Draft plan on water going to the public
CHICO >> A draft plan to manage groundwater in northwestern Butte County was expected to be available for public review today or Monday.
The plan is required by a state law requiring groundwater to be managed to avoid “adverse impacts.”
The law applies to the Sacramento Valley floor in Butte County. That area has been divided into three “sub-basins.” Two of them — Butte and Wyandotte Creek in the south county — don’t have serious groundwater issues.
But the third — the Vina Sub-Basin — will have to reduce pumping to meet the mandates of the state law, known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
The sub-basin, which runs from Butte Valley north and west to the Tehama County line and the Sacramento River, is almost entirely dependent on groundwater.
At a joint meeting Wednesday night, the two agencies responsible for developing and carrying out the plan made some small tweaks. County staff was hurrying Thursday to complete the draft with the new changes.
The most significant change was setting the “sustainable yield” that could be pumped from the basin at 233,000 acre-feet per year. From 2000 to 2018, it’s estimated an average of 243,000 acre-feet was pumped each year. That
amount will have to be cut by 10,000 acre-feet.
An acre-foot is enough water to cover an acre a foot deep, or 325,851 gallons.
The action to set that yield required two votes. While there’s just one plan, two separate entities known as groundwater sustainability agencies will administer it.
The Vina GSA board includes one representative each from the county, the city of Chico, and the Durham Irrigation District, as well as an agricultural well user and a domestic well user.
The Rock Creek Reclamation District GSA consists of the board of directors of the reclamation district north of Chico.
Both boards voted unanimously for the sustainable yield figure, but the numbers weren’t based on actual measurement of how much water is pumped from the ground. They rather were calculated by a computer program that considers how many acres of what crop are planted, how much water they use, the weather and other factors.
Christina Buck, acting director of the County Department of Water and Resource Conservation agreed the estimated water usage could be off, but that it would be in the “tens of thousands (of acre-feet), not the hundreds of thousands.”
More monitoring wells are planned, which should fill some of the existing gaps in the data.
Buck also pointed out more water is pumped in dry years than wet. In the wet years less water is pumped than is replenished, while the opposite is the case in dry years.
The 10,000 acre-foot cut was determined by some very complicated math that aims to get water use in the range of what’s called a “measurable objective.” The plan also had a “minimum threshold,” which is the point where the adverse impacts happen.
Possible actions
Wednesday the two boards also approved changes to a list of actions that would cut groundwater use to obtain that measurable objective. They range from increasing agriculture irrigation efficiency to augmenting stream flows using Paradise Irrigation District, PG&E or other foothill water right holders.
A number of potential projects were also listed that could be added if necessary or as funding allows. They include running a pipe to carry PID water to Chico and the idea of importing surface water from elsewhere. The latter idea, for which a Tuscan Water District has been proposed, has proven controversial.
The Vina GSA was scheduled to have a hearing Wednesday night on whether to make a recommendation to the Local Agency Formation Commission whether the district should be formed or not.
However after a closed session that morning to discuss “a significant exposure to litigation,” the hearing on the proposed district was dropped.
However there was controversy about the changed list, or rather a change to the preamble to the list.
Jim Brobeck and Jim McCabe complained about a line in what Brobeck called a mission statement had been changed to read, “This will require projects aimed at increasing water supplies and decreasing groundwater dependence, as well as management actions.”
Both said the idea of “requiring” projects to increase water supply, had not been discussed by the Vina Stakeholders Advisory Committee, and the wording should be changed to a goal of achieving sustainability.
There was some support on the boards for the idea of having GSA counsel Valerie Kincaid rewrite the language before the draft was released to the public. County Supervisor Tod Kimmelshue even made that part of his initial motion to approve the revised list.
But others on the board objected they wouldn’t be able to review Kincaid’s changes before the draft was sent to the public. The change could be made during the public comment process leading to the final plan.
Ultimately Kimmelshue changed his motion, and it passed the Vina GSA with just chairman Evan Tuchinsky opposed. A similar motion passed the Rock Creek GSA unanimously.
Public comment
Release of the draft plan will trigger a 40-day public comment period, which will include a public workshop at 6 p.m., Oct. 4 at the Chico Masonic Family Center, 1110 W. East Ave.
The plan will be available on the Vina GSA’s website at vinagsa.org. Be warned that it is complicated, long and exhaustingly detailed.
There will also be public hearings before the joint GSA boards at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 15 and Dec. 15 in the Chico City Council chambers. The final plan will be approved at that second meeting.
Then staff will incorporate the comments, and send the plan to the Department of Water Resources before the deadline of Jan. 31, 2022.
That will trigger another round of public comment, after which DWR will either approve the local plan, or impose one of its own.