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Chico News and Review opinion article:<br>
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.newsreview.com/chico/protect-our-groundwater-now/content?oid=4717625">http://www.newsreview.com/chico/protect-our-groundwater-now/content?oid=4717625</a><br>
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<h1 class="Headline">Protect our groundwater now</h1>
<div class="ContentSubHeadline">Powerful Southern
California interests want to make use of it</div>
<div class="ContentBodyText"> <br>
<span class="ContentBy"> By Nora Todenhagen </span> <br>
<span id="NumComments"></span> <br>
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<div style="font-size:10px;"> This article was published
on <a
href="http://www.newsreview.com/chico/2011-12-29/archive"><time
itemprop="dtreviewed" datetime="2011-12-29">12.29.11</time></a>.
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<div class="ContentInfoBox">The author is a
retired Chico State lecturer who serves on the
board of directors of AquAlliance. She lives
in Chico.</div>
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<p><b>It rained last year; it may rain this year, but
the</b> health of the Tuscan and other Northern
California aquifers depends not only on rain, but
also on the actions of the state and federal
governments driven by powerful corporate farmers and
developers to the south.</p>
<p>The federal government and a water authority south
of the Delta are preparing an environmental review
to transfer up to 600,000 acre-feet of groundwater <i>each
year</i> over 10 years to the western San Joaquin
Valley. That’s more groundwater than Chico would use
in 200 years. There is also a bill in the House of
Representatives that would guarantee industrial
farms in desert lands water <i>no matter how dry
the year</i>.</p>
<p>The state government is just as dangerous. Two
proposals, the Delta Stewardship Council’s Plan and
the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, seek to do the
impossible: protect the Delta and export massive
amounts of water to Southern California. They’ve
promised more water than there is. Here is how a
staff geologist of the state Department of Water
Resources, Carl Hauge, wants to solve the problem.
In September of this year at the state Water
Commission he made these points on a slide:</p>
<p>Under the heading “Full Aquifers in Sacramento
Valley,” he listed five steps in the process of
making use of our groundwater: one, “export surface
water”; two, “irrigate local land with
groundwater—called groundwater substitution”; three,
“aquifers are emptied”; four, “recharge with future
surface water”; five, “may affect existing surface
water rights.”</p>
<p>Taken together, these government programs represent
a massive transfer of wealth from the family farms
of Northern California to the corporate interests to
the south. Emptying the aquifers would kill the oaks
and dry the creeks with all their fish and wildlife.
Think of Bidwell Park looking like the Owens Valley
with a trickle of water in the creek, no fish, and
the land without vegetation. Years of litigation
there have failed to put that water back. Like the
Owens Valley, our region could suffer economic
depression and environmental blight.</p>
<p>What should you do? Get and keep informed. The
AquAlliance website at <a style="font-size: 10px;
color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" class="external"
target="_blank" href="http://www.aqualliance.net/">www.aqualliance.net</a>
has information on and links to these government
proposals. Make sure your representatives—city,
county, state and federal—are protecting your
groundwater. Consider joining AquAlliance, the only
organization dedicated to the groundwater of the
Sacramento Hydrologic Region.</p>
<p>We can work together by using our voices and using
the law to demand that our interests be protected.</p>
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