Photo Courtesy EMD

“A well is a conduit for anything on the surface to get down to the groundwater table. It’s a straight shot.” Barry Marcus is the Supervising Environmental Specialist with the Sacramento County Department of Environmental Management (EMD) and he’s concerned about innocuous looking holes in the ground all over the city. These wells, all dug before 1950, aren’t on any maps but could allow chemicals and bacteria into our drinking water supply.

EMD engineers say nearly half of the people who live in Sacramento County rely upon groundwater for their daily needs. The Pocket and Greenhaven neighborhoods were, until the 1980′s, largely farmland and Marcus says wells could be anywhere. “Typically it is a steel pipe that sticks out of the ground. Usually larger than four inches in diameter. It may or may not have a steel plate welded over the top of it.  Occasionally it’s surrounded by a concrete apron. Which could be a small circle or a square or a rectangle.”

What lies beneath?

Marcus admits inspectors with EMD haven’t yet been out to the Pocket area but they will send someone out if you want to report a possible well. Marcus says it’s important to note well heads could be partially buried.  If you know that a windmill once existed on your property chances are good the windmill powered a well. Marcus also advises, “If someone has an area in their yard that keeps sinking and they don’t really know why it keeps sinking and they keep having to put dirt in that area, it’s possible there’s a well-casing there.”

Why is EMD so worried about forgotten wells in our community? Many wells are so old, says Marcus, they may have deteriorated and now allow runoff water with bacteria, pesticides, herbicides and other pollutants to flow right into the groundwater supply. That groundwater is just under the surface for homes next to the Sacramento River levee and only five feet under the dirt in neighborhoods near the edges of the Pocket area. The water table is only up to 20 feet deep through most of our neighborhoods and about forty feet deep next to I-5.

There is another concern that Marcus recounts as he tells the story of a Land Park grandmother who found her two-year old granddaughter playing near an 18-inch wide well she didn’t know was there. The girl didn’t fall in but Marcus says she easily could have fit through the loosely covered hole. In fact, earlier this year two dogs fell into a twenty-foot well near Franklin Boulevard.

If you wonder whether a steel plate or hole in your yard might be an abandoned well you can visit www.emd.saccounty.net, call the Abandoned Well Line at 916.875.8532 or email EMD-abndwells@saccounty.net.

The Sacramento City Department of Utilities has announced a series of water workshops including one in the Pocket area. Department spokesperson Jessica Hess says the free workshops will teach people not only to conserve water but to save money in their monthly bills.

On August 23 instructors will be at the Asian Community Center just off Greenhaven Drive (click here for a map to 7375 Park City Drive) from 6pm to 8pm. They will teach us to irrigate our yard, get rebates and use water responsibly.

If you cannot make the event in August, here is a list of other workshops with the locations and times:

June 3, 2010 6-8 p.m.
South Natomas Community Center
2921 Truxel Road

June 26, 2010 10-12 p.m.
Camilla Basic Elementary School
6600 Cougar Drive

July 19, 2010 6-8 p.m.
Sam Pannell Meadowview Community Center
2450 Meadowview Road

July 31, 2010 10-12 p.m.
Belle Cooledge Community Center
5699 South Land Park Drive

September 22, 2010 6-8 p.m.
Sam Pannell Meadowview Community Center
2450 Meadowview Road

October 30, 2010 10-12 p.m.
City of Sacramento Department of Utilities Water Conservation Office
2260 Glen Circle

A rivers-eye view of the Freeport intake

“It’s a really very significant project here. The fact that it took such and long time and the fact that it took a lot of people with various diverse interests, who had their own particular goals, coming together and realizing that when it comes to water you just gotta come together and figure out how to move forward.” The words of Representative Doris Matsui were echoed over and over Thursday morning by a dozen speakers at the dedication for the new water intake plant along the Sacramento River. (Congressmen John Garamendi and Dan Lundgren joined Matsui to celebrate the dedication. Rep. Jerry McNerney, who represents the East Bay Area, was not able to attend.) You may have watched and heard the construction of the massive six-acre site for months without knowing exactly what was being built or the history of the project. 

The Freeport Regional Water Project is an intake system that can suck 286-cubic feet of water per second from the Sacramento River. The project is a collaboration between Sacramento County and the East Bay Municipal Water District (East Bay MUD). The water will go to southeast Sacramento County and east Bay Area homes. The stream of time that has wound its way to the southern border of the Pocket area began 38 years ago. 

