Supervisors approve urgency ordinances for Paradise Valley, Starview and Bonanza Springs water districts

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors approved a request by Lake County Special Districts to pass urgency ordinances requiring conservation for three county-run water districts.

Special Districts Administrator Mark Dellinger asked for the urgency ordinances for the Paradise Valley, Starview and Bonanza Springs water systems, where well production has dropped while consumption has continued to increase.

Specifically, Dellinger asked for, and received, unanimous approval from the board to move all three districts from step one in Special Districts' drought management plan, which is voluntary conservation, to step three, which is mandatory conservation measures and revised water rates implemented through urgency ordinances.

Step two would involved initiating mandatory conservation measures, and step four involves implementing an urgency ordinance with stringent consumption limits and penalties.

Paradise Valley's urgency ordinance takes effect March 13, and requires that monthly usage be kept under 500 cubic feet, or 3,740 gallons.

For Starview and Bonanza Springs, customers would be urged to keep water usage under 900 cubic feet, or 6,732 gallons on a monthly basis, or face higher costs, according to the urgency ordinances, which go into effect on March 14 and April 12, respectively.

Water overages in all of the districts will result in customers being charged at a higher rate, along with a $350 fee.

Dellinger offered separate reports for each of the districts during three short public hearings.

Regarding Paradise Valley, located between Lucerne and Clearlake Oaks, Dellinger said consumption currently is 10 percent over the same billing period last year.

Merely getting more money into the system – through fines – won't help; rather, conservation is needed, said Dellinger.

“We need to provide education and outreach to the people that don’t get it or don’t want it, don’t want to hear the message,” said Dellinger, adding he's willing to go door to door and that members of the community are volunteering to help.

“We have to get the message out,” said Dellinger, who plans a March 22 meeting with the Paradise Valley community.

The three Paradise Valley wells produce between one and 12 gallons a minute to serve 79 connections, according to Dellinger.

Special Districts Compliance Coordinator Jan Coppinger told the board that implementing the urgency ordinance in Paradise Valley would affect seven customers.

She said all of the district's customers were sent letters at the start of the year about the need to conserve, with a copy of the ordinance and information about the Tuesday hearing sent to residents, with plans also to contact residents in person.

“We have numerous things and tools that we will give to them to help them get their usage down,” including low-flow devices, said Coppinger.

Carol Scheffer, president of the Paradise Valley homeowners association board, said they support the ordinance. She raised concerns about monitoring use, noting bills only go out every two months.

Scheffer said the association is working with the Clearlake Oaks water district on a plan to connect through a pipeline to Glenhaven that's expected to cost $1.5 million to build.

Regarding the Starview District, located on Cobb, Dellinger said the wells' output have dropped 12 percent over the last 12-month billing period, while for the same time frame consumption is up by 26 percent.

Dellinger said 23 of the district's 147 customers have not made efforts to conserve and have used more than 45 percent of all the water used by that County Service Area during the last billing cycle. The average use is 127 gallons a day, but some customers are using as much as 1,100 gallons a day.

He said he was concerned about how the situation will look this fall if there isn't a normal rain pattern. “Taking these actions now protects us and gets us through the next rain year.”

In response to a community member's question about how long the urgency ordinance might be in effect, Dellinger said he would love to have it removed as soon as possible, but it depends on how much rain the county gets in the days ahead.

“We've had miracle Marches before, I hope we get another one,” said Dellinger.

In the Bonanza Springs district, another groundwater system that's also located in the Cobb area, the two primary wells' output has dropped 16 percent over the past 12 months. While there has been significant conservation, Dellinger said 26 of the 169 customers have not make attempts to conserve; those 26 customers are using slightly over 50 percent of water used in the system.

The average daily use in Bonanza Springs was 138 gallons per day in the last billing cycle, with some customers using as much as 2,200 gallons a day, Dellinger said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

Clearlake City Council plans special March 6 meeting on sales tax

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council will hold a special meeting to get a report on the sales tax measure it has approved placing on the June ballot.

The meeting will take place beginning at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 6, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.

The council will meet to discuss a report by City Manager Joan Phillipe and City Attorney Malathy Subramanian on the proposed 1-percent general sales tax measure approved by the council at its Feb. 27 meeting.

Phillipe and Subramanian also will report on the city's ability to put the tax on the June 3 ballot.

A general tax would simply need a majority vote to become law. Two previous specific tax measures, Measure G and Measure H, failed in November 2012 and November 2013, respectively, after falling short of the needed 66 percent supermajority vote, as Lake County News has reported.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

Supervisors get water report, approve emergency drought declaration

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously passed an emergency declaration due to the county's drought conditions, an action officials said will make the county eligible for state drought relief funds.

The passage of that declaration came at the end of a discussion on county drought conditions and groundwater issues that included Scott De Leon, head of the county's Water Resources Department, along with Special Districts Administrator Mark Dellinger and Community Development Director Rick Coel.

