By Joe Naiman
The Alpine Sun

     SAN DIEGO — During the Jan. 31 meeting of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, the supervisors unanimously approved revisions to the county’s groundwater ordinance.
     “They’re much improved over what exists,” said Supervisor Dianne Jacob. “The groundwater in the Back Country is extremely important, and it is a finite resource.”
     The ordinance amendments only apply to proposed subdivisions and do not restrict building on existing undivided parcels.
     “The groundwater ordinance applies only to discretionary permits, not to existing legal lots,” said county Department of Planning and Land Use deputy director Eric Gibson. “The application of the ordinance is specifically limited to discretionary land use permits.”
     A boundary adjustment is a discretionary action, but a late addition to the amendments stipulates that only boundary adjustments with the potential to impact the groundwater situation will be subject to the ordinance.
     The county’s groundwater ordinance was reviewed in 2006 by county groundwater geologist Jim Bennett and by a Groundwater Technical Advisory Committee, which was established by the Department of Planning and Land Use.
    “Overall there’s been a good discussion within the technical advisory committee, and we’re all in support of the proposed changes,” said advisory committee member John Peterson of Peterson Environmental Services.
    The review identified two revisions that could protect groundwater resources by verifying that a long-term sustainable supply was available to serve proposed development. One of those revisions changes residential well test requirements while the other revision added boundary adjustments to the list of discretionary projects subject to the groundwater ordinance.
     “I think they’re needed, and I think it will be good,” said Larry Johnson, who co-chairs the Groundwater Subcommittee of the Campo-Lake Morena Community Planning Group.
     The ordinance had required analysis of a given well’s performance capabilities but did not analyze long-term yield. The ordinance had required between one and five well tests, based on the number of proposed lots in the development, for subdivisions outside of a water service area for which groundwater use was proposed.
     The new ordinance allows the director of the DPLU to require additional well tests beyond the additional amount required, which may verify a long-term sustainable supply for potentially marginal lots in steep-slope areas which typically have relatively less groundwater in storage than valley areas.
     The previous capacity standards for a well required 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 requirement was replaced with two new criteria to analyze long-term yield.
     One criteria will analyze the amount of residual drawdown projected from the well test to indicate 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 create 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 changes were welcomed by Dulzura widow Judy Swift, who is trying to subdivide her 16-acre lot into two eight-acre parcels so that her daughter can live nearby.
     “The county ordinance is a little antiquated,” Swift said.
     The new ordinance also requires well tests to be performed under the direct supervision of a state-recognized professional geologist, which eliminates registered drilling contractors or pump contractors from performing the work and submitting well test reports. Drilling or pump contractors can still perform the field work if they are under the direct supervision of a professional geologist.
     The county’s justification for the professional geologist requirement was that many tests submitted by drilling or pump contractors resulted in inadequate data collection or analysis and required additional tests.
     “I understand the need for the professional geologist and the need for the data,” Johnson said. “It does bring into focus the added cost of the geologist… It’s a good intent as long as it doesn’t go too far.”
     The new ordinance also requires boundary adjustments to comply with minimum parcel lot sizes for areas outside of a water service agency, which 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, which do not reduce the lot size of existing lots created at smaller sizes, will be permitted.
     “We certainly applaud this ordinance. We think it’s a tremendous step forward,” said Michael Thometz of Campo.
     Thometz added that water quality should be part of future ordinance changes.
     Jacob noted that communication to the public will be required and that further refinements may be warranted.
“I know we’re far from being done,” she said.