Rains Won’t Solve The Mid-County Water Shortage

By the staff at Soquel Creek Water District

You may have heard that, starting November 1, the City of Santa Cruz lifted their mandatory water restrictions. So the drought is over and we can all pack those hose nozzles away for next summer, wash those dirty cars, and irrigate like crazy, all while remaining confident that our water supply is safe and secure today and for future generations, right? Well, no. As explained below, the sources of water for the City of Santa Cruz and the District are very different and thus our conservation needs differ. Very simply, when we have normal rains the City has sufficient water, but the District does not.

Residents of the City of Santa Cruz, who depend mostly on water from the San Lorenzo River for their water supply, did a great job conserving water over the summer, which allowed the Santa Cruz Water Department to keep much more water in Loch Lomond. Now that the rainy season has arrived, and is projected to fill Loch Lomond, the City has been able to lift restrictions for their customers.

Here in the Soquel Creek Water District, our customers have done a great job of conserving water as well, but we have a long-term problem that far outweighs the drought. For several decades, water users in our groundwater basin have been pumping out more water than was naturally replenished. This process is called overdrafting, and it has created a deficit of roughly 28,000 acre-feet (approximately 9 billion gallons or enough to serve over 100,000 homes for an entire year) and caused seawater intrusion to begin creeping into the coastal aquifers that provide 100% of our water supply. If seawater intrusion reaches our production wells, they will become unusable.

The attention that this year’s statewide conservation mandates put on our local water issues helped us reach our lowest level of production (Pumping from the aquifers) since the early 1970’s. However, to allow our aquifers to recover, we would have to double our conservation efforts and reduce our annual production by another 1,000 acre-feet per year (approximately 325 million gallons) and maintain that level of conservation and production for at least 20 years.

Even if we receive a huge amount of rainfall this winter, our problem remains essentially unchanged, which is why the District is not currently considering lifting our water waste restrictions or the request to continue the extra saving efforts. The solution to our water issues will require a long-term and diversified approach to both supply and demand management. The recently released Community Water Plan (CWP) details the District’s long-term strategy to achieve sustainability by 2040, which includes continued conservation, local and regional groundwater management, and attaining a supplemental water supply (advanced water purification for groundwater replenishment is the current preferred option) that can either be pumped directly into the aquifers or used instead of pumping water from the aquifers so that they can recharge. The Community Water Plan is a living document that will be updated as new information becomes available, and we welcome community input.

To review the Community Water Plan, please visit: www.soquelcreekwater.org