WATSONVILLE -- The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will consider Tuesday declaring a groundwater emergency in the Pajaro Valley, an action that could lead to moratoriums on new wells, subdivisions and building permits.
Residential and agricultural water consumers also could be asked to cut consumption by as much as 20 percent.
The proposed emergency declaration grew out of concern that the financially troubled Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency would be unable to solve a long-standing problem of dwindling groundwater supplies.
"If the groundwater emergency will help focus people's attention, maybe it's a good thing," said Supervisor Ellen Pirie, who first brought the issue to the board's attention several months ago.
Pirie said the agency's had a difficult year with plenty of issues to resolve, but the main problem -- replacing millions of dollars in annual income lost after a lawsuit over a fee on pumping water -- remains.
She said she continues to be concerned, even though she said she was relieved Wednesday when the agency's board voted not to repeal another fee at risk in a court challenge.
"We aren't any closer than we were a year ago to solving the groundwater and water supply problems in the Pajaro Valley," Pirie said.
The water agency's board hasn't taken a stand on the emergency declaration.
Speaking for himself, not the agency, board Chairman Dennis Osmer said he opposes it.
"It's ridiculous," he said. "Is there some doubt that the county is not going to bring the success they've accomplished in transportation to the water problem? Is their mastery of the planning process the basis of their solution to the water problem? What is it they will bring, based on their history and their performance? What is it they are going to bring to the table here except for more wasted money and more pain?" |
Steve Bontadelli, president of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, also sees little need for the county to get involved. The water agency is making progress, he said.
"It's a premature reaction," Bontadelli said. "We don't need the supervisors to save us quite yet."
But Doug Deitch, a longtime water watchdog and critic of agricultural water use, said the declaration is just a start. He recommends dissolving the Pajaro Valley agency and replacing it with regional water management stretching from Santa Cruz to North Monterey County.
"The declaration of groundwater emergency, as we all realize, does not solve this very grave decades-old problem," he wrote in a letter to supervisors. "Your recognition of this problem, at least 10 years and billions of dollars of our lost/expropriated water resources late, can be a beginning."
Contact Donna Jones at 763-4505 or djones@santacruzsentinel.com.