Dedication plaque at the Freeport Regional Water Project

The California Board of Reclamation in 1972 granted East Bay MUD the right to take water from the American River and pipe it west. The ensuing legal and media battle between East Bay MUD and the people and representative of Sacramento lasted 24 years. The Chairman of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, Roger Dickinson, remembers what broke the battle lines. “In 1996 when I was chair of the Board of Supervisors, East Bay MUD began to focus its attention on realizing the rights that it had secured,” recalls Dickinson, “Throughout 2000 and 1999 we started to realized that we needed to have a different approach if we were ever going to reach a solution. So we began to meet with two members of the Board of Supervisors, two members with the Sacramento City Council and two members of the East Bay MUD board on a somewhat regular basis. Those meetings were quite helpful, not just because we broke bread, as was suggested earlier, but because we also withdrew a cork or two from a bottle. And they led us eventually, in fact, to John Garamendi’s office at the Department of Interior and ultimately to the attention of Senator Dianne Feinstein.” In 2002, the group came to an agreement that the water East Bay MUD was promised would come not from the American but from the Sacramento. In January 2003 the first steps began in the process that led to the massive plant we see today. (Click here for the entire timeline.) 

The "river" word art visible from I-5

Now that the project is complete compliments flowed during the ceremony. Even with so much goodwill flowing many of the speakers at the dedication see a parallel to a much larger problem looming on the proverbial horizon and took the opportunity to address it. “Seeing this thing unfold,” Representative Matsui tells Pocket Online, “you realize with our big water wars that seem to be erupting this is going to have to be taken very seriously about what each region’s way of life brings to this whole discussion. So I think this is going to be instrumental in how we proceed forward as far as the big state discussion.” As California moves forward to look for solutions to growing water problems and growing resentment over the revived Peripheral Canal to pipe Delta water south, Cynthia Koehler of the Environmental Defense Fund says the Freeport project may serve an even greater good. “The Freeport project represents the kind of positive things possible when waters districts, municipalities and environmental organizations come together to find solutions,” said Koehler praising the partnership, “This project is a key example of how we can provide secure, reliable water rights in ways that our compatible with our natural streams and natural heritage.” Supervisor Dickinson agrees, “We have the tremendous responsibility to use this water well and wisely. Because if we’ve learned a thing about California, as Congresswoman Matsui said, we have learned that the history of California is the history of water.” 

A tour of the new river promanade.

The project was not without some detractors from the nearby South Pocket neighborhoods. The noise and dust from the construction combined with such a massive change to the river scape concerned many. Supervisor Jimmie Yee took time at the dedication to address the locals. “The ones I don’t want to forget are our neighbors right down the street who had to put up with all the noise, dirt, dust,” Yee told the crowd. “Everything you can think of during the construction of this huge project. I want to thank those neighbors for being so cooperative and working with us to get this particular project built.” Matsui also recognized the impact this project has had on our community. “I think that with any kind of project like this, not everyone’s going to be one-hundred percent but in a democracy not everything is one-hundred percent as we well know. So hopefully as this thing develops further and the plants grow and they are able to plant more trees over here and the people in the neighborhood begin to appreciate the beauty of this here and being actually able to look at the river from here. I think that, in time, people around here will appreciate this as being something that’s going to be an enhancement for their neighborhood.” 

Dorothy at the end of the trail (for now)

Throughout the dedication ceremony a few people walking or bicycling along the levee trail stopped at the fence separating the path from the intake grounds to watch the ceremony. Dorothy and her husband just want to know when the fence will come down so they can ride their bicycles farther down the river. Well Dorothy, look forward to a longer trail toward the end of the year. (See here.)

The Sacramento Department of Utilities wants you to know that though you can water your yard more now that daylight saving time has begun, you should still remember not to water when it’s raining.

Under the current watering rules for this time of year, which went into effect a week ago, you can water your yard up to three times a week. If your address ends with an odd number you can run your hose or sprinklers on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. If your address ends with an even number, feel free to turn the water on on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. (No one gets to water on Monday.)

Sacramento is still under a conservation order so department head Marty Hanneman warns us not to water when it is raining or to water so long that it runs into the street. The rules also specify that you must finish watering before 10am or after 7pm. You can get a free Water Wise consultation if you call the Utilities Department at 916.264.5011. (Or just dial 311.) You can also call those numbers to report water waste in your neighborhood. (Or visit the website for information.)

Water efficient? Yes. Beautiful? Not so much.

The City of Sacramento Department of Utilities and Regional Water Authority (RWA) are creating a series of new television and radio ads featuring yards created by people with “blue thumbs.” So if you, or your neighbor whose yard you covet, have a great yard maintained by a water-efficient system you could end up on TV talking about your yard.

