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	The Borrego Water Underground Borrego Springs, California is a small Anza-Borrego Desert town with a huge problem - Disappearing Water!!

Borrego Yesterday	Borrego Today	Borrego Tomorrow

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The Borrego Water Underground

The Borrego Water Underground is a no-frills, reliable source of information about the increasingly serious groundwater situation in the Borrego Valley.  From time to time, The Underground will also publish information and opinions about community affairs, local politics and events that will or may have material consequences for groundwater in the Valley or are otherwise water related.  Watch for frequent updates.  If you have information that would be appropriate to, suggestions for improving, or questions about this site, please contact us

The Borrego Valley Groundwater Crisis

Borrego Springs is located in the Borrego Valley, a seventy square mile area in northeast San Diego County, CA surrounded by the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (ABDSP).  It is the County's only self-sufficient, desert community. The Valley is a remote, isolated basin and importing water is not an option.  The Borrego Valley Aquifer is, therefore, the sole source of water for the Valley.

The aquifer is being drawn down at a rate nearly five times the recharge rate.  The water table has been dropping over two feet per year for the past twenty years.  The loss rate is increasing over time.   Water quality is already adversely affected.  Wells near the periphery of the aquifer are running dry and being abandoned.  At projected extraction rates, the aquifer may reach a critical point in as few as 30 years.

It is a classic zero sum gain situation.  Simple arithmetic demonstrates the hard truth that no solution can satisfy all, or even most, of the conflicting interests involved.  Yet there is no willingness to compromise; so all attempts to find a solution have failed.  The future of Borrego Springs, the Borrego Valley, and significant portions of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park are bleak indeed.  For additional information:  Ground Water in the Borrego Valley    List of Sources    Borrego Thirst Borrego Water Crisis

Hear Ye!  Hear Ye!

The purpose of The Borrego Water Underground web site is to inform and warn

potential residents

property owners

those considering

buying property

starting a business

anyone interested in this

unique community

fragile desert environment

of the dire and rapidly deteriorating groundwater situation in the Borrego Valley.

Envisioning the Problem

To visualize and put into perspective Borrego's groundwater problem, consider the following:  The Vista (CA) Irrigation District in northern San Diego County serves 120,000 people in the city of Vista and portions of San Marcos, Escondido, Oceanside and nearby unincorporated areas.  The District uses approximately 24,000 acre feet of water a year.  The Vista Irrigation District receives water from Lake Henshaw, which it owns, and from Northern California and the Colorado River.  The Borrego Valley, on the other hand, has a population of less than 3,000 yet uses almost the same amount of water each year.  Its sole source of supply is the Borrego Valley aquifer. Ninety per cent or more of water pumped from the Borrego Valley aquifer is used by agribusiness and golf courses.

The Olivenhain Dam and Reservoir in San Diego County was completed in August 2003.  It cost over $300 million to construct and has a capacity of 24,000 acre feet of water; just about the same amount as is used in the Borrego Valley each and every year.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (2000 census), the total population of Borrego Springs is 2535. Of this population, 1,125 people 16 years and older are employed.  Of these, at most 17 persons or 1.5% of the total is employed in agriculture.  The average American household uses about one-half acre foot of water per year for all purposes.  That means that the water required to support just one agricultural job in the Valley is enough to supply 2000 households; or that all of the water required by agriculture would support a medium sized city of 31,200 households.

The Players

Agricultural Alliance for Water and Resource Education (AAWARE)

AAWARE is a well-financed Mutual Benefit Corporation.  Its membership is restricted to representatives of twenty or so agribusinesses in the Valley.  Despite its innocuous name, AAWARE's purpose is to protect member's access to unlimited free water from the aquifer at all costs.  Formed in 2002 and active for several years thereafter, it has been largely dormant in recent years.  Tragedy Of The Commons

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (ABDSP)

The ABDSP has or should have a significant interest in preserving the Borrego Valley aquifer.  Unfortunately, the California Department of Parks and Recreation deems Borrego's groundwater problem a "local political issue" in which it is loath to become involved, apparently for fear of adverse political consequences.  The local ABDSP employees, for the most part, follow the lead of their Agency and remain dutifully silent.

Borrego Springs Community Sponsor Group (BSCSG)

The BSCSG has no direct responsibility for groundwater management, but oversees planning and development in Borrego.  To the limited extent it is able to do so within its mandate, however, the BSCSG, to its credit, has been active in reducing the threat to Borrego's sole source aquifer.  BSCSG Mitigation Policy

Borrego Water District (BWD)

The Borrego Water District (BWD) is a political entity ("special district") with a five member elected Board of Directors that has nominal responsibility for managing groundwater in most of the Borrego Valley.  In 2002 the BWD approved a groundwater management plan that has never been implemented. Until recently, the district board has shown no interest in doing so, even though it has considerable power to regulate groundwater use and is under pressure from some quarters to do so. In November 2011 three new board members were elected on a reform platform that promised to turn around the BWD’s disastrous financial situation and make progress on groundwater management. They are working hard to do so, but it is a Herculean task.   BWD Board  BWD Website Put an item on the BWD board's agenda Status of Work on Groundwater Overdraft June 2003 Sustainable Water Systems Gonzo Summaries of BWD ad hoc Committee Meetings

Borrego Water Exchange (BWX)

Founded in 2006 by Lane Sharman whose family has been in the Borrego valley for generations, the Borrego Water Exchange (BWX) was modeled after the Chicago Climate Exchange.  It applied a free market approach to preservation and replenishment of the critically overdrafted Borrego Valley aquifer.  Only a couple of years after its founding, the Borrego Water District withdrew its cooperation from the enterprise, appropriated Sharman's model, and is now attempting to run its own version of the Water Exchange with indifferent success. 

