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Digging deep: Red Bluff’s Antelope area wells drying up, redrilled

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 20, 2009 at 6:58 am

From the Tehama Daily News:

When Lawanna Ross and her husband bought property in east Red Bluff, they assumed they would never have to drill another well. “We’ll have plenty of water always, because it’ll never go dry as long as it’s with the river,” Ross recalled her husband saying.

For 30 years, they were right. Ross, whose husband has since passed on, estimates she is spending $10,000 for each new well she has to have drilled to keep water flowing on her properties. She was able to save costs on two properties by connecting them to an agricultural well used by Crown Nursery, which Ross also rents to.

With wells she thought would go on forever suddenly drying up, Ross reasoned Lake Red Bluff’s late appearance this year could have reduced recharge to the aquifer her wells draw from from.

Because of a July 2008 court ruling that states the dam poses a hazard to some species of endangered fish, the gates at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam were kept up past May this year. Recently, a federal biological opinion that recommends the gates continue to be lowered on an abbreviated schedule for the next three years was released, and Lake Red Bluff returned Monday.

But county officials say the Antelope area’s dry wells have more to do with when they were built than the seasonal lake.

Read more from the Tehama Daily News by clicking here.

June 20, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack, Groundwater

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