11.17.13 – By Heather Hacking – As California struggles to provide water to a growing state, increased pressure is being made on the rich water supply of Northern California, said Barbara Vlamis, director of AquAlliance, during a groundwater forum Thursday night.

In 2009, state legislators passed several water bills, and now several large-scale plans are being written for statewide water management.

“I believe most of them don’t want to harm our area. But the pressures are great. The demands are great from outside our region,” Vlamis said.

One goal is to build twin tunnels that would bring water under the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.

“The costs are astronomical, and what it could do to the Sacramento River watershed is horrendous,” she said.

“The majority of water that leaves our region goes to industrial agriculture on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. It’s not lawns and swimming pools.”

AquAlliance works to “defend Northern California waters and to challenge threats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed,” the group’s website states (AquAlliance.net).

Jim Brobeck, of AquAlliance, told those at the forum that before the 1880s, groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley was shallow, and at times bubbled up from the ground on its own.

Droughts occurred and people began pumping deeper wells, he said. As technology improved, so did the number of wells.

Land subsidence is now a major problem in the San Joaquin Valley, Brobeck said. This occurs when soil compacts in the absence of water, and water no longer is stored in soils such as sand and gravel.

In addition to not being available for pumping, lack of shallow groundwater harms plants and wildlife, he said.

“Valley oak groves need access to perennial groundwater,” ideally at about 33 feet below the surface and a maximum of 70 feet, Brobeck said.

He said he talked with a tree expert in Visalia recently who said oak trees in that area now need to be irrigated, as the water levels are 100 feet below the surface.

“This is what could happen in our area,” Brobeck said.

Tulare Lake, in the extreme south of the San Joaquin Valley, was once a hotspot for wildlife, Brobeck said. In just 100 years, the lake has gone from the largest fresh-water lake west of the Mississippi to an agricultural area now facing water shortages, he said.

“We have the opportunity up here to preserve rather than attempting to restore something after we lose it.”

A recent news article in the Merced Sun-Star talks about groundwater overdraft, http://goo.gl/o67oen, and a forum on groundwater overdraft will be held next week in Tulare, (http://goo.gl/RmdCsV).