County  of San Diego

The de facto land use authority for the Valley is the County  of San Diego.  The County Board of Supervisors, through its land use and zoning powers, has the ability to influence and regulate groundwater use in the Borrego Valley, but has not done so. The Fifth District County Supervisor (Borrego's) is openly and adamantly opposed to County involvement in managing groundwater.  Requests to his office for assistance in doing so have been summarily denied.   County Board DPLU DPLU Policy on Groundwater

Developers

For several years prior to the bursting of the housing bubble, Borrego Springs experienced dramatic and uncontrolled growth.  Increasingly, developers and their ilk came slithering into the valley drawn inexorably by the lure of a fast buck.  Most of them reflexively opposed any kind of regulation of ground water for fear that it will reduce even marginally the huge profits they lusted after.  Never mind that without such regulations the water would run out long before the mortgages on the houses they built were paid off, leaving them and everyone else's worthless.  Now development in Borrego has ground to a halt; but these fat-cats will be back as soon as the market turns around.  Borrego's Real Estate Boom

Golf Courses

Not represented by any formal organization, the five golf courses in the Valley have been conspicuously absent from the fray until very recently.  They account for approximately twenty per cent of the water pumped from the aquifer each year.  Substantial amounts of water could be saved by redesigning and retooling the courses; but only one has shown any inclination to do so.     Let Them Play Golf

Other Pumpers

In addition to agriculture and golf courses, there are several small, unincorporated communities and a number of individuals in the Valley but outside the BWD's service area that also engage in unregulated pumping from the aquifer for their own use.

Save Our Aquifer Coalition (SOAC)

SOAC is a grassroots, California Public Interest Association that represents the broad community interests in preserving the aquifer through rational groundwater management and sustainable use. SOAC SOAC Q & A

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Borrego: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Concluding (mostly) Unscientific Post Script

There is much to like about the Borrego valley of California:  A beautiful natural landscape stretching out in all directions; countless venues to explore and experience, i.e., All The Wild And Lonely Places of which Lawrence Hogue writes so eloquently in his book of the same title about the Anza-Borrego Desert; rare and precious solitude, peace and quiet; fantastic weather; clean air; dark night skies filled with brilliant stars; spectacular sunrises and sunsets; abundant wildlife; magnificent wildflower displays; and much more.  All of these things are part of the natural environment granted to those who live in and visit this remote, enchanted valley. They are the simple, subtle, and subdued pleasures of the Anza-Borrego desert.

On the other hand, there is much that must change to preserve the above:

A population characterized by a kind of overweening,  hedonistic, self-interest; residents who, for the most part, take all those things that make Borrego special and desirable for granted and are unwilling to exert or inconvenience themselves in any way, however slight, to protect them; the resulting lack of a meaningful and widely shared environmental ethic; ineffective local agencies and organizations that institutionalize the values of the community and thus compound these problems; rampant and uncontrolled development resulting in a built environment that is spiraling out of control and becoming a blight on the landscape; and, most despicable of all, profligate and irresponsible waste of our most precious and increasingly scarce resource – water.

The positives are represented by the natural environment of the Anza-Borrego Desert; the negatives by a social/cultural milieu that is inimical to that environment. The problem of water in the Borrego valley, more than anything else, epitomizes the destructive tensions between the positive and the negative aspects of Borrego and the desperate need to Honor The Desert by living in harmony with and exercising responsible stewardship over our unique, fragile, and irreplaceable environment.

What distinguished the indigenous people of the Anza-Borrego Desert from modern inhabitants, among other things, is that they lived in true communities of dozens or hundreds of people. Their economy and very survival were based and dependent on concerted, cooperative efforts involving entire communities.

Achieving that desirable equilibrium state now will likewise require the modern population of the valley to come together and become actively involved in land use and zoning, community design and planning, resource economics, environmental issues, and other, related matters. Large numbers of residents will have to inform themselves about these issues, attend and speak out at meetings and public hearings, write letters and make phone calls, and engage in other tedious and thankless work. Very few in Borrego seem willing to do so. As  Hogue says: "It’s more fun to go sit on a rock in the wilderness." (Hogue, p. 226) Apparently most Borregans agree with him and have opted out.

What is required is simple.  Individual members of the community can do a lot by just showing up at even one public meeting a year and standing to voice an opinion about the value of maintaining the aquifer and the importance of the public trust placed in officials empowered to do so.   It is not necessary to get into the gritty details of every proposal or policy under consideration; the plain act of showing up and speaking up for what you think is important goes a long way.  Your mere presence at a meeting signifies your concern and testifies to the importance of these issues.  ("Ninety percent of life is just showing up." Woody Allen)  In other words, you don't have to do a lot or make a huge time commitment to make a difference; but it does require that you get off your rock and stand up.  (see also: Denial Ain't Just a River...)

Hogue, Lawrence.  All the Wild and Lonely Places:  Journeys in a Desert Landscape.  Washington D. C.:  Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2000.

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Updated 12/19/2011