Tehachapi News

Catch that storm runoff!

larger view larger view

With nary a cross word about Delta smelt, 11 men gathered Wednesday to begin mapping out a 30-year water resource plan for the Tehachapi valleys.

The discussion covered a wide range of strategies for water demand, delivery, supply, quality, environmental stewardship and flood management.

Efforts to capture runaway and castoff water sparked the most interest.

“Conservation, recycling and storm water runoff is going to be a big part of the plan,” said John Martin, general manager of the Tehachapi-Cummings Water District.

The Tehachapi study/planning group is a sub-region of the Tulare Lake Basin Portion of Kern County Integrated Regional Water Management Plan. Frazier Park and Kern Valley sub-regions also are feeding information into the main planners.

Septic vs. sewer
On the hot-button subject of septic vs. sewer in the populated county areas, Martin said, “It's cheaper to bite the bullet and have sewers put in.”

Homeowners balk at the high cost of installing sewer, said Bill Fisher, general manager of the Golden Hills Community Services District.

AB 885, a bill signed by Governor Gray Davis in 2000, mandates the adoption of statewide standards for onsite sewage treatment systems - in this case, septic systems. But the mandate has not been accomplished.

“Eight eighty-five is going to die an ugly death before it sees the light of day,” said Jon Curry, city of Tehachapi utility manager.

The communities of Bear Valley Springs (2,800 water customers), Golden Hills (2,834 water customers) and Tehachapi (2,960 water customers) all are on the cusp of being required by the state to produce urban water management plans, which kicks in at 3,000 customers.

The communities are “knocking on that door,” Otto said.

Rainmaking?
Once the group got started, no idea was off the table, including rainmaking.

On the project consultant's list of things to discuss, rainmaking is called “precipitation enhancement.” The method recovers moisture from the air with the help of the ice-mimicking crystalline chemical silver iodide.

The process works.

“Santa Barbara does it,” said John Otto, assistant manager of the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District. “They have generators on the ridges.”

The men agreed that the cost would be high and people might not like the prospect of being rained on with silver iodide.

Pumping power
Several at the meeting suggested pumping water up from the San Joaquin Valley with electricity, wind or solar instead of natural gas.

Martin said the necessity to pump 24 hours a day makes it difficult to utilize renewable sources of energy.

Fairview Water Company representative John Carfrae suggested electricity could be economical with long-term contracts.

“The best strategy is to bring water up when natural gas is cheap and leave it there (down below) when the price is up,” Martin said. “But then we get a year like this with cheap natural gas and no water available.”

Martin said he did not see water as a constraint to growth in the next 30 years, although, he said, “the county will say it is.”

Hydroponic
Grimmway - the company that grows carrots -- has established hydroponic (raised in water) greenhouses to grow tomatoes and peppers in the Cummings Valley, Otto said.

David Aranda, general manager of Stallion Springs Community Services District, said, “If they continue to build greenhouses it will change the whole dynamic of Cummings Valley. What are we bringing in and what are we removing?”

Prison water
Board President Bill Miller of the Tehachapi Resource Conservation District said California Correctional Institution represented one of Cummings Valley's hot spots of water degradation.

“With 8,000 at the prison dumping into the Cummings Valley for decades… we need a remedial cleanup,” said Paul Burgess of Fairview Water Company.

CCI currently is building a modern wastewater treatment plant that will produce effluent that does not pollute groundwater, but nitrates, one of the experts said, take as long to get rid of as it took to get into the ground - literally decades.

“It is a long-term issue that we will all have to deal with,” Martin said later. “Particularly if the state or federal regulators reduce the maximum contaminant level for nitrates in drinking water.”

Posted online Feb. 17, 2009; print edition Feb. 18, 2009.