Yesterday the Los Osos CSD posted their next meeting's agenda and the long awaited Seawater Intrusion Monitoring Report for Zones D and E (the lower part of the aquifer) is on that agenda. The D and E zones of our 5-level aquifer mentioned in the report are where our main well for drinking water has been pumping. Monitoring wells are placed along a specific route to be able to calculate the movement of Seawater Intrusion (SWI) toward this drinking water well and the news is not good.
http://www.losososcsd.org/Library/2014%20Agenda%20Packet/11.13.14%20Agenda%20Packet/Agenda%20Item%2012A%202014%20Seawater%20Intrusion%20Monitoring%20Report.pdf
Zone D: The old rate of seawater intrusion was estimated to be 60 feet/year between 1985-2005. Since 2005 to the present, the new estimate is 200-250 feet of advancement per year. In 5 years, that main well could become unusable, or only useable with very expensive equipment.
Zone E: In 2013 the Palisades well was modified to not draw any water from this depth, and the SWI is fortunately no longer showing there. However, the estimated increase between 1985 and 2004 was 54 feet a year and, from 2004 to the present, it jumped to 100-125 feet a year. Good thing we stopped.
Why am I writing about this water stuff here? How is this connected to a sewer, this is a sewer blog! Well, pun intended, all of the water we have to use for everything, drinking, washing, watering our yards AND flushing, is located beneath our feet in Los Osos. The quantity of water is affected by rain or drought of course, but the quality issues, in the form of nitrate contamination (a result of flushing), increased to such a point in the 1970s that we could no longer use the water from the upper aquifer, shallow wells as we once did.* We now must rely on the lower aquifer's wells. And the lower wells are being over-pumped, so they are sucking in saltwater from the ocean, thus contaminating the water for our purposes, or as they say in the water business, "beneficial use."
Toilet flushing is only the surface reason that I am writing here.
Many deniers of the nitrate problem in our groundwater, state "the Water Board got it all wrong, we really don't need a sewer, our septic tanks are NOT the problem, the problem is really seawater intrusion!" These people have failed to connect the dots or simply do not want to believe the results of the testing done. To pretend that the nitrates are from some underground, buried forest, or from cows out in valley ag area, is just twisting your head into the Los Osos sand.
Why are we so concerned about nitrates? If you can't use a HUGE supply of the water you have because of nitrate contamination, you are damaging another part of your supply because you are over pumping it.
So, what can fix our water problem?
1. We are getting a sewer finally, that is one big, no HUGE, step to bringing down the nitrates. eventually. The reclaimed water going back in the ground at Broderson will take 20-30 years. The septics will be gone and no longer contaminating. Eventually, the water in the upper and lower aquifers will be fit and safe to use.
2. One idea has been importing water. But we don't want the expense of importing water, especially when drought winnows down the supply of water anywhere that we might get it. So forget that for now, hopefully forever.
3. At present, desalinating water from the ocean is hugely expensive and must go through a rigorous and time consuming permitting process from the California Coastal Commission. So forget that for now too. Maybe someday.
The obvious answer then for now, not 30 years from now, is by using the water we do have in the most conserving and reusing ways possible. And why have we done so little about this?
There are of course no logical answers to that question.
At least the remedies are obvious. Having the impetus to make water conservation rules, educating the public on how to abide by the rules (thereby saving water), retrofitting and replacing water wasting fixtures (saving water). The current and past sewer projects do/were going to do, this.
And how do you make this happen? MONEY! And where have we found the money to do these projects, or tried to anyway? SEWER PROJECTS! Water conservation as well as clean-up have been the goals.
So this is where the infuriating illogic comes in. Addressing the water issues was paramount, but what happened to that sewer that could have helped?—a myriad lawsuits over the years, to the old County project, to the Tri-W project. This caused delay, delay, delay. The false reliance on Measure B, the recall, and then the bankruptcy. Delay, delay, delay. All of the endless TAC meetings and tinkering of the County's project at the Planning Commission and Coastal Commission. Delay, delay, delay. But then, for the Los Osos Sustainability Group, all of this STILL wasn't enough, a month before the County was to start digging in 2012, they wanted the project stopped, the permit pulled, until their pet water remedies were inserted into the project! What is even remotely water helpful about that, the months more tinkering that this would have taken, never mind the huge costs? Stopping a project at its start—again. Fortunately, the Coastal Commission wasn't fooled and the project started.
"We Delay, We Pay," was the old slogan to try to keep one of the sewer projects moving forward. Now it has an unhappy echo into the deep well of money that we will need for fixing the water problems we so cavalierly forgot in our rush to stop a sewer or make it "the perfect sewer." Well, for the record, we got neither. The longer we waited, the worse it all got, both the water problems and the sewer costs. In 1987 it was $48.9 million to build a sewer and is now $183 million. The water problem remedies: $33,775,000 for no buildout, and $19,450,000 MORE for buildout, according to the Basin Plan which will be the water-fix blueprint next year.
So, be prepared to see water rate increases. Be prepared to float a bond. If the CSD and its district engineering firm is lucky and nimble on getting grants, hooray. But we have nothing but our own actions to ponder as to how we got into this precarious situation. Can we for once learn from these mistakes and move forward with our well-studied and clearly defined projects? Let's try. No, let's just DO IT.
* A nitrate removal system to make upper aquifer water useable has just been put into place and will soon begin operation. Read the LOCSD Staff report about this here:
http://www.losososcsd.org/Library/2014%20Agenda%20Packet/11.13.14%20Agenda%20Packet/Agenda%20Item%2011H%20Prop%2084%20Nitrate%20Removal%20Project.pdf
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