Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
County Report on Water Transfers Offers Less Costly Solution than Proposed Desal Plant
Rick Longinotti of Desal Alternatives issued a statement today praising a report submitted by John Ricker, County of Santa Cruz Water Resources Director, to Soquel Creek Water District. Ricker stated that water transfers between Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, San Lorenzo Valley, and the Soquel Creek District could get Soquel Creek Water District on the way to their goal of reducing groundwater pumping, and Santa Cruz could get water from neighboring districts during times of drought. The cost in pipelines would be significantly less of an investment and would require less in maintenance than a desalination plant. Desal Alternatives is recommending the City of Santa Cruz take action and immediately enter into negotiations with Soquel Creek Water District, Scotts Valley Water District, and San Lorenzo Valley Water District to contract for reciprocal water exchanges.
Rick Longinotti writes:
"Last Tuesday, John Ricker, County Water Resources Director, gave a report on water transfers to the Board of Soquel Creek Water District. Ricker’s report should quiet the voices that have been saying that desal is the only way Soquel Creek District could reach its goal.
"For $92 million in pipelines and water treatment, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, San Lorenzo Valley and Soquel Creek District could be interconnected, making more use of San Lorenzo River water in winter months. The Soquel Creek District could get 90% of the way to their goal of reducing groundwater pumping 31% below 2012 levels. The cost is of this plan is about $40 million less than desalination. But the real savings is in operation costs, which would be a small fraction of the cost of operating the energy-hungry desal plant.
"The Draft EIR for the desal project rejected the water transfer plan as an alternative, echoing the City Water Department’s reasons for why it shouldn’t be considered an alternative to desal: “The length of time to effect a water rights change (10 to 20 years), coupled with the length of time it would take the basin to recover (at least 20 years), means the City would receive little to no benefit from such an exchange any time in the foreseeable future.”
"Information from Ricker and the District’s water rights attorney, Peter Kiel, countered these claims. Kiel made it clear that the reason water rights applications sometimes sit in limbo for many years is due to unresolved objections from state and federal fisheries agencies. Wisely, Ricker has been communicating with the fisheries agencies throughout the development of the transfer plan. Recognizing the benefit to fish habitat, the fisheries agencies are now recommending the County’s water transfer strategy, also known as “conjunctive use”. In its comment letter on the Draft EIR for the desalination project, the National Marine Fisheries Service writes, “A comprehensive approach to water use and conservation in central Santa Cruz County (as currently being investigated by the County of Santa Cruz through their Conjunctive Use Program) will result in a project that both improves water supply and promotes recovery of listed salmonids…“
"As to how soon Santa Cruz could get water from neighboring districts during drought, Ricker made it clear that the aquifers don’t need to be fully recharged before this happens.
"Thanks to John Ricker for quietly but steadily moving forward on the transfer plan. And thanks to the 73% of Santa Cruz voters who backed Measure P, putting the desal decision in the hands of the voters. It’s hard to imagine that the City or Soquel Creek District would invest in the infrastructure for water transfers unless a large number of citizens made it clear that a desal plant does not fit with their values for environmental sustainability and fiscal responsibility."
Desal Alternatives is urging the Santa Cruz City Council to direct the Water Department to:
1) Apply now for water rights permission to immediately transfer water to Soquel Creek District
2) Enter negotiations with Soquel Creek Water District, Scotts Valley Water District and San Lorenzo Valley Water District to contract for reciprocal water exchanges.
3) Open the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) negotiations to participation from the County and neighboring water districts in order to facilitate fisheries agency approval of a water transfer plan. The HCP process should also be public.
4) Report on the cost and benefits of pre-treatment of turbid water and the “Lochquifer Strategy”.
Background (from: http://desalalternatives.org/?p=934 )
The concept of water transfers is that Santa Cruz would draw San Lorenzo River water, treat it, and send it to Soquel Creek Water District and Scotts Valley Water District in winter months when there is more than enough water in the river to satisfy fish reproduction requirements. Those districts, which are 100% dependent on groundwater, would be able to reduce their pumping of groundwater during the winter, allowing the aquifer to recharge.
From the point of view of Santa Cruz, water transfers is a water storage strategy. A portion of the water that Santa Cruz sends to neighboring districts would come back to Santa Cruz during the summer in drought years.