The City and RWA are looking for (among other things) yards filled with native or drought-resistant plants, sprinkler systems that are set according to seasonal water needs and that are adjusted to prevent runoff. RWA Efficiency Program Manager Linda Higgins explains what’s at stake, “In the Sacramento region, more than half of the urban water used is for landscape irrigation, Making sure landscape irrigation is efficient and eliminating water waste outdoors are two of the most cost-effective ways to stretch our limited water supplies and ensure that we continue to have sufficient water for the Sacramento region to prosper.” This city is predictably supportive of efforts to help people use water more efficiently. Says utility department spokesperson Jessica Hess, “The program looks to not only highlight members of our community who use water wisely outside their homes, but also to highlight the small steps everyone can do to save water.”

People in the Pocket and Greenhaven neighborhoods take great pride in our yards. So if you want to show off the home you have cared for so well (or think your neighbor should show theirs off) visit the RWA application website before February 22. Productions teams will film your part in the first two weeks of March and the ad will run from April to August of this year.

Two weeks ago the Environmental Working Group published a study of tap water quality in cities and towns all over the nation. According to EWG water flowing from Sacramento taps is the “cleanest” in the state and 18th cleanest in the nation. Sacramento Utilities Department Director Marty Hanneman marked the report with this statement: “The City of Sacramento Department of Utilities prides itself on providing high quality water to its customers. We have a long standing tradition of meeting or exceeding all state and federal drinking water standards. We are proud to be recognized for our efforts by being ranked number one in the State for water quality.”

With the city so excited about the findings we decided to investigate the data behind the report and see what is really in the water. In fact, our drinking water meets or exceeds all federal and state requirements for clean drinking water. But is this something Sacramentans can really raise a glass about?

We interview Dr. Olga Naidenko, Ph. D., senior scientist with the EWG and contributing author of the report, to understand the data. (If you want to see the full rankings click here then click on Sacramento at number 18. Also read the report methodology here.) The EWG takes the results of tests done by the Sacramento City Department of Utilities, results that are submitted to the state and federal EPA, and compares them to data from other cities around the nation.

Here’s the first problem: Of the 316 contaminants detected in water around the country the EPA has set enforceable standards for only 114 of these pollutants. ”As of now,” explains Dr. Naidenko, “there is insufficient testing for ‘unregulated’ chemical contaminants because many utilities feel that if a contaminant is unregulated, they will not worry about it.” Naidenko does concede that “more testing is definitely needed” but adds that Sacramento water, which flows to more than 407-thousand customers, “is pretty good and the cases where detected contaminants exceed health-based limits are smaller than found in many utilities across the country.”

It is worth noting here that there is a difference between a “safe” limit and an “action” limit for many contaminants. For example, the EPA says the only safe level of lead in your drinking water is “0″. But water utilities do not have to take action to mitigate contamination until it reaches 15 parts per billion in more than 10-percent of tap water samples. (Lead was found in 2 of 6 tests reported by the Sacramento Department of Utilities between 2004 and 2009.)

At what point is the water tested? For example, if a city tests at a source how do they ensure lead and other contaminants are not getting into the water through the pipes to your house? The Sacramento Department of Utilities reports that experts perform 150 tests on the water every day. Spokesperson Jessica Hess says the water is tested at the treatment plant, throughout the system and at the tap. Dr. Naidenko explains that contamination from within water pipes “is a big challenge on all levels. State offices, federal EPA, and individual utilities.” Naidenko goes on to say that lead contamination in particular is a problem in cities with old lead plumbing networks. “Consumers are getting lead-contaminated water at the tap even though tests at the treatment plant did not show these contaminants,” confirms the EWG scientist. “There is definitely a need for more extensive testing throughout the distribution system. As of now, this remains as a gap in our knowledge and a risk to human health.” The Sacramento network of pipes, says Hess, is made from welded and riveted steel, plastics and concrete. “The City has had a long history of upgrading and rehabilitating the distribution system to meet our current needs and projected future growth.”  

How about the data? Can the EPA, CalEPA or EWG guarantee the data reported by a local water utility is accurate? The Environmental Working Group (and state and federal enforcement agencies) depend upon the quality of the records kept by local water utilities. For their part, EWG’s Naidenko says the group “gave to all utilities a three-week window for data review and revision.” Naidenko confirms that more than 200 water utilities reviewed the data for their system and verified the accuracy of the data. That doesn’t preclude the possibility of someone falsifying records (as happened in Sparta, NJ last year, New York City in 2006 and San Luis Obispo in 1998) but, according to both the Sacramento Department of Utilities and CalEPA, no department official here has ever been cited or fined for faulty record-keeping.

