When wells run dry

Dan Kluis woke up on Sunday and, as is his habit, went to the kitchen to brew his morning coffee. But the tap yielded no water. Considering the pump for his family’s well was two years past its prime, he assumed it had finally quit working and promptly called in a pump company to replace it.

When a worker inspected the well on the Kluises’ property off Entler Avenue, however, he told a different story. There was nothing wrong with the pump—the water level had dropped significantly enough to fall below where the pump had been placed.

“The guys who came out said they’re lowering pumps left and right right now,” Kluis said. “The pumps are higher than where the water is.”

Kluis said as of Sunday his pump was at 120 feet. Now it’s at 200, and there are 100 feet to spare. The same day he had his pump lowered—he also replaced it, just in case—he said an employee of a different pump company popped his head over the fence and told them he was lowering four more on the next street.

“With something like this, you definitely see how reliant we are on water, even more so than electricity,” Kluis said. “We started thinking—if it went down another 200 feet, we’d need to get a new well.”

Considering the activity at their neighbors’ houses, the Kluises clearly aren’t alone.

“We also are starting to receive calls about wells going dry,” said Christina Buck, water resources scientist with the Butte County Department of Water and Resource Conservation. “In the valley, the calls that I’ve gotten tend to be for 60- to 70-feet-deep wells with pumps shallower than that—around 40 to 50 feet. We’ve received maybe a dozen calls, but there are probably more problems out there than what we’re hearing.”

The biggest problems, Buck said, likely will be in the foothills, where water levels and well depths have huge variants because of the fractured rock landscape. Household wells in Durham and on the outskirts of Chico also will feel the effects of a lower water table, especially during peak pumping season, which typically lasts from July into August.

“We might be about close to the worst time [of year] at least for the valley areas, because we’re in the middle of peak groundwater pumping season for agriculture,” Buck explained. “If we can get through the next few weeks, whether your well is dry or not, things might improve.”

Nonetheless, Buck said, the persistent drought has meant near-record lows as far as water levels in Butte County. As of March, the average “depth to water”—the distance from ground level to where a pump would reach water—was 90 feet in the greater Chico urban area. That was about 8 feet below last year, although some wells dropped more than 20 feet from last spring. Surveyors went back out last week to recalculate those numbers, now that the region is reaching peak dry season, and the results should be in any day, Buck said.

“We’ve been at or near historical lows in our wells the last several years,” she said. “We’re seeing folks run into problems as they’re reaching new historical lows in their areas.”

This may all sound like bad news. And it is, especially for those who rely on wells for their water. But in Chico, which is served by the California Water Service Co. (Cal Water), the situation is not nearly as dire.

“Overall, across the board, we have about 70 wells and we’re down about 13 feet, average, from about five years ago,” said Pete Bonacich, acting district manager for Cal Water in Chico. “In the grand scope of things, it could be a lot worse. It’s not panic time.”

In fact, Chicoans have beaten the state average for conservation. In 2008, each resident used an average of 286 gallons of water each day. That number has continued to drop the past five years and in 2013 it was just 224 gallons. In other words, Chico has already reached Gov. Jerry Brown’s goal of 20 percent reduction in water use during the drought. The state as a whole, however, has increased water demand by 1 percent over the past three years. That number was announced the same day (July 15) the Water Resources Control Board voted to implement fines of up to $500 per day for outdoor water-wasters. Locally, the decision might have little impact.

“We’re regulated by the [California] Public Utilities Commission and we have certain things in place with them on how to handle these regulations the state board is talking about,” Bonacich said. “Cal Water is going to stick with compliance through education for our customers. We are not going down the path of fines at this point.

“The bottom line really is, for Chico, unlike a lot of the state, the community has done an incredibly good job of reducing demand,” Bonacich said. “A lot of that is due to a high level of awareness, and people taking advantage of things we offer for conservation.”

Cal Water offers conservation kits with low-flow shower heads and a water-saving hose nozzle. People also have been taking advantage of rebates for things like low-flow washing machines and toilets.

“If people just replace their hard plumbing, there’s a huge savings built into that,” Bonacich said.

While the city of Chico is far ahead of the pack when it comes to water conservation, every little bit can help prevent problems like the Kluises faced earlier this week. Until the pump company came out, Kluis said, his family used water from the inflatable swimming pool out back for things like washing their hands.

Buck said there are a few options for when a well runs dry. People can call a well driller or pump company to assess the situation and fix it, or they can install a storage tank. There are five water haulers licensed to deliver potable water in Butte County. The third option is just to wait until the water level rises, which likely will be sometime next month. Bonacich is equally optimistic about an El Niño winter, which would help recharge the Tuscan aquifer.

Either way, Buck said, it’s a good idea to keep conserving as long as the drought continues.

“The whole basin is connected. Everybody’s in it together,” Buck said. “As the city of Chico conserves, that helps. Anything that can be done, by city of Chico households, and by irrigators, to relieve pressure on the basin helps everybody.”