12 CapitalPress.com
April 22, 2016
Water
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So water managers are
turning to techniques such as
groundwater recharge, water
recycling, storm water cap-
ture and desalination to get
the most out of every drop of
water that does come, either
in the form of surface deliv-
eries or rain.
Southern
California’s
large urban centers have
taken the lead in developing
many of these methods. For
instance, the Kraemer Basin
in Anaheim, Calif., is just
one of the Orange County
Water District’s groundwa-
ter recharge basins and pro-
vides much of the county’s
drinking water.
Many of the groundwater
basins in Southern Califor-
nia were adjudicated long
before the Legislature passed
new statewide groundwater
controls in 2014, and wa-
termasters have authority to
regulate extractions.
“These same groundwater
basins that store storm water
when it’s available also …
take imported water,” said
Rich Mills, the state Depart-
ment of Water Resources’
chief of water recycling and
desalination.
Courtesy of Rachael Long/UCCE
Jamie Burnett, a University of California Cooperative Extension fi eld assistant, stands at a gate to an unlined irrigation canal in Yolo County, Calif., that’s being fi lled with
storm water to recharge area aquifers. Groundwater recharge projects are among the methods being used in the West to get the most out of every drop of precipitation.
ment plant, the more ex-
pensive it gets (to deliver).
So for non-potable treated
wastewater, there’s kind of
a limit.”
That said, some Central
Valley communities are
putting their treated waste-
water in irrigation canals or
into groundwater recharge,
Mills said.
To cut down on trans-
portation and storage costs,
state scientists are studying
the feasibility of treating
wastewater at a high enough
level that it could be put
into the drinking water sup-
ply right away.
A simple idea
State funding
Courtesy of Calif. Dept. of Water Resources
The Coachella Valley Water District’s Thomas E. Levy Groundwater Replenishment Facility in Southern California percolates imported
Colorado River water into the eastern subbasin of the Coachella Valley’s aquifer, replenishing 40,000 acre-feet of water annually.
Courtesy of Calif. Dept. of Water Resources
Anaheim Lake in Anaheim, Calif., is one of Orange County Water District’s groundwater recharge
basins. The district is responsible for managing the vast groundwater basin that provides most of
northern and central Orange County’s drinking water.
Umatilla Basin
Pendleton and Source:
Water Commission
Umatilla River
Wash.
a
Ore.
Basin
Co l u m b i
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84
Umatilla 730
Hermiston
14
h.
Was
Ore.
84
Area in detail
ORE.
12
R.
Pumping water from riv-
ers during high flows to re-
store depleted underground
aquifers is a deceptively
simple idea.
While the basic con-
cept may seem obvious, it’s
fraught with practical chal-
lenges — particularly for
agriculture, since treating,
pumping and conveying wa-
ter entails increased costs
that threaten to erase slim
profits.
The aquifer storage and
recovery system used by
the City of Pendleton, Ore.,
shows how the process can
be adopted successfully but
also highlights the economic
complications it presents to
farmers.
“The key to aquifer stor-
age and recovery is it doesn’t
work everywhere,” said Bob
Patterson, the municipality’s
public works director.
In Pendleton’s case, the
system evolved over time
as the city’s traditional wa-
ter sources couldn’t keep up
with the demands of its pop-
ulation.
The city once relied on
groundwater for more than
60 percent of its needs. It
was supplemented with
springwater.
In the 1990s, the city be-
gan examining new water
options because its spring
source was no longer suf-
ficient. Meanwhile, the
groundwater level in its
aquifer was dropping 3.4
feet a year.
Though Pendleton had
water rights to draw from the
Umatilla River, that amount
was still inadequate to meet
its peak summer demand for
landscape irrigation.
Storing winter water for
later usage was a possible
solution, but building an
above-ground reservoir was
expensive and potential lo-
cations were limited.
The city instead turned to
aquifer storage and recov-
ery, or ASR, forcing surface
water through wells to help
replenish groundwater.
“We’re using the aquifer
to store water,” Patterson
said.
The city upgraded five
wells to pump water into and
out of the aquifer at a cost
of $750,000, less than one-
tenth the cost of a reservoir
system that had been under
consideration.
Pendleton also spent
about $950,000 outfitting
the wells with small hydro-
electric turbines to reduce
the annual power expens-
es involved in pumping
water.
Water usage drops off
significantly during winter,
so the city can divert rough-
ly 80 percent of the amount
it withdraws from the river
into the aquifer during that
portion of the year.
Surface water drawn di-
rectly from the river or from
stored capacity has supplied
about 87 percent of Pend-
leton’s total demand since
ASR began in 2003, with
the rest drawn from native
groundwater.
The shift to surface water
Milton-
37
Cost an issue for ag
iver
Pendleton
tilla R
Uma
MORROW
UMATILLA
207
74
82
74
La Grande
206
207
Umatilla
River Basin
UNION
84
10 miles
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
has greatly helped to con-
serve the aquifer, Patterson
said.
The city’s dependence on
native groundwater further
declined as the ASR pro-
gram expanded and its con-
sumption is now entirely met
by surface water.
In 2014, for example,
nearly 9 percent of the 842
million gallons diverted into
storage were left in the aqui-
fer.