Water transfers is also a habitat restoration strategy, since replenished aquifers discharge more water into the streams in the watershed.
This concept has been studied for over 30 years. In 1981 the City of Santa Cruz entered into a legal agreement with the Soquel Creek Water District for the purpose of selling water to the District. A series of engineering studies since that time have recommended water transfers as a way to redress aquifer overdraft and aid Santa Cruz during drought years:
Kennedy/Jencks, No. County Water Master Plan (1985):
“The interties would enable agencies with surplus supplies to provide water to agencies facing water shortages.”
Leedshill-Herkenhoff, Santa Cruz Water Master Plan, (1989):
“A conjunctive use intertie program with Scotts Valley Water District is proposed.”
Carollo Engineers, Alternative Water Supply Study (2000)
“Limited use of the wells by the Soquel Creek Water District during winter periods – when supply could be augmented by the City – should reduce the stress on the aquifer and enhance natural recharge.”
The strategy of water transfers was ultimately rejected in the process leading to Santa Cruz’s Integrated Water Plan (2003), due to concerns that opening a water rights application to enable the transfer would leave the City vulnerable to demands by state and federal fisheries agencies to reduce its diversion of water from area streams. Although the City abandoned the water transfer strategy, City fears about fishery agency demands came to pass.
County Water Resources Director, John Ricker, was not daunted by the need to get water rights permits, and he revived the strategy of water transfers between Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz. Using state grant money, the County commissioned Kennedy/Jenks Engineering to study recharge of the Santa Margarita Aquifer below the San Lorenzo River watershed. The Kennedy/Jenks study recommended tapping San Lorenzo River flows in winter months to supply the Scotts Valley District with potable water, as well as directly recharge the aquifer by sending river water to the abandoned Hanson Quarry on Mt. Hermon Rd. The study is available at http://scceh.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=LysD1p6EjgM%3D&tabid=1690 Kennedy/Jenks describes the concept of aquifer recharge as “water banking”, saying that Santa Cruz “should be able to purchase the banked groundwater during periods of drought”.
As the quantities of river water available in the winter became clearer, John Ricker noticed that the entire potable water needs of Scotts Valley could be supplied, with water to spare. Ricker then included in his plan a transfer of river water to Soquel Creek Water District. In February, 2013, Ricker estimated that the amount of water available to Soquel Creek District with current infrastructure is 340 acre feet per year—mainly constrained by the lack of inter-connecting pipes within Soquel Creek District itself. With improved infrastructure, the estimate is 660-800 acre-feet per year. (The District’s goal is reducing its pumping by 1100 acre feet from 2011 levels.)
An important requirement of the water transfer strategy, according to Ricker’s work plan, is that “future demands in targeted service areas will not increase”. Soquel Creek District already has a plan to reduce their water demand by 2030, in spite of whatever growth may occur. Santa Cruz, on the other hand, anticipates a 9% net increase in water demand by 2030. Santa Cruz would have to achieve net water neutrality in order to participate in the County plan.
Bill Kocher, retired Santa Cruz Water Director, was skeptical that sharing water with Soquel Creek District would result in any water returning to Santa Cruz. His perspective is echoed in the draft EIR for the desal project, “The length of time to effect a water rights change (10 to 20 years), coupled with the length of time it would take the basin to recover (at least 20 years), means the City would receive little to no benefit from such an exchange any time in the foreseeable future.”
However, the County work plan for water transfers anticipates that transfers could take place “immediately”. The County work plan calls for “a short term urgent transfer permit to immediately begin transferring treated water from Santa Cruz to Soquel using existing infrastructure”.
In their letter to the City Council of October, 2011, the Board of Soquel Creek Water District indicated that transferring water back to Santa Cruz is not conditional on recovery of the basin. They know such a condition would be the kiss of death for this strategy. Their letter states, “SqCWD is willing to negotiate transferring some quantity of the yield we would receive from winter surplus from the San Lorenzo River back to the City during drought periods.” The Board knows that receiving river water every winter and transferring some water back to Santa Cruz once in 6.5 years (the frequency of critically dry years) would be a net gain for the aquifer.
