A Gonzo Account

of the

BWD’s ad hoc Committee to Study Groundwater Conservation

Meeting on

Wednesday the 11th of January 2006

Present: Russ Fogarty, Eleanor Shimeall, Jerry Jones, Judy Meier, Steve Smiley, Rudy Monica, Duane Young, Dick Walker, Jim Engelke, Beth Hart, Lane Sharman, Dennis Dickinson

Eleanor Shimeall (the Convener?) gleefully announced that there was no agenda for the meeting – though she scarce needed bother for it soon became painfully obvious.

Mr. Fogarty announced that the California Water Awareness Campaign offered ad templates that can be customized and published locally to encourage water conservation. The BWD will use these ads in a local publicity campaign. He also promulgated the URL of a website <H2ouse.org> that provides detailed information about household water use by room.

Eleanor Shimeall then raised the question of what the Ad-Hoc Committee on Conservation should do going forward (a strange question given that "ad hoc" means "for that specific purpose only." Here we apparently have a committee in search of its "hoc." Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?) The discussion started with tiered water rates (conservation pricing), lurched on to mitigation policies, and mushroomed into a confused and confusing exchange about fund reserves for groundwater management that consisted mostly of people talking past each other. Remember the missing agenda?

Then followed an even more diffuse debate about whether the BWD was actually doing anything about groundwater management or not. Mr. Dickinson took the negative on the grounds that there is not a single mechanism in place that has saved or is saving any water. He was obviously in the minority. Others were willing to give the BWD an "A" for effort, claiming that their intentions are good (Intimations of the road to hell?). But they seemingly have been intending to do, or at least talking about doing, something useful for years with nothing to show for it. (The only tangible product of this protracted period of good intentions is a Ground Water Management Plan adopted well over three years ago after more than three years in preparation. It has never been implemented or even updated despite the fact that the Plan itself specifically requires annual updates.)

Several folks also observed that the Board has actually accomplished some things in the last year (actually, only in the last six months). All this proves, however, is what photographers and statisticians have long known; i.e., if you selectively narrow the focus or restrict the data set, you can produce any effect you like and make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Examples of "accomplishments" cited by the majority optimists were the 3:1 mitigation policy and the Coyote Canyon recharge project. The first has been implemented only to the extent that the BWD has begun to charge the mitigation fees. The BWD has not been receptive to suggestions that they make realistic preparations to actually purchase and fallow land and has not done so. The Coyote Canyon recharge project is still only a gleam in a developer’s eye. The citrus trees are still being watered. Plans for the project, if such there be, are in constant flux and not backed by any credible science or engineering. Worse yet, the whole concept has been dismissed by a number of independent hydrologists knowledgeable about the basin. Neither of these supposed examples has saved so much as a teacup of water and it is not certain when or if they will - some accomplishments.

The only other significant aspect of the meeting was a very brief discussion of reducing the number of ad hoc committees and sub-committees thereof dealing with groundwater issues. Mr. Dickinson noted that there are so many of these that it is virtually impossible even to keep track of them. Mr. Engelke concurred. There seemed to be general acknowledgement of the advisability of reducing the number of these committees; but the discussion went nowhere and no specific proposals for doing so were brought forward. (For openers, this committee should be eliminated since no one seems to know why it exists in the first place (see above).)

Regrettably submitted by your humble scribe