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Amador General Plan Panel Removes Groundwater Monitoring Policy |
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Thursday, 09 July 2009 |
 Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission joint panel reconvened on the county General Plan update Wednesday, to discuss water goals and policies. They considered recommendations by various agencies and organizations and made decisions, on staff direction for the document’s revision. One policy was aimed at monitoring groundwater in a “groundwater management plan.” The panel voted 6-2 with one abstention by Supervisor Chairman Ted Novelli to remove the policy. Earl Williams of Farm Bureau said he was concerned about monitoring ground water and did not thing the county needs to get into state work and the cost involved. Jeffrey Gibson of the Amador County Grape Growers Association said he was a small member of the Sacramento/Amador Water Quality Alliance, which monitors the Cosumnes River and Dry Creek watersheds. He said the coalition spends about $500,000 dollars a year on monitoring. When the group finds a problem, they fix it. He said “do you really want to regulate and monitor the Shenandoah Valley?” He said he first heard of this idea, suggested by the Amador Water Agency, but he and none of the people he knows in the Shenandoah Valley heard of the idea. Gibson said “if they want to do stuff for us and help us, why don’t they come and talk to us?” Commissioner Andy Byrne said ground water was an important issue, and the number of parcels on wells in the county meant that the county doesn’t “even know about potentially half of our water source.” Commissioner Ray Ryan said they were talking about monitoring water pulled from private wells, and he asked if they “get to the point where you dictate how much water people can draw out?” Supervisor Brian Oneto said he has lived here a long time and seen springs come and go, with the rocky underground fissures, and the water flow constantly changes. He said it would be hard to tell the sources of underground water. Ryan said it amounted to “looking for data so you can restrict” the water being taken from wells. Ryan, Oneto and Supervisors Richard Forster and John Plasse joined commissioners Dave Wardall and Ray Lindstrom in voting to remove the policy in its entirety. Byrne and Commissioner Denise Tober voted against the removal. Story by Jim Reece.
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