Fisheries Agencies Support Water Transfers
The Water Department opinion that water transfers take 20 years to approve is based on Santa Cruz’s experience with attempting to modify water rights on Newell Creek and Felton Diversion. What is not understood about those examples is that Santa Cruz water rights applications in those instances have been protested by state and federal fisheries agencies. Those protests will not be resolved until Santa Cruz develops a Habitat Conservation Plan. Since Santa Cruz has taken 11 years and counting to develop a HCP, it is understandable that City water rights applications have taken so long for approval.
A regional water transfer plan (also called “conjunctive use”) that has fisheries agencies support should take much less time to secure water rights permission. The National Marine Fisheries Service has expressed their support for such a regional conjunctive use program in their comment letter on the desal EIR:
“A comprehensive approach to water use and conservation in central Santa Cruz County (as currently being investigated by the County of Santa Cruz through their Conjunctive Use Program) will result in a project that both improves water supply and promotes recovery of listed salmonids over a much larger area than currently proposed in the City’s draft Habitat Conservation Plan.”
Habitat Conservation Plan Process Should Be Opened Up
Although the fisheries agencies support a regional water transfer plan, Santa Cruz has not brought discussion of such a plan into their development of a Habitat Conservation Plan. For this reason the process should be opened up to public input, and the negotiations on the an HCP that includes a transfer plan should include representatives from the County, Scotts Valley Water District, San Lorenzo Valley Water District, and Soquel Creek Water District.
Turbid Water Treatment
During normal winters there are many days in which the City relies on Loch Lomond water because the river water is too muddy to treat. In winter 2010, for example, no water was drawn from the river for 40 days during a four month period. There is an enormous amount of water flowing out to sea during these periods with no capacity to treat it. The dEIR on the desal project reports that pre-treatment of turbid water could reduce Santa Cruz’s worst case drought shortfall by 5 percentage points.
Even more significantly, turbid water treatment would increase the number of days in which neighboring districts could use river water. This increase in available water for neighboring districts means additional capacity of those districts to transfer well water to Santa Cruz in drought periods.
The Lochquifer Strategy
Retired engineer, Jerry Paul, has found a way to increase the potential of the County’s water transfer plan. Paul recommends extending the four month winter season for water transfers from Santa Cruz to neighboring districts by increasing use of Loch Lomond Reservoir. Loch Lomond is the City’s only storage facility. Currently the City strives to keep a high level of water in the lake during the dry season in case the next year is critically dry.
As a result of keeping the lake at 80% or 90% capacity at the end of the dry season, the reservoir is too full to capture millions of gallons of normal winter runoff that currently spills over the dam. If the neighboring districts would supplement the City’s water supply during drought, the City could afford to use more Loch Lomond water during normal years. And millions of gallons of water could be captured by the lake in normal winters.
To further investigate the Lochquifer strategy, there needs to be a study of how much water could come back to Santa Cruz from neighboring districts during drought, whether new wells would need to be drilled to supply that water, etc.
http://desalalternatives.org/
"Last Tuesday, John Ricker, County Water Resources Director, gave a report on water transfers to the Board of Soquel Creek Water District. Ricker’s report should quiet the voices that have been saying that desal is the only way Soquel Creek District could reach its goal.
"For $92 million in pipelines and water treatment, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, San Lorenzo Valley and Soquel Creek District could be interconnected, making more use of San Lorenzo River water in winter months. The Soquel Creek District could get 90% of the way to their goal of reducing groundwater pumping 31% below 2012 levels. The cost is of this plan is about $40 million less than desalination. But the real savings is in operation costs, which would be a small fraction of the cost of operating the energy-hungry desal plant.
"The Draft EIR for the desal project rejected the water transfer plan as an alternative, echoing the City Water Department’s reasons for why it shouldn’t be considered an alternative to desal: “The length of time to effect a water rights change (10 to 20 years), coupled with the length of time it would take the basin to recover (at least 20 years), means the City would receive little to no benefit from such an exchange any time in the foreseeable future.”
"Information from Ricker and the District’s water rights attorney, Peter Kiel, countered these claims. Kiel made it clear that the reason water rights applications sometimes sit in limbo for many years is due to unresolved objections from state and federal fisheries agencies. Wisely, Ricker has been communicating with the fisheries agencies throughout the development of the transfer plan. Recognizing the benefit to fish habitat, the fisheries agencies are now recommending the County’s water transfer strategy, also known as “conjunctive use”. In its comment letter on the Draft EIR for the desalination project, the National Marine Fisheries Service writes, “A comprehensive approach to water use and conservation in central Santa Cruz County (as currently being investigated by the County of Santa Cruz through their Conjunctive Use Program) will result in a project that both improves water supply and promotes recovery of listed salmonids…“
"As to how soon Santa Cruz could get water from neighboring districts during drought, Ricker made it clear that the aquifers don’t need to be fully recharged before this happens.
