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Supes to review revised groundwater ordinance
By Joe Naiman
The Alpine Sun
SAN DIEGO — The county’s Planning
Commission sent proposed revisions to the county’s groundwater
ordinance involving residential well test requirements and
boundary adjustments to the Board of Supervisors with a positive
recommendation.
A 5-0 Planning Commission vote Nov. 17, with
commissioners Bryan Woods and David Kreitzer absent, recommended
approval of the ordinance changes. The ordinance is expected to
be heard by the supervisors in late January.
“It seems like there’s plenty of time for the folks who
want to give input,” said Planning Commissioner Michael Beck.
“There’s a way to backstop this if we have to.”
The public comment at the Planning Commission was
supportive of the ordinance changes but wary about the lack of
notice provided to community planning groups.
“I’m actually very much in favor of it,” said Michael
Thometz of Campo. “We’ve been very supportive of groundwater
issues from the very beginning.”
The Nov. 17 agenda of the Planning Commission was made
available to the public on November 10, but community planning
groups were not notified of the docketed item. “This is an issue
with us,” Thometz said.
“I’m in favor of this, but I’m just protesting the way
it’s being handled,” Thometz said. “This is a good thing, but
you’ve got to do a better job.”
Since the Campo-Lake Morena Community Planning Group
did not have an opportunity to review the proposed updates,
Larry Johnson spoke to the Planning Commission as an individual
rather than as the co-chair of Groundwater Subcommittee of the
Campo-Lake Morena Community Planning Group.
“Basically I think they are very good changes. I think
they are heading in the right direction,” Johnson said. “I’m in
support of what they’re doing.”
The county’s existing groundwater ordinance was
reviewed earlier this year by county groundwater geologist Jim
Bennett, and a Groundwater Technical Advisory Committee
established by the county’s Department of Planning and Land Use.
The review identified two revisions, which could
protect groundwater resources by verifying that a long-term
sustainable supply was available to serve proposed development.
One of those revisions involves changing the residential well
test requirements while the other revision would add boundary
adjustments to the list of discretionary projects subject to the
groundwater ordinance.
“Sustainability is a complex issue and lots more than
just how much water you’ve got in the ground,” Johnson said.
The existing ordinance requires analysis of the
performance capability of a given well but does not analyze
long-term yield. Existing regulations require between one and
five well tests, based on the number of proposed lots in the
development, to be performed for subdivisions outside of a water
service area which propose to use groundwater.
Since steep slope areas typically have relatively less
groundwater in storage than valley areas, more well tests for
potentially marginal lots may verify that a long-term
sustainable supply of groundwater is available, and the new
ordinance allows the director of the Department of Planning and
Land Use to require additional well tests beyond the initial
amount required.
The existing ordinance requires the performance
capacity of a well to meet or exceed three minimum standards:
Production of no less than three gallons per minute, recovery of
90 percent of total drawdown within 12 hours of termination of
production, and production of at least two full well bore
volumes (a bore volume is the quantity of water stored within
the saturated portion of the well’s drilled annulus).
The 90 percent drawdown recovery requirement would be
replaced with two new criteria, which would analyze long-term
yield.
The first would analyze the amount of residual drawdown
projected from the well test, indicating whether the well is
located in an aquifer of limited extent; if a consequential
amount of residual drawdown is projected the long-term yield may
be lower than what the well test would indicate.
The second criteria projects whether the well would
have sufficient water after five years of pumping at the rate of
projected water demand; that conservatively assumes that no
groundwater recharge occurs during that period and thus accounts
for a worst-case drought scenario.
The long-term yield tests also force the creation of a
minimum 24-hour time period of well production to perform
reliable analysis, although tests with a specific capacity of at
least 0.5 gallons per minute per foot of drawdown may be
terminated after eight hours of production.
The amended ordinance would also stipulate that well
tests must be performed under the direct supervision of a
state-recognized professional geologist, which would eliminate
allowing registered drilling contractors or registered pump
contractors from performing the work and submitting well test
reports.
Most tests submitted by drilling or pump contractors
have resulted in inadequate data collection or analysis and
required additional tests.
Under the new ordinance, drilling or pump contractors
could still perform the field work if they are under the direct
supervision of a professional geologist.
The groundwater ordinance also includes minimum parcel
lot sizes for areas outside of a water service agency. The
minimum lot sizes are based on mean annual precipitation and
range from four acres for more than 21 inches of precipitation
to 20 acres for less than nine inches.
Boundary adjustments would be required to comply with
those minimum lot sizes, although existing lots created at
smaller sizes would not be subject if the boundary adjustment
does not reduce the lot size. Boundary adjustments would also be
subject to residential well testing requirements.
“I want this thing through because I’ve been waiting
nine months for something to come up,” said Judy Swift, a
Dulzura widow who is trying to subdivide her 16-acre lot into
two eight-acre parcels so that her daughter can live nearby.
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Christy Scott
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