Water Transfer Advances: Ground Water Vulnerable

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April 19, 2013: The Glenn Colusa Irrigation District (GCID) will sell 5,000 acre feet (A/F) of their river water allocation to the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) and pump 5,000 A/F of Tuscan Aquifer water to replace it. AquAlliance attended the April 18, 2013 GCID board meeting to oppose the groundwater substitution transfer. The wells were funded by state and federal grants with little environmental review because the stated purpose of construction was “research” to “test” the aquifer’s response to pumping. AquAlliance reminded the GCID board that their general manager, Thaddeus Bettner, promised the public that before the wells were employed to do groundwater substitution transfers there would be a comprehensive Environmental Impact Report/Statement (EIS/EIR) produced to analyze impacts and protect neighbors from a dropping and/or a destabilized water table (Tehama County Flood Control minutes 9/23/08). There has been no EIR/EIS drafted for the project, but the GCID board is moving forward with the water sale anyway.

GCID acknowledges in their Board material (click here to view) that this groundwater substitution sale “will be viewed negatively by some.” Bettner explained that the SLDMWA would contribute up to $50,000 to cover anticipated litigation over the controversial water transfer from the Northern Sacramento Valley aquifer to the San Joaquin Valley water purveyor. One board member thought the “buyer” should put up even more litigation money for the inevitable legal challenge to the groundwater transfer.

Jim Brobeck, who attended the meeting representing AquAlliance, said, “I am disappointed that the GCID board had no response to my detailed concerns about the project and voted unanimously to move ahead with the ground water substitution transfer. Finding out GCID and the San Joaquin Valley water purveyors are assembling a large litigation war chest to push this precedent setting groundwater project, in spite of local opposition, should be a wake-up call for neighbors in the Sacramento Valley who have nothing to gain and everything to lose.”

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