Plaintiffs say operators mismanaged banks, caused surrounding wells to run dry

By WES SANDER

Capital Press

Three lawsuits are challenging aspects of California's largest underground water bank, arguing it serves private interests at the expense of surrounding water districts.

The challenges come at a time when there is increased interest in private investment in water storage and conveyance infrastructure in the state.

"There is a conversation that should be had with regard to privatization of our water," said Adam Keats, spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs. "This is a piece of that battle."

The lawsuits were filed over the summer in state court in Sacramento and Kern counties by two environmental groups, a fishing group, two neighboring storage districts and two water agencies in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The plaintiffs blame mismanagement by the Kern Water Bank Authority, and target the state Department of Water Resources and the Kern County Water Agency for turning the bank over to local control in the 1990s.

Two neighboring districts complain of a drawdown of the aquifer beneath the Kern bank, saying its operators are causing surrounding wells to run dry. They are challenging the project's environmental-impact report for not adequately addressing such impacts.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, want the bank returned to state control, saying its operation by the local authority has resulted in overextending the aquifer.

The bank can store unused water underground, then sell it to users running short, Keats said. That means the authority can use the bank as a "laundering facility" that turns a public resource into a commodity to be sold at profit, he said.

It also means the authority can transfer surplus water to growing urban areas in Southern California, which expands the permanent demand on a finite water supply, Keats said.

But Jon Parker, general manager of the Kern Water Bank Authority, said the bank serves agricultural users, and no water drawn from it has gone to urban areas. Furthermore, the bank has put more water into the aquifer than it has pumped out, Parker said.

"The question that people don't ask is, where would groundwater be without the water bank," he said.

The authority soaks water into the aquifer using 7,000 acres of recharge ponds over 32 square miles of land. Since it began operation in the 1990s, the bank has put 1.5 million acre-feet into the ground and pumped out only 700,000, Parker said.

Any of the surrounding districts could have invested in development of that infrastructure following the 1994 Monterey Amendments to the state's water contracts, which partly resulted in the bank's transfer, Parker said.

Only six districts eventually signed on, giving them shares in deciding how the bank is managed. Those districts are in turn controlled by the landowners within their borders.

"The water bank was a very risky project when it first started," Parker said. "It was open. Anybody could have come in and said 'I want a share.'"

Tim Quinn, director of the Association of California Water Agencies, says the Kern Water Bank serves as a model for future development of storage. Quinn participated in the talks that produced the Monterey Amendments.

"From our perspective, the Kern Water Bank has done a marvelous job of managing water and providing flexibility when there has been no new investment in California infrastructure," Quinn said. "It's one of the miracles of modern water management."

Past efforts at private water investment have met with mixed results, Quinn said.

But the Kern Water Bank has proven a rousing success in adapting to the state's water-management challenges, he said.

"They made a huge investment, took a huge risk, and it's been phenomenally successful," Quinn said.