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Water as a resource is vital to the primarily agricultural landscape of the Glenn County. How it will be managed in the future will help shape what the county looks like in five, 10 or 20 years and more. The Glenn County Water Advisory committee hired private consultant Francis Borcalli, of Wood Rogers of Sacramento to look into what Glenn County has done and what it needs to do to manage its water. Borcalli recently gave a briefing on his progress. Already the county has established a system of groundwater management that includes sub-basin monitoring to ensure that use of well water in one area does not affect the use of the resource in other parts of the county. The county has also been working to understand how groundwater aquifers are used and replenished. Borcalli said one of the upcoming tasks should be to set goals for what roll the Water Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Committee should be. The county is at the point where leaders need to map out what is needed to ensure groundwater management can be sustained, Borcalli explained. He said it would be a good idea to talk to water districts, like those that provide water to farmers and towns and set some long-range goals. Between 1988 and 1998, urban land in the county grew from about 6,000 acres to more than 11,000 acres, Borcalli said during his presentation. The vast majority of the land in the county, more than 500,000 acres, remains in native vegetation and about 250,000 acres is in agriculture, rangeland or pasture. He said the basin management program that has been operating for the past few years is a good step at managing groundwater. However, groups need to sit down and get a more clear idea of what they want to accomplish. Various water management documents exist locally, such as the basin management objective and plans by major water users in the county such as Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, Tehama Canal and the Orland Unit Water Users Authority. But these plans need to be looked at to make sure they are consistent, Borcalli suggested. He said it is time that the role of the group be expanded to deal with larger issues. So far the committee has been keeping track groundwater levels, but more could be done. He said he could see the board helping to serve as a coordinator. The consultant recommended figuring out how much water is needed locally. Borcalli said it would be relatively easy to prepare a map of the various water distribution systems. This way water users would understand how the delivery systems are connected. If there was an emergency, it would be helpful to know how water moves through the area. The county currently has a model of groundwater use. This is a tool that could be used more to identify opportunities for improvements. For example, places where new monitoring wells should be placed could be identified. Saquib Najmas, president of Water Resources and Information Management Engineering was asked to come to a future meeting of the Water Advisory Committee and demonstrate the model. Borcalli said he would like to see county water officials hold a brainstorming session to come up with potential projects for the future. This way if grant funding becomes available the county will be that much further along and ready to jump into applications for money. Guidelines could also be developed for how to handle water transfers. Sale of water has occurred in recent years and will likely happen in the future. It's a good idea to have guidelines in place, Borcalli told the advisory committee. Boracalli's contract began in February and will be completed in June. The $40,000 for his work came from a grant from the Department of Water Resources.# |
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