In January, when Dellinger had given the board an update on his agency's drought management plan, the board asked De Leon to come back with a more comprehensive report on the drought situation.

De Leon explained that Water Resources monitors five groundwater basins in Lake County – Big Valley, Upper Lake/Bachelor Valley, Scotts Valley, High Valley and Coyote/Collayomi Valley.

He showed a well hydrograph of Big Valley's groundwater basin with water level numbers that resembled those of the 1976 drought.

“Things are not looking good,” said Tom Smythe, an engineer with Water Resources.

However, Smythe added that, overall, the readings on the groundwater wells doesn't indicate that the basins are yet in dire need.

“I think it’s incumbent upon us to take a leadership role as stewards of the groundwater and collaborate with a variety of groups and make people aware of where we’re at with respect to the water and the lake elevations,” said De Leon.

He said that, in general, he believes that the major groundwater basins are OK, but added, “If the rain stops today, this discussion is going to be a whole lot different a year from now.”

De Leon also suggested that the county needed to be thinking of more comprehensive and overall management strategies for groundwater, and use the drought as a “kick in the pants” to get going on that effort.

“Other than monitoring, we really don’t do a lot of management,” said De Leon.

On Tuesday, Clear Lake was at 1.60 feet Rumsey, said De Leon. The average lake location in the first week of March is 5.9 feet Rumsey, he added.

While the county is significantly behind on rainfall, De Leon said the hillsides are saturated, resulting in runoff. When there is hillside saturation, 1 inch of rain equals 4 inches of lake elevation, with De Leon explaining that the county needs 13 inches of rain to get caught up on its historical lake level.

Supervisor Rob Brown asked well driller Dan McMullen – who was in the audience because he said he wanted to make sure there wasn't a moratorium on well drilling – to discuss what he's been finding as he's drilling wells.

“It's as busy as it’s ever been, drilling replacement wells,” said McMullen, noting that he's not drilling too many new wells.

In response to questions from Brown about well drilling depths, McMullen said he's drilling deeper in known groundwater basins, but it's dependent on place. A 20-foot-deep aquifer in Middletown went dry, and to get to the next layer of water he needed to drill to 150 feet, where the water was locked in clay.

However, the Big Valley area is in good shape, said McMullen, who drilled a well for an organic walnut orchard there last fall. There, he found water at 14 feet, but in Big Valley the water level is usually down only 4 feet.

Habematolel Pomo Environmental Director Paula Britton said that when it comes to groundwater, what is being used now is last year's water. She said tribal wells she's monitoring in the Middle Creek drainage are down 5 to 6 feet.

Britton said more stringent measures need to be taken, and there needs to be more talk about conservation, with everyone making an effort to meet the governor's proposal for 20 percent conservation.

Sarah Ryan, environmental director for Big Valley Rancheria, said she was pleased to see different agencies working together, and added that Lake is one of the counties leading the way in terms of such collaboration.

Ryan suggested the current drought situation is an opportunity to be proactive. She said that includes having the Community Development Department change the way it looks at projects and encouraging projects for recharging groundwater.

During the discussion, Board Chair Denise Rushing pointed out that there is new legislation around compost toilets, but counties first need to come up with plans to allow for them. She said Mendocino County is looking at compost toilet use and she suggested that Lake County look at what Mendocino is doing.

She acknowledged that there are complex issues around groundwater and offered the possibility that the county have a permitting process to determine beneficial uses when it comes to allowing for groundwater export.

Dellinger said people in California and the Western United States “need to view water much differently than we do. We have to change our behavior. And that’s the problem we face right now.”

He added, “We have to be able to use less water in a climate like this,” explaining that Lake County's climate is not conducive to having lawns.

County Administrative Officer Matt Perry told the board that to qualify for drought relief funds, the county needed to declare a state of emergency, and he presented to them with the emergency resolution.

Ryan said the resolution should be presented to the public before the board voted on it, noting that it had not been included in the agenda packet released last week.

Rushing said it was given to the board on Monday, and she read it out loud for the audience.

Ryan was concerned with it being accepted immediately, and wanted more time to consider it and take it to her tribal council.

Part of the document stated, “It is requested that the Governor of the State of California waive regulations that may hinder response and recovery efforts, make available California Disaster Assistance Act funding for the State of Emergency proclaimed on January 17, 2014, and seek all available forms of Federal disaster assistance and relief programs, to include Presidential Declaration of Emergency ...”

Ryan questioned what regulations may be waived. Rushing said that would be up to the state.

Jeff Tyrrell, a representative from state Sen. Noreen Evans office, explained that part of the governor's response was to expedite the recycling of water and recapture of stormwater.

The board would eventually change the word “waive” to “streamline.” Tyrrell explained that he believed that such measures would be taken only for projects that already are planned, with Rushing adding that, in that case, it wouldn't apply to Lake County.

Brown offered the resolution, which the board accepted 5-0.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

030414 Board of Supervisors - Water Report and Drought Emergency Proclamation