Suzie Petersen rinses her dishes in a tub of water she then uses
for flushing the toilet. She recycles the water from brief showers,
too. And, she says, she can wash her face in a mere cup of
water.
Donna Jones
Suzie Petersen rinses her dishes in a tub of water she then uses for flushing the toilet. She recycles the water from brief showers, too. And, she says, she can wash her face in a mere cup of water.
Since Petersen’s well ran dry five years ago and she had to start trucking in water at a cost of $225 every three or four weeks, the Via Del Sol Road resident has tapped every conservation tip in the book.
But Petersen said it hasn’t been easy, and sometimes she feels like she’s been on an extended camping trip.
“Every time I turn on the faucet, I think about how many cups are coming out,” Petersen said. “Water is blue gold.”
Many of her neighbors in an area known as Granite Ridge for the underlying rock are in the same boat. Too late, the residents of the Via Del Sol and Oak Ridge Drive neighborhoods on the high ground between Aromas and Prunedale discovered granite makes a poor reservoir. Those whose wells haven’t dried up are dealing with contamination from arsenic contained in the rock or nitrates from septic systems.
After years of searching, the 60 families have found a solution. But first they have to persuade the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency to approve their plan to hook up to the Aromas Water District. The district is within the agency’s boundaries and needs its blessing for the deal.
It’s turning out to be a hard sell to those in the community who don’t want to see diminishing Pajaro Valley groundwater supplies exported outside the agency’s boundaries.
Aromas resident Mary Hsia-Coron urged the agency board to nix the deal at a meeting Wednesday. She said the agency has approved sending Pajaro Valley water elsewhere before, mentioning a decision to provide water to a subdivision near San Juan Bautista in the 1990s – a decision most agree now was a mistake.
“In the near future, those of us in Aromas will be trucking in water just like these people,” Hsia-Coron said.
Vegetable grower and Aromas resident Dick Peixoto said the community’s been told for 25 years that the groundwater is being depleted faster than it can be replenished.
“We don’t have any water,” Peixoto said. “Some time, somebody’s got to realize the party’s over. We can’t spare one more gallon from this basin.”
Agency Director Dennis Osmer expressed disbelief that the community would turn its back.
“It’s I got mine.’ No, it’s worse than that. It’s I got more than mine,’ and it’s coming from people who export water on a daily basis in fruits and vegetables,” he said.
Monterey County officials noted the proposal is not for new development, and that it would solve serious health and safety issues.
Supervisor Lou Calcagno dismissed the notion that the neighborhoods didn’t have a claim on the water just because they were outside the political boundaries of the management agency.
“That watershed these people are talking about drains into the Pajaro Valley,” he said. “Maybe they should put up a reservoir.”
John Ricker, Santa Cruz County Water Resources Division director, suggested the water be provided with the caveat that it’s offset elsewhere.
Vicki Morris, general manager of Aromas Water District, said that could be done.
She said it’s frustrating to hear people suggest Aromas will run out of water.
“Aromas Water District has been serving customers for 50 years,” she said. “We consider ourselves good stewards.”
No decision was made Wednesday. The issue is expected to return to the agency board in June.
