Melinda Burns
This Target, located in a former Kmart building at 6865 Hollister Avenue, was exempt from the Goleta Water District’s ongoing moratorium on new water service. The store is set to open next month. (Photo by Melinda Burns)
By Melinda Burns
The five-year-old moratorium on new water hookups in the Goleta Valley will likely continue through 2020, even though the drought emergency is over, authorities say.
On the heels of a very wet winter, the Goleta Water District is receiving its normal deliveries from Lake Cachuma, a key condition for lifting the moratorium on new service under the SAFE Water Supplies Ordinance of 1991. But district officials say they are unable to fulfill a second condition that requires injecting a large supply of Cachuma water into the valley’s depleted ground water basins.
On Oct. 8, the Goleta Water District board will vote on a resolution extending the moratorium through 2020. It has been in effect since September, 2014, when Cachuma was two-thirds empty and all the South Coast water agencies agreed to a 55 percent cut in their reservoir allocations.
“It is unlikely that the district will be able to provide any water for new or additional service in 2020,” Ryan Drake, water supply and conservation manager, said this week.
Drake said the district is currently blending ground water with Cachuma water because the Whittier and Thomas fires and associated debris flows have degraded the quality of the reservoir supply. The district doesn’t have enough injection capacity for 2,477 acre-feet, the annual ground water storage requirement under the SAFE ordinance, Drake said. That’s more than a quarter of the district’s normal allotment of Cachuma water. Goleta Valley residents use just under 10,000 acre-feet of water per year.
In addition, the district needs a ground water injection permit from the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, John McInnes, the district general manager, told a long-range planning committee this month.
“It’s a very heavy lift to get the permit,” McInnes said, noting that the mineral content of the injected water cannot exceed the mineral content of the water underground. “We’ve heard that we’re close, but we have no definite time frame.”
The state may limit the amount of water that can be injected into Goleta Valley ground water basins, prolonging the moratorium, McInnes said.
Goleta Valley voters approved the SAFE ordinance at the end of the six-year drought of 1986 to 1991. It authorizes the release of up to 1 percent of available water supply for new or additional service if no rationing is in effect, and if the Goleta Water District is receiving normal deliveries from Cachuma. The district also must meet an annual storage commitment to the ground water basins until they reach 1972 levels. The ordinance does not require the basins to be fully replenished before the district lifts the moratorium.
At the same time, the moratorium does not apply to pre-existing water entitlements – a patchwork of reclaimable meters, unused permits, outstanding “will serve” letters and historical water service agreements dating back to the 1950s in the valley. In deference to this “stealth demand,” the district has approved water connections for hundreds of new homes and apartments during the moratorium, including UCSB’s San Joaquin Villages on Storke Road.
According to a district staff report, 21 projects requiring about 200 acre-feet of water per year are exempt from the water moratorium and currently in various stages of application for water service. They include the Cortona Corner Apartments – 176 units on Cortona Drive; the third phase of Willow Springs Heritage Ridge – 346 apartments, a community center and two-acre park on Los Carneros Road; and a Target store, fire station and senior living facility on Hollister. Two hundred acre-feet is enough water to serve more than 600 families of four for a year.
Meanwhile, Goleta Valley residents, some of the most water-thrifty in the state, continue to conserve, even after a wet winter.
“Demand has hardened and is not coming back even close to pre-drought levels,” McInness said.
Elsewhere on the South Coast, the Montecito Water District lifted its five-year moratorium on new water hookups in May. But the Carpinteria Water District and the City of Santa Barbara are drafting a joint letter to the state board, asking it to revisit what they view as unnecessarily onerous permit requirements.
The injection permit has been termed a “waste discharge” permit, said Joshua Haggmark, Santa Barbara water resources manager, yet, he said, naturally-occurring minerals in reservoir water such as iron, boron and sulfate don’t pose a health hazard.
“I just put my foot down,” Haggmark said. “We’re not getting a ‘waste discharge’ permit to put our drinking water into the ground. That’s ridiculous.”
South Coast ground water basins – drought buffers of last resort – were drawn down severely during the seven-year drought that ended last winter. It’s imperative to start replenishing them soon and avoid the loss of reservoir water to evaporation, Haggmark said.
State officials say the injection permits are necessary to prevent the degradation of ground water in California.
Melinda Burns is a freelance journalist in Santa Barbara, Ca.
[Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Montecito Water District has applied for a groundwater injection permit from the state. It has not applied for such a permit.]
Why three or more kids? Stop at two.
When you KNOW the water above ground isn’t up to snuff so you’re mixing it 50/50 with water from below ground and delivering that product. Yet in some level of infinite wisdom, there’s the desire to inject the BAD water from above ground into the aquafer? Even using the convenient vernacular of “Moratorium” is a misnomer. It’s simply GOOD PRACTICE to not build more long term housing projects when there’s not an adequate supply of long term water. Finally, I now know why everyone’s skin itches in the Goleta Valley and how it’s so hard to get a dermatology appointment because the water is a mess.
Yes, now that you all have your slice of heaven, nobody else should. Goleta is such a xenophobic place pretending to be environmentalist. nobody really wants a solution (I think interconnection or additional agreements) to the water problem because it lets them keep everyone else out.
Pointing fingers at suspected zenophobia and environmentalism as roots of the problem collapses the issue of wise use of available resources into a “cognitive dissonance” type argument. Sustainable use of water is the goal. It is long past the time where we should learn to live within our shared water resources with all of our neighbors.
Bureaucrats want to regulate growth through zoning and mandates, yet they cannot regulate how much water is available. The answer to the impossible mandates is: no water = no growth. They cannot create water so we cannot have growth no matter what the mandates are. Citizens of Goleta have done their share of conservation and have endured the surcharges for years. Please someone, bring the city, county and state bureaucrats back to earth and give them a lesson in basic economics!
Goleta needs to STOP DEVELOPING every stinking inch of land! It’s insane what’s been happening out there! Sick. Goleta used to be pretty and lovely, now it’s another suburb with dense development and ticky tacky architecture everywhere. UGLY. No water – NO more building! Just STOP.
Despite “rampant development” there’s an interesting survey in the LA Times today. Over half the citizens of CA are considering leaving the state. The groups most inclined to consider leaving are the young and conservatives. “The Berkeley IGS poll found that 82% of the 18- to 29-year-olds considering leaving the state cited housing costs as a reason, as did nearly 80% of 30- to 39-year-olds.” And “if conservative voters do move out of state, California could lose a large tax base.” So good luck after many of the young workers and business owners leave.
Discussing only water use, since residential users normally use less water than agricultural users, shouldn’t residential development in lieu of the old agricultural uses be a positive thing for water use (not considering traffic and all of the other negative impacts)?
LOL, not a cheap trick. Just quoting you. Choose your words better.