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EIR for Antelope Valley water banking project to be released for public comment

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 12, 2007 at 7:54 am

Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency board of directors has agreed to release the draft EIR for the proposed water banking project for public comment. The board stressed that they are releasing it for public comment, but this does not mean that the board has accepted it. The water banking project is needed for many reasons, as told in this article from the Antelope Valley Press:

The goal of the proposed water bank would be to have a reliable groundwater supply in the Antelope Valley at times when surface water becomes scarce, like in drought years or during crises such as a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault that interrupts the flow in the California Aqueduct or U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger’s decision to reduce the amount of water coming out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in order to save an indigenous species of smelt - two-inch-long fish whose population has declined.

Long-term sustainable groundwater yield in the Antelope Valley basin is estimated at 40,000 acre-feet per year, Monroe said, based on information gathered from the U.S. Geological Survey. An acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons, the amount used by the average single-family home in a year, water experts agree. Retail water demand in the Valley exceeds sustainable groundwater yield in all years, Monroe noted.

In any given year, the Department of Water Resources can drastically reduce supplies from the State Water Project, the aqueduct, he added. The department can - in a severe water shortage year - allocate 5% of the prescribed entitlement to each of the 27 State Water Contractors, a member group to which AVEK belongs.

AVEK, a water wholesaler that sells to municipal customers like Los Angeles County Waterworks District 40 and agricultural users, can prepare for water deficits by implementing in-basin storage - the water bank - or scrapping the project and overdrafting the basin, pumping out too much groundwater when a shortage occurs. But, he said, overdrafting leads to land subsidence - the land will contract and leave less room in the basin to replenish the groundwater supply. Also, the situation with groundwater rights in the Valley hasn’t been settled yet, and the adjudication case is dragging through the court.

Also, Monroe said, AVEK could implement “severe rationing” during a water shortage, rather than proceed with a banking project. Rationing is just another option. Monroe said if a judge adjudicates groundwater, determines who has the pumping rights and to what extent, then “you’ll be stuck with rationing - three or four (toilet) flushes a day per family. It gets pretty ugly.”

To read the full text of this article from the Antelope Valley Press, click here.

October 12, 2007 · Filed Under Water Banking