"Thanks to John Ricker for quietly but steadily moving forward on the transfer plan. And thanks to the 73% of Santa Cruz voters who backed Measure P, putting the desal decision in the hands of the voters. It’s hard to imagine that the City or Soquel Creek District would invest in the infrastructure for water transfers unless a large number of citizens made it clear that a desal plant does not fit with their values for environmental sustainability and fiscal responsibility."
Desal Alternatives is urging the Santa Cruz City Council to direct the Water Department to:
1) Apply now for water rights permission to immediately transfer water to Soquel Creek District
2) Enter negotiations with Soquel Creek Water District, Scotts Valley Water District and San Lorenzo Valley Water District to contract for reciprocal water exchanges.
3) Open the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) negotiations to participation from the County and neighboring water districts in order to facilitate fisheries agency approval of a water transfer plan. The HCP process should also be public.
4) Report on the cost and benefits of pre-treatment of turbid water and the “Lochquifer Strategy”.
Background (from: http://desalalternatives.org/?p=934 )
The concept of water transfers is that Santa Cruz would draw San Lorenzo River water, treat it, and send it to Soquel Creek Water District and Scotts Valley Water District in winter months when there is more than enough water in the river to satisfy fish reproduction requirements. Those districts, which are 100% dependent on groundwater, would be able to reduce their pumping of groundwater during the winter, allowing the aquifer to recharge.
From the point of view of Santa Cruz, water transfers is a water storage strategy. A portion of the water that Santa Cruz sends to neighboring districts would come back to Santa Cruz during the summer in drought years.
Water transfers is also a habitat restoration strategy, since replenished aquifers discharge more water into the streams in the watershed.
This concept has been studied for over 30 years. In 1981 the City of Santa Cruz entered into a legal agreement with the Soquel Creek Water District for the purpose of selling water to the District. A series of engineering studies since that time have recommended water transfers as a way to redress aquifer overdraft and aid Santa Cruz during drought years:
Kennedy/Jencks, No. County Water Master Plan (1985):
“The interties would enable agencies with surplus supplies to provide water to agencies facing water shortages.”
Leedshill-Herkenhoff, Santa Cruz Water Master Plan, (1989):
“A conjunctive use intertie program with Scotts Valley Water District is proposed.”
Carollo Engineers, Alternative Water Supply Study (2000)
“Limited use of the wells by the Soquel Creek Water District during winter periods – when supply could be augmented by the City – should reduce the stress on the aquifer and enhance natural recharge.”
The strategy of water transfers was ultimately rejected in the process leading to Santa Cruz’s Integrated Water Plan (2003), due to concerns that opening a water rights application to enable the transfer would leave the City vulnerable to demands by state and federal fisheries agencies to reduce its diversion of water from area streams. Although the City abandoned the water transfer strategy, City fears about fishery agency demands came to pass.
County Water Resources Director, John Ricker, was not daunted by the need to get water rights permits, and he revived the strategy of water transfers between Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz. Using state grant money, the County commissioned Kennedy/Jenks Engineering to study recharge of the Santa Margarita Aquifer below the San Lorenzo River watershed. The Kennedy/Jenks study recommended tapping San Lorenzo River flows in winter months to supply the Scotts Valley District with potable water, as well as directly recharge the aquifer by sending river water to the abandoned Hanson Quarry on Mt. Hermon Rd. The study is available at http://scceh.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=LysD1p6EjgM%3D&tabid=1690 Kennedy/Jenks describes the concept of aquifer recharge as “water banking”, saying that Santa Cruz “should be able to purchase the banked groundwater during periods of drought”.