“Overall, Sacramento did well in the list of 100 large water utilities that serve population over quarter of a million people,” Naidenko says, “For the listing nation-wide, the results would probably look even better,” because smaller systems that may have more contamination through pipes or infrastructure issues. Hess explains that the city is always updating our water system and the ways they clean the water. “This includes upgrading and expanding the treatment plants, building more reservoirs, up sizing pipe to meet the demands of our growing community, replacing failing mains, and moving mains from the backyards to the street in front of the property. This work is ongoing because the pipes continue to age and our community continues to grow and change.”

You remembered to roll your clocks back an hour this morning, but if you haven’t read Pocket Online you may have missed a comment by Sacramento Department of Utilities spokesperson Jessica Hess about new watering rules. Apparently, starting today you can only water your plants or lawn on Saturday or Sunday. Which day is based upon your address: If your address ends in an odd number your watering day is Saturday. If your address ends with an even number, you can water on Sunday.

The department also has some tips so you can save water:

• Water your yard before 10am or after 6pm
• Reduce your watering by 1-3 minutes
• Get an auto shut-off nozzle for your hose
• Replace toilets and other household appliances with higher efficiency models

The end of the canal at Greenhaven Drive with an ironically placed recepticle.

If you live along the last 200 yards of canal near Greenhaven Drive (map here) you’ve smelled it. If you walk or ride along this part of the canal, you’ve smelled it. Garbage, wood, safety cones and other filth has not only contaminated the water in this area it has festered long enough to give off a powerful odor that filters through every breath for anyone in nearby neighborhoods. The buildup of debris in the sickly green water has been going on for a while, so we wondered about the clean-up schedule for the water. (Be glad the slideshow below doesn’t have smell-o-vision online technology.)

We called the city to ask when neighbors could expect to see staff from the Department of Utilities, which maintains the canals, out to clean up the water. Maurice Chaney couldn’t say with what regularity crews went out to the canals to clean them but did say our request would be immediately passed on to the workers who would soon come out to clean up the mess.

If you see the work crews out anytime in the near future, call Pocket Online 307-8751 or drop us an email at editor@inourpocket.com and we will come out to document the clean-up. (And still try to find out exactly how often the canals are cleaned or even inspected.Or if the department responds only to complaints.)

The City of Sacramento is looking for a few ambassadors to spread the message: Spare the Water. The Water Conservation Office of the Department of Utilities is telling literally everyone they can that we need to save as much water as possible. “We are in the third dry year,” administrator Julie Friedman told a community group meeting earlier this week, “California is facing severe water challenges. Our water use impacts the environment around us, including the health of the Sacramento and American rivers.”

So, the city in June initiated the “Spare the Water” program designed to educate us about using water wisely. Along with the program, the council updated the city ordinance to restrict watering and impose fines on people who ignore the restrictions. There has not been as much media coverage of exactly what the rules are for watering your lawn and plants, so let’s spell out the particulars: If your address ends in an odd number, you can only water your yard on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. If your address ends in an even number, water only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. There is no watering allowed on Monday.

In an effort to reach out to the community, Friedman is appointing neighborhood ambassadors for the Department of Utilities.  ”An important part of “Spare the Water” is building partnerships with our customers to help spread the word about water efficiency,” Friedman says, ”Our partners are Ambassadors for water efficiency who help us distribute materials and information.” Each ambassador is given magnets, watering guidelines and other tips in four languages to hand out to their neighbors. (If you want to sign up to be an ambassador, email Julie Friedman at jfriedman@cityofsacramento.org.)

When asked how the city is enforcing the watering ordinance, Friedman suggests you call 311 and report the issue if you see someone watering outside of the proscribed hours. “The updated Water Conservation Ordinance does include stronger enforcement measures to help us stop water waste,” warns Friedman, “However, the City would rather not fine customers. What we’d really like is for customers to request a free Water Wise House Call by calling 311 so that we can show them how to use water wisely.”

The Water Conservation Office is circulating flyers with some tips you can use to save small amounts of water every day. Among the suggestions:

• Water your yard before 10am or after 6pm
• Reduce your watering by 1-3 minutes
• Get an auto shut-off nozzle for your hose
• Replace toilets and other household appliances with higher efficiency models

For now the city is only working on educating city residents. (For instance: a water conservation workshop. Click here for details on the Pocket Events page.) You can get more tips or arrange for a water inspector to visit your house when you visit www.SpareSacWater.org.