Supervisors' vote on Paso Robles basin was a good move

The shrinking Paso Robles groundwater basin got a slight reprieve Tuesday. The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to begin drafting a long-term agricultural water offset program for that huge underground basin. But it won’t be a permanent ordinance.

It also won’t stop the current, ongoing overpumping of water from the Paso Robles basin. The basin is a major source of water for much of the North County, but for years more water has been pumped out of it than nature could replace.

Hundreds of wells in the basin are reported to have gone dry. One of the main things the proposed ordinance would do is ban increases in agricultural pumping from the basin.

In 2013 the supervisors passed an emergency ordinance that requires a 1-1 water conservation offset for any new agricultural planting in the basin. But that ordinance will expire Aug. 27. The new long-term ordinance proposed Tuesday would replace it.

The new ordinance would be expected to keep the over-pumping from increasing. Eventually, though, the proposed Paso Robles basin management district would regulate pumping, but forming that district could take years. The new district’s governing board would then be responsible for stopping the over-pumping. If the board failed to do it, the basin would continue shrinking.

Last Tuesday the county supervisors were faced with an emergency ordinance that will expire in August. If nothing replaces it, overpumping will again be uncontrolled. So, three supervisors voted to consider a temporary, long-term replacement ordinance. It would ban new agricultural pumping in the basin unless the amount pumped is offset or counter-balanced by water conservation.

I think the three supervisors voted right. Over-pumping from the basin would eventually kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I also think the two supervisors who voted “no” believed they were doing the right thing. We all know government agencies can be inefficient, but are often necessary. I hope those two supervisors will now work with the new ordinance and see that it operates fairly and efficiently.

Also, this isn’t the end of the process. The hard work of creating a Paso Robles basin management district is just beginning. The district’s property owners deserve the best. In the end they will vote on the proposed Paso Robles groundwater basin management district. And it will be theirs.

I think most of us now realize that this underground water basin isn’t inexhaustible. It and the other groundwater basins in the county should be properly managed and preserved for our future generations.

This story was originally published February 26, 2015 at 2:40 PM with the headline "Supervisors' vote on Paso Robles basin was a good move."