Groundwater levels are
still declining, largely due to
nearby irrigation withdraw-
als, but the rate has been re-
duced more than 75 percent,
to an average 0.8 feet a year,
Patterson said.
“We want to recover a
balance to where we no lon-
ger have a decline,” he said.
Pendleton has used less
Filtration also makes
sense for a practical rea-
son: Removing sediment
prevents it from plugging
cavities in the aquifer and
obstructing the recharge pro-
cess, he said.
native groundwater since
2012, when it converted ad-
ditional wells to ASR and
expanded the capacity of its
water treatment plant, which
plays a key role in the sys-
tem.
The city spent $6.4 mil-
lion building the plant in
2003 with the capacity to
treat 10 million gallons of
water per day, but the fa-
cility’s footprint allows for
expansion to 15 million gal-
lons per day.
“We’re sitting in a very
good position,” Patterson
said.
The treatment facility is
necessary because, under
Oregon law, surface wa-
ter pumped into the aquifer
can’t diminish the quality
of the water already in it, he
said.
Pendleton is able to make
the system pencil out finan-
cially in part because it uses
a relatively small amount of
water, at least compared to
agriculture.
Municipalities, however,
recover their costs from rate-
payers who can afford to pay
a higher price for drinking
water than farmers can for
irrigation water.
Growers in the region
can’t simply raise their pric-
es to build a water treatment
facility and upgrade wells to
an ASR system — they’re
paid based on crop values set
by the market.
For farmers in the near-
by Umatilla basin to break
even financially, that means
spending no more on wa-
ter than $157 per acre-foot,
the equivalent of nearly
326,000 gallons, said J.R.
Cook, director of the North-
east Oregon Water Associ-
ation, a nonprofit aiming
to improve irrigation in the
region.
Realistically, the com-
bined cost of the ASR pro-
cess and pumping water back
out of the aquifer will exceed
$157 per acre-foot, he said.
The only way to make
ASR work economically for
agriculture is to blend that
water with less expensive
sources over the course of
the irrigation season so the
total cost falls below the
break-even point, Cook said.
For example, in a drought
year such as 2015, farmers
may run out of surface wa-
ter before irrigation demand
peaks in late summer.
If they could build up
groundwater supplies and
tap into that more expensive
water to get a full irrigation
season, it may be worthwhile
as long as the early-season
water is sufficiently cheaper,
he said.
The ASR process is used
to replenish deeper, confined
aquifers whose non-porous
layers allow for better long-
term storage, but it’s also
possible to recharge shal-
lower, unconfined aquifers,
Cook said.
These unconfined aqui-
fers store water for less time
but they’re recharged with
precipitation, water can be
returned to them by fill-
ing a flood plain instead of
through upgraded wells, he
said.
Water recycling
In California’s Monterey
County, where salty ocean
water has intruded into
aquifers, a project in Cas-
troville has attempted to
treat wastewater and put it
back into the groundwater
supply to slow the intrusion,
and agencies have also used
fresh water from the Salinas
River to recharge ground-
water, Rich Mills, of the
state’s Department of Water
Resources, said.
Overall, Mills estimates
that more than 700,000
acre-feet of water statewide
is recycled and reused each
year.
While agriculture has
been making some use of
recycled water for more
than a century, the pros-
pect of someday seeing vast
amounts of urban wastewa-
ter used in farm fields is un-
likely, he said.
“They’re not simple proj-
ects to build,” Mills said of
the pipelines that would be
needed. “You’re basical-
ly putting in another water
system. … The farther away
from the wastewater treat-
Building storage and re-
charging aquifers is expen-
sive, and state governments
have opened their check-
books to varying degrees.
As the drought in Cali-
fornia has spurred interest
in alternative water sourc-
es, communities around the
state have taken advantage
of a State Water Resources
Control Board low-interest
loan program for wastewa-
ter and water use projects,
Mills said.
In addition, more than
$800 million in applications
have been submitted for wa-
ter projects under Proposi-
tion 1, the $7.5 billion water
bond that passed in 2014.
In Idaho, the Legisla-
ture this year approved a
one-time infusion of $12.5
million to address declining
aquifer levels and support
water sustainability proj-
ects. Another $10 million
will be available for those
efforts the next two years
and then $5 million in on-
going funds annually after
that.
State water officials
are also studying the fea-
sibility of the proposed
Weiser-Galloway Project,
a reservoir which would
have the capacity to store
750,000 acre-feet of water
in southwestern Idaho if
built.
The Idaho Water Re-
source Board in 2014 filed
an application for a pre-
liminary permit with the
Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission to study the
possibility of building a hy-
dro-power plant at the site.
The plant would play a crit-
ical role in helping finance
the Galloway project, which
would cost an estimated
$500 million.
In Washington, the state
has spent nearly $200 mil-
lion over the last decade to
develop new water supplies
for Eastern Washington
farmers. But millions more
will be needed to bring
planned projects to comple-
tion.
In light of the economic
and environmental benefits
of developing reliable water
supplies, state governments
and private industries need
to create innovative ways to
pay for such projects so the
cost doesn’t entirely fall on
irrigators, water managers
say.
“Fish and farms don’t
write huge checks,” J.R.
Cook, of the Northeast Or-
egon Water Association,
said.