The statewide water shortage could dry up supplies for San
Benito County golf courses.
The statewide water shortage could dry up supplies for San Benito County golf courses.
The San Benito County Water District has notified both Ridgemark Golf and Country Club and San Juan Oaks Golf Club that they may not receive any imported San Felipe water in 2008, course representatives confirmed Thursday. But Ridgemark President Mark Davis and San Juan Oaks General Manager Scott Fuller emphasized that a complete cutoff is just one possibility – Fuller described it as “the worst-case scenario.”
“It’s our hope that scenario is not going to happen,” Davis said.
Ridgemark and San Juan Oaks use the San Felipe supply from the San Luis Reservoir to water their courses. Imported water accounts for 85 percent of San Juan Oaks’ course irrigation, Fuller said.
In November, Water District Manager Lance Johnson said the county’s imported water supply is being limited by a recent court ruling to protect the delta smelt – a threatened two-inch fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta – as well as dry weather. The exact size of San Benito’s allocation won’t be known until April, May or June, he said.
The weather has been more cooperative recently, Davis noted, with a major storm rolling through California in the past week.
“The weather for the last five days has made a difference, and there are other things that could allow us to dodge the bullet,” he said.
Even if San Juan Oaks doesn’t receive any imported water, Fuller said the course will stay green by pumping more water from its wells.
“(San Felipe water) is a high-quality water supply, and we probably got a little spoiled,” Fuller said. “In the long term, it’s an important water source. However, we don’t need it.”
Ridgemark would also continue to irrigate its course, Davis said, but he added, “It probably wouldn’t be as green as people have gotten used to.”
Ridgemark’s wells have a higher salt content than San Felipe water, and that could also create difficulties for the course, Davis said.
Farmers are facing substantially reduced water allocations, too, which could limit local planting, growers have said.
Agricultural use of San Felipe water has been on the rise for the past decade, Fuller said. When the county approved San Juan Oaks in 1994, locals were worried that the county didn’t have enough groundwater, so the course was required to use as much imported water as possible.
Now the situation is reversed, Fuller said, with an overflowing groundwater basin and a shrinking imported water supply. But San Juan Oaks is still required to use as much San Felipe water as possible, he said.
Concerns aren’t limited to San Benito County, Davis added.
“It’s something we need to deal with structurally on a long-term basis,” he said. “It’s an issue that transcends Ridgemark and San Juan Oaks. It’s going to have effects from Santa Clara County to San Diego.”
