up the dynamic of our need to import 80% of our water and a growing population against how expected water shortages, climate change, economics, issues with the California Delta, and decreasing Colorado River Basin runoff present difficult challenges to plan and make adjustments for. He illustrated how the price of water rises at each stage of the delivery process and commented about the low price for farming use vs. high prices for urban use being a factor in water use and conservation, saying “people make different decisions when water is cheap.”

From left: Rob Davis, Brook Sarson, David Pierce, Jared Criscuolo, Bruce Reznik.

Next, Jared Criscuolo showed slides from his group’s “Spring to Sandtrap” canoe expedition to explore the headwaters of the Sacramento River through the State Water Project to the sprinklers at a Southern California golf course (the shot of that looked like it might be Palm Springs). He said that they had intended to but didn’t actually canoe through the SWP aqueduct because it was dangerous and also prohibited (someone behind me whispered “they better not have…that’s drinking water!”). The expedition documented how relatively pristine water conditions near the headwaters rapidly deteriorated as they went downstream where they encountered numerous facilities drawing water on the one hand and expelling wastewater on the other, with water becoming murkier and algae growth more prominent as they continued their journey.

Bruce Reznik spoke on organizing and planning issues for San Diego’s water future. He criticized the San Diego County Water Authority for lacking vision in their planning and observed that they seem to just gather information on projects and needs from member water agencies and then plug that into a master plan. He also complained about their charts illustrating increased diversification in water sources, saying they’re misleading because they count canal lining and the IID water transfer as representing a reduction in the imported water category where in fact that’s just a financial arrangement for getting more of the same imported water. After comparing various water supply options using data from Equinox Center reports, highlighting desal as an extreme that should be considered last resort, he concluded saying “solutions are easy, the problem is political will.”

Finally, Brook Sarson covered rainwater harvest, stormwater redirection, and greywater reuse design and cost issues. She talked about the mindset people have about getting water away from the house and property and the desirability of finding ways to redirect it into the local soil. She also covered practical issues with greywater use, noting that it’s a bit more involved because it often requires a permit, can’t be stored for longer than 24 hours, and can only be used on certain types of plants. She displayed slides from some the rainwater harvest projects she has installed locally through her H2Ome business.

Overall impression: a worthwhile informative gathering, but while turnout was probably around 100, most appeared to be people already well-schooled in water issues. I think the hope was to address more newbies who would be learning something new but I’m sure the organizers were gratified to see so many well-informed people coming together for this event.

Logistics -

Prior to starting we were treated to a light dinner of pizza and ice tea.

Dylan Edwards from Coastkeeper did the welcome and closing remarks.

The moderator Rob Davis gave a brief introduction to each panelist and fielded questions turned in from the audience on paper slips during the discussion.

One of the sponsors, San Diego Gas & Electric, had a small booth with pamphlets and information about the Smart Meter program.

I was told slides from the PowerPoint presentations will be made available by Coastkeeper, and I’ll add a link to them here when they’re available.

The North County Times filed this report on the meeting. San Diego Coastkeeper also did some live tweeting from the event.

 

Posted in Environment, Water | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

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