As the quantities of river water available in the winter became clearer, John Ricker noticed that the entire potable water needs of Scotts Valley could be supplied, with water to spare. Ricker then included in his plan a transfer of river water to Soquel Creek Water District. In February, 2013, Ricker estimated that the amount of water available to Soquel Creek District with current infrastructure is 340 acre feet per year—mainly constrained by the lack of inter-connecting pipes within Soquel Creek District itself. With improved infrastructure, the estimate is 660-800 acre-feet per year. (The District’s goal is reducing its pumping by 1100 acre feet from 2011 levels.)
An important requirement of the water transfer strategy, according to Ricker’s work plan, is that “future demands in targeted service areas will not increase”. Soquel Creek District already has a plan to reduce their water demand by 2030, in spite of whatever growth may occur. Santa Cruz, on the other hand, anticipates a 9% net increase in water demand by 2030. Santa Cruz would have to achieve net water neutrality in order to participate in the County plan.
Bill Kocher, retired Santa Cruz Water Director, was skeptical that sharing water with Soquel Creek District would result in any water returning to Santa Cruz. His perspective is echoed in the draft EIR for the desal project, “The length of time to effect a water rights change (10 to 20 years), coupled with the length of time it would take the basin to recover (at least 20 years), means the City would receive little to no benefit from such an exchange any time in the foreseeable future.”
However, the County work plan for water transfers anticipates that transfers could take place “immediately”. The County work plan calls for “a short term urgent transfer permit to immediately begin transferring treated water from Santa Cruz to Soquel using existing infrastructure”.
In their letter to the City Council of October, 2011, the Board of Soquel Creek Water District indicated that transferring water back to Santa Cruz is not conditional on recovery of the basin. They know such a condition would be the kiss of death for this strategy. Their letter states, “SqCWD is willing to negotiate transferring some quantity of the yield we would receive from winter surplus from the San Lorenzo River back to the City during drought periods.” The Board knows that receiving river water every winter and transferring some water back to Santa Cruz once in 6.5 years (the frequency of critically dry years) would be a net gain for the aquifer.
Fisheries Agencies Support Water Transfers
The Water Department opinion that water transfers take 20 years to approve is based on Santa Cruz’s experience with attempting to modify water rights on Newell Creek and Felton Diversion. What is not understood about those examples is that Santa Cruz water rights applications in those instances have been protested by state and federal fisheries agencies. Those protests will not be resolved until Santa Cruz develops a Habitat Conservation Plan. Since Santa Cruz has taken 11 years and counting to develop a HCP, it is understandable that City water rights applications have taken so long for approval.
A regional water transfer plan (also called “conjunctive use”) that has fisheries agencies support should take much less time to secure water rights permission. The National Marine Fisheries Service has expressed their support for such a regional conjunctive use program in their comment letter on the desal EIR:
“A comprehensive approach to water use and conservation in central Santa Cruz County (as currently being investigated by the County of Santa Cruz through their Conjunctive Use Program) will result in a project that both improves water supply and promotes recovery of listed salmonids over a much larger area than currently proposed in the City’s draft Habitat Conservation Plan.”
Habitat Conservation Plan Process Should Be Opened Up
Although the fisheries agencies support a regional water transfer plan, Santa Cruz has not brought discussion of such a plan into their development of a Habitat Conservation Plan. For this reason the process should be opened up to public input, and the negotiations on the an HCP that includes a transfer plan should include representatives from the County, Scotts Valley Water District, San Lorenzo Valley Water District, and Soquel Creek Water District.
Turbid Water Treatment
During normal winters there are many days in which the City relies on Loch Lomond water because the river water is too muddy to treat. In winter 2010, for example, no water was drawn from the river for 40 days during a four month period. There is an enormous amount of water flowing out to sea during these periods with no capacity to treat it. The dEIR on the desal project reports that pre-treatment of turbid water could reduce Santa Cruz’s worst case drought shortfall by 5 percentage points.
Even more significantly, turbid water treatment would increase the number of days in which neighboring districts could use river water. This increase in available water for neighboring districts means additional capacity of those districts to transfer well water to Santa Cruz in drought periods.
The Lochquifer Strategy
Retired engineer, Jerry Paul, has found a way to increase the potential of the County’s water transfer plan. Paul recommends extending the four month winter season for water transfers from Santa Cruz to neighboring districts by increasing use of Loch Lomond Reservoir. Loch Lomond is the City’s only storage facility. Currently the City strives to keep a high level of water in the lake during the dry season in case the next year is critically dry.
