(The column below was originally published in the Press Democrat in August 2007)
Everyone in Sonoma County is affected by their own and their neighbors' use of water and land. We are all in this together.
The California Legislature has recognized there might not be enough water to go around, given new urban housing and commercial developments, plus continuing expansion into rural areas.
SB 610, approved in 2001, now requires that environmental impact reports for proposed large residential, commercial or mixed use developments include a water supply assessment.
These assessments are intended to determine if enough water supplies exist, or can be found, to support both new and existing hookups for 20 years into the future.
Now we have to worry whether water providers will honestly assess our water supply.
The Sonoma County record so far is not good.
In 2006 a Sonoma County judge ruled that Rohnert Park's water supply study for a planned expansion across Petaluma Hill Road did not meet SB 610 requirements, because it defined its groundwater supply as partly inside and partly outside of the southern Santa Rosa Plain groundwater subbasin.
The assessment also did not include all withdrawals from the same groundwater supply. On January 25, the Rohnert Park City Council approved the study anyway. This decision is under appeal to the state appellate court.
Now it's Sebastopol's turn.
On July 17, Sebastopol's "green" City Council voted on a water supply assessment, dated June 27, which certifies that Sebastopol will have plenty of water to support the redeveloped Northeast Area and current water use, while avoiding all other users drawing from the same water supply.
Given only an agenda, and no separate notice of the availability of the water assessment, the public had barely a week to review and comment on it. The Council's three Green Party votes approved it without any discussion.
In a public meeting, one of the report's authors admitted that the Sebastopol planning department had circumscribed this study.
Instead of following best scientific practices, the study's authors accommodated those limitations by cherry-picked pieces of data from the state Department of Water Resources and Sebastopol's consultant reports, ignoring or downplaying other data with negative implications.
Emulating the Rohnert Park assessment, Sebastopol's consultants examined only the water supply of the highlands where the city is built, even though the state puts Sebastopol in the Santa Rosa Plain groundwater sub-basin.
The consultants used one reference to imply that the highlands' water source extends farther west than other data allow.
The study's authors also ignored considerable evidence showing that Sebastopol's highland is connected to the Santa Rosa Plain sub-basin, where three Sonoma County Water Agency wells draw from it, along with Rohnert Park's and Cotati's wells. The Water Agency wells alone withdrew about 1.2 billion gallons in 2006, enough for a population of 30,000. That water goes to Santa Rosa, Cotati, Rohnert Park, Petaluma and Marin County water districts.
The water assessment's many omissions makes a mockery of its conclusion that " . . . available information" shows " . . . the city of Sebastopol groundwater supply is sufficient to meet the projected needs" for the next 20 years.
"Based on available information" does not refer even to all the information that the authors had available in their cited references, but only the data that they chose to examine.
The study's authors did not thoroughly investigate the causes for a startling reorientation of Sebastopol's groundwater flow from northeast in 1986 to southeast by 2006. Instead, they bank on an ongoing U.S. Geological Survey study to yield only rosy results when it eventually appears in 2010.
By rushing this water assessment to a vote without adequate public notice or review, Sebastopol officials blatantly violated their public trust.
They owe all Santa Rosa Plain water users a full and frank exploration of where the water comes from and where it goes -- and the likely impact of future plans for additional water demands on the shared resource, including casinos and new city wells drawing from the same water supply that Sebastopol depends on. If they do not fulfill this public trust, they threaten the future for us all.
Jane Nielson is a Sebastopol resident and a geologist. Helen Shane is a Sebastopol resident and a former city planning commissioner.
Everyone in Sonoma County is affected by their own and their neighbors' use of water and land. We are all in this together.
The California Legislature has recognized there might not be enough water to go around, given new urban housing and commercial developments, plus continuing expansion into rural areas.
SB 610, approved in 2001, now requires that environmental impact reports for proposed large residential, commercial or mixed use developments include a water supply assessment.
These assessments are intended to determine if enough water supplies exist, or can be found, to support both new and existing hookups for 20 years into the future.
Now we have to worry whether water providers will honestly assess our water supply.
The Sonoma County record so far is not good.
In 2006 a Sonoma County judge ruled that Rohnert Park's water supply study for a planned expansion across Petaluma Hill Road did not meet SB 610 requirements, because it defined its groundwater supply as partly inside and partly outside of the southern Santa Rosa Plain groundwater subbasin.
The assessment also did not include all withdrawals from the same groundwater supply. On January 25, the Rohnert Park City Council approved the study anyway. This decision is under appeal to the state appellate court.
Now it's Sebastopol's turn.
On July 17, Sebastopol's "green" City Council voted on a water supply assessment, dated June 27, which certifies that Sebastopol will have plenty of water to support the redeveloped Northeast Area and current water use, while avoiding all other users drawing from the same water supply.
Given only an agenda, and no separate notice of the availability of the water assessment, the public had barely a week to review and comment on it. The Council's three Green Party votes approved it without any discussion.
In a public meeting, one of the report's authors admitted that the Sebastopol planning department had circumscribed this study.
Instead of following best scientific practices, the study's authors accommodated those limitations by cherry-picked pieces of data from the state Department of Water Resources and Sebastopol's consultant reports, ignoring or downplaying other data with negative implications.
Emulating the Rohnert Park assessment, Sebastopol's consultants examined only the water supply of the highlands where the city is built, even though the state puts Sebastopol in the Santa Rosa Plain groundwater sub-basin.
The consultants used one reference to imply that the highlands' water source extends farther west than other data allow.
The study's authors also ignored considerable evidence showing that Sebastopol's highland is connected to the Santa Rosa Plain sub-basin, where three Sonoma County Water Agency wells draw from it, along with Rohnert Park's and Cotati's wells. The Water Agency wells alone withdrew about 1.2 billion gallons in 2006, enough for a population of 30,000. That water goes to Santa Rosa, Cotati, Rohnert Park, Petaluma and Marin County water districts.
The water assessment's many omissions makes a mockery of its conclusion that " . . . available information" shows " . . . the city of Sebastopol groundwater supply is sufficient to meet the projected needs" for the next 20 years.
"Based on available information" does not refer even to all the information that the authors had available in their cited references, but only the data that they chose to examine.
The study's authors did not thoroughly investigate the causes for a startling reorientation of Sebastopol's groundwater flow from northeast in 1986 to southeast by 2006. Instead, they bank on an ongoing U.S. Geological Survey study to yield only rosy results when it eventually appears in 2010.
By rushing this water assessment to a vote without adequate public notice or review, Sebastopol officials blatantly violated their public trust.
They owe all Santa Rosa Plain water users a full and frank exploration of where the water comes from and where it goes -- and the likely impact of future plans for additional water demands on the shared resource, including casinos and new city wells drawing from the same water supply that Sebastopol depends on. If they do not fulfill this public trust, they threaten the future for us all.
Jane Nielson is a Sebastopol resident and a geologist. Helen Shane is a Sebastopol resident and a former city planning commissioner.