BOULDER CREEK -- A long-awaited report on water management in the Santa Cruz Mountains highlights an abundance of drinking water supplies, from deep sandstone aquifers to fast-running streams, but suggests many of these bodies face imminent threats.
According to the San Lorenzo Valley Water District Watershed Management Plan, the district's water sources will be increasingly tested by receding aquifers, groundwater contamination, human trespass and a shorter rainy season due to climate change.
"There are challenges," said district environmental analyst Betsy Herbert, who helped prepare the water report.
But, Herbert said, the fact that the district owns much of its watershed gives managers greater ability to protect local water supplies. And, the fact that the district has a diversity of sources, both groundwater and surface water, offers greater flexibility to get through hard times, she said.
The San Lorenzo Valley district provides water to about 23,000 residents from Boulder Creek to Scotts Valley. In 2006, the district annexed the Felton community.
John Ricker, the county's water director who works with all area districts to assure healthy supplies, says the challenges of the San Lorenzo Valley water district mirror those in other parts of county, with the exception of "seawater intrusion and agriculture" which don't stress the valley.
The district, he said, is in a good position to join a budding effort to exchange water regionally, a plan to move water seasonally from areas with excess supplies to areas in drought.
The district report released this spring, the first management plan since 1985, is more or less a status update on water supplies and is expected to be followed by an action plan.
Herbert expects that the district's action plan will include increased water conservation as well as partnering with neighboring water districts to share supplies.
District residents currently face "Phase 2" water restrictions, which include limiting outdoor watering and being encouraged to use low-flow appliances.
Herbert says future exchanges with other water districts that have greater availability during certain times of the year is likely, an idea that resonates with other area water managers.
"We've got to get there as a county," said Bill Kocher, head of the water department in the city of Santa Cruz. "We've got to do a better job of moving water back and forth."
Santa Cruz is currently looking to partner with Scotts Valley to make better use of existing supplies while looking to expand with a desalination plant.