As a result of keeping the lake at 80% or 90% capacity at the end of the dry season, the reservoir is too full to capture millions of gallons of normal winter runoff that currently spills over the dam. If the neighboring districts would supplement the City’s water supply during drought, the City could afford to use more Loch Lomond water during normal years. And millions of gallons of water could be captured by the lake in normal winters.
To further investigate the Lochquifer strategy, there needs to be a study of how much water could come back to Santa Cruz from neighboring districts during drought, whether new wells would need to be drilled to supply that water, etc.
http://desalalternatives.org/
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
It says, "From the point of view of Santa Cruz, water transfers is a water storage strategy. A portion of the water that Santa Cruz sends to neighboring districts would come back to Santa Cruz during the summer in drought years."
This synopsis is quite interesting. What is the right "portion" (less than 100%) of what Santa Cruz would contribute that they should receive in drought years? If Santa Cruz expected to get water back gallon for gallon, there would be no net recharge to the aquifers and no advantage to neighboring districts. To benefit neighboring districts whatsoever, Santa Cruz needs to contribute more than it will ever get back.
Summer water is more valuable than winter water. It makes sense for Santa Cruz to send excess water in the winter, but the water the city would expect to get back during summer is more valuable. Thus the city should always expect to get fewer gallons back than it contributes.
This is an "insurance" model rather than a "banking" model. In "banking", you make a deposit temporarily and later get to use all of that deposit plus interest. In "insurance", you pay a premium and only rarely get a return in the form of payment on a claim due to a loss.
So Santa Cruz would send winter water nearly every year and, if a drought occurs every six-and-a-half years, only expect to collect any summer water during 15% of the years. Perhaps during the summer of a drought year the city would expect that return to be double or triple the annual winter premium (6.5x would be too much because that would wind up being gallon for gallon and 1x would probably be too little). It's fundamental to this plan that Santa Cruz will need to supply more water they they'll get back in return.
The Prop 50 project which formerly included Santa Cruz and Soquel Creek was to build several interties for "emergency" purposes. The idea was to obtain matching funds from the state, build a bunch of interties, and later negotiate water exchanges between agencies and use the infrastructure for non-emergency purposes. Now that state funds are no longer available to connect Santa Cruz with Scotts Valley and Soquel Creek, it seems like there will need to be water exchange agreements in advance in order to motivate the capital investments the neighboring districts would be asked to make to realize this plan. Would the city commit to produce (for example) 400 acre-feet every winter in exchange for 1000 acre-feet one summer every 6.5 years?
This synopsis is quite interesting. What is the right "portion" (less than 100%) of what Santa Cruz would contribute that they should receive in drought years? If Santa Cruz expected to get water back gallon for gallon, there would be no net recharge to the aquifers and no advantage to neighboring districts. To benefit neighboring districts whatsoever, Santa Cruz needs to contribute more than it will ever get back.
Summer water is more valuable than winter water. It makes sense for Santa Cruz to send excess water in the winter, but the water the city would expect to get back during summer is more valuable. Thus the city should always expect to get fewer gallons back than it contributes.
This is an "insurance" model rather than a "banking" model. In "banking", you make a deposit temporarily and later get to use all of that deposit plus interest. In "insurance", you pay a premium and only rarely get a return in the form of payment on a claim due to a loss.
So Santa Cruz would send winter water nearly every year and, if a drought occurs every six-and-a-half years, only expect to collect any summer water during 15% of the years. Perhaps during the summer of a drought year the city would expect that return to be double or triple the annual winter premium (6.5x would be too much because that would wind up being gallon for gallon and 1x would probably be too little). It's fundamental to this plan that Santa Cruz will need to supply more water they they'll get back in return.
The Prop 50 project which formerly included Santa Cruz and Soquel Creek was to build several interties for "emergency" purposes. The idea was to obtain matching funds from the state, build a bunch of interties, and later negotiate water exchanges between agencies and use the infrastructure for non-emergency purposes. Now that state funds are no longer available to connect Santa Cruz with Scotts Valley and Soquel Creek, it seems like there will need to be water exchange agreements in advance in order to motivate the capital investments the neighboring districts would be asked to make to realize this plan. Would the city commit to produce (for example) 400 acre-feet every winter in exchange for 1000 acre-feet one summer every 6.5 years?
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$255.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network