Update from BEC ;

May 21, 2008

"Ground Water Litigation Passes Major Hurdle

Willows, CA – Judge Donald Cole Byrd of Glenn County Superior Court ruled today that Butte Environmental Council’s documents to augment the record are all admissible in a California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit against Glenn Colusa Irrigation District. BEC feels the documents are necessary to fully describe the GCID project and the potential harm to the ground water basin, agriculture, residential and municipal wells, fisheries, and terrestrial habitat. GCID, on the other hand, saw this as an isolated “research” activity despite proposing to install seven production wells and pumping them vigorously for two years. Lynn Barris, BEC Board member, was impressed with the decision and stated, “We are very pleased that the judge believed that having this additional information before him would allow for a more informed decision.”

Judge Byrd also concurred with California court precedent that BEC had sufficiently attempted to participate in GCID’s consideration of their ground water projects, but was precluded from the process by a lack of notification. He also noted that there were apparently no members of the public at the meeting where the project was approved by the GCID Board of Directors and that the agenda didn’t even demonstrate a time when the public could address the project. In his closing remarks, Judge Byrd stressed that this case was dealing with an “important issue,” an “important public issue.”

BEC’s Executive Director, Barbara Vlamis, was jubilant stating that, “The public’s voice was heard today. The court views this case, with the potential to exploit local ground water, as a grave matter that deserves a complete record, including the numerous plans and funding agreements that GCID and its partners have been party to for many years.”

The hearing on the merits of the case will be heard on August 6, 2008 at 10 a.m. in the Glenn County Superior Court, 526 West Sycamore Street in Willows."

BEC update found @;
http://www.becnet.org/


Report on Subsidence Risks from Aquifer Overdraft;


This is a written statement from an interested individual resident of
Butte County to discourage the planned withdrawal of the Lower Tuscan
confined aquifer groundwater by Glenn Colusa Irrigation District or GCID.

The concerns of this author are primarily about withdrawal of large
amounts of groundwater resulting in an aquifer overdraft and developing cones of depression (i.e., lowered groundwater table) surrounding the GCID pumps. A cone of depression is defined by the USGS as a “depression of the potentiometric surface in the shape of an inverted cone that develops around a well which is being pumped” (USGS website).

Usually deep wells with a large pumping potential as planned by GCID would result in localized cones of depression. If severe enough, some cones of depression can become permanent fixtures in the water table.

Even in an experimental research stage, the potential of the GCID pumps to cause severe damage to the Tuscan aquifer are realistic, and once the damage is done there may not be much chance of recovery to previous groundwater conditions. According to GCID Manager Thaddeus Bettner, the planned extraction is around “2,500 acre feet annually” (Sheehan, CA Progress Report). One of the noticeable effects of an overdrawn aquifer is the subsidence and collapse of the aquifer cavern’s walls and clay ceilings. The surface ceiling or overlay of the deeply confined Tuscan aquifer is primarily volcanic sandstones, clay shales, silts and other compressed sedimentary rocks, and the combined water pressure and constant saturation by a nearly full aquifer is needed to maintain the stability of the aquifer cavern’s integrity. Excess withdrawals of groundwater from the aquifer are likely to lead to the sandstone, silt and clay sediments drying out, shrinking under compression and becoming more crumbly, this process could influence increasing rates of subsidence. The Butte-Sutter Basin Area Groundwater Users cite the details of the Tuscan aquifer’s
revised boundaries, including the downwards sloping of the confined Tuscan aquifer beneath the bed of the Sacramento River, meaning the GCID wells would need to be at least 1,000 feet deep, far deeper than most local wells can reach. The B-SBAGU report also states the capacity of the Tuscan aquifer is only 30 million acre feet, only 1% of the now severely over drafted Ogallala aquifer, previously containing 3.27 billion acre feet (B-SBAGU, July 06). The Ogallala aquifer experienced severe overdrafts and subsidence in only a few decades, we who reside above the Tuscan aquifer should learn from previous mistakes made with the Ogallala!

Elsewhere in North America several other documented cases of subsidence resulting from aquifer overdraw and resulting aquifer compression exist and share common hydrogeological features. One study from Arizona documents a drop in the groundwater table from between 400 - 500 ft., subsidence of the ground’s surface dropped over seven feet from aquifer compaction and increased levels of salinity, all results from aquifer overdraft following years of excess groundwater pumping (Cowen, UC Davis).

The Tuscan Formation that contains the aquifer is composed of four
separate yet lithologically similar units labeled A – D. Unit B contains
the greatest groundwater storage capacity as permeable coarse grained
conglomerates, with Unit C being the impermeable overlay of fine grained consolidated lahars (Butte County Inventory). The layers of strata that cover and contain the confined Lower Tuscan aquifer are mostly volcanic sandstones, siltstones, lahars and impermeable clays containing other fine sedimentary and conglomerate materials prone to crumbling, shrinkage and eventual collapse or subsidence once the supporting water pressure and moisture of the aquifer below is removed. The support of the aquifer’s silt, lahar and volcanic sandstone overlay includes the water molecules exerting pressure between the pore spaces of the soil material, once the water is removed from the soil pore space following overdraft the soil sediments may no longer be able to support themselves and the result is cavern collapse and surface subsidence.

The idea of aquifers as additional water storage bodies is certainly more
logical than additional construction of dams, though removing large
quantities of aquifer water with several large pumps as proposed by GCID once again becomes unreasonable if the likely consequences of aquifer compression, ground subsidence and cones of depression in the groundwater table are taken into consideration. There are several other reasons to discourage the GCID pumping project, including the smaller wells in the shadow of the cones of depression that will likely run dry if the larger pumps from GCID are utilized. This author strongly urges the Glenn County court and Butte County council to prevent any planned groundwater extractions of the Tuscan aquifer by the GCID special interests.

References;

“In the Name of Science: Residents Discover Plan to Export Northern
California Groundwater; Agency Says Pumping Just for ‘Research Purposes’”
by Traci Sheehan, found in; California Progress Report, posted; 4/25/08
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/04/in_the_name_of.html

“Butte-Sutter Basin Groundwater Users” July 2006 Newsletter
http://www.buttegroundwater.org/nodes/resources/newsletters/newsletter_200607.htm

“Enviros to Sue Over Glenn County Water Project” by Josh Indar Chico News
and Review, 9/21/07
http://www.chicobeat.com/?q=enviros_to_sue_over_glenn_county_water_project

USGS; Glossary of Hydrological Terms, definitions from "The Federal
Glossary of Selected Terms: Subsurface-Water Flow and Solute Transport":
Department of Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Office of Water Data
Coordination, August 1989
http://or.water.usgs.gov/projs_dir/willgw/glossary.html

UC Davis Course; Geology 115, Instructor; Richard Cowen “Essays on
Geology” for “Exploiting the Earth” (to be released)
http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/~GEL115/115CH18miningwater.html

“Up Above: The Geography of Suburban Sprawl in Southern California’s
Antelope Valley” by Matthew Jalbert, Radical Urban Theory website (2002)
http://www.radicalurbantheory.com/mjalbert/AntelopeValley/15.html

“Butte County Water Inventory and Analysis”, March 30, 2001 (Section 3)
http://www.buttecounty.net/waterandresource/InventoryAnalysis/Section3%20Setting.pdf