Vance Kennedy Addressing the Modesto Irrigation District Board
By Vance Kennedy – 9/10/13
I was at a meeting yesterday at which Larry Byrd said that electric service to the foothills may need to be increased to service
Groundwater Well (Photo credit: Kecko)
the very large pumps being installed to mine groundwater for growing almonds. There are major policy questions to be addressed here:
1. These pumps will suck water from a large area of neighbors and wipe them out, thereby cutting off existing demand by those neighbors permanently.
2. The new large deep wells will require high-power lines, but will return money to MID to pay off those lines for a very limited number of years, depending on how long it takes to deplete the ancient ground water in the area. That groundwater, if similar to that in the foothills in Calavaras County, is in the range of 2,000 to 13,000 years old and will take many decades to replace, assuming present rainfall. If global warming reduces rainfall, a real possibility, it may take centuries. There is no way of knowing, so at least consider the worst and plan accordingly. Any wasted money for installing new high power lines to those very deep wells will be borne by other ratepayers and that is unfair to them.
When the groundwater is gone in the foothills, it will be essentially a permanent wasteland except in those areas where outside water can be imported. Does the general public really want that?
The best simile I can think of is a bus load of people headed for a cliff in the fog on automatic pilot. We already have several examples to the south and there are no rules to prevent a disaster due to human greed and lack of state laws.
Eye On Modesto 
MID will take the water from homes that depends on it for drinking water including Riverbank, Modesto, Empire, Oakdale and Escalon, the ground water runs in veins i’m sure and when our well went dry we weren’t allowed to drill a new one so these people will be forced as we were to hook up to City water, and it’s probably the same water we had from our well for free just so they can charge people for water and it cost as much for it as drilling a well to hook up to City water, the line was already there to a dummy box waiting for a meter, they had it there waiting and charged the hell out of us over $ 6,500. for their fees to start using it we had to pay for everything and pay to install it, with the city water pipe there at the casing, and they didn’t even furnish the meter we had to order it, so I can see the writing on the wall what happened to the river water? and the water in the Dams that we paid to build so water could be stored for irrigation? we have stored water in the dams for irrigation so what’s up with that? and they have taken irrigation from everyone that has less than 10 acres unless they live adjoining a ditch, my field is dust where it was a green pasture where we had animals, it’s terrible that people are being bullied by Cities making laws as they go, ” When the groundwater is gone from/ in the foothills, it will be essentially a permanent wasteland” except in those areas where outside water can be imported” where are they going to import it from? when the ground water is gone it will start a series of ” EARTHQUAKES” . Does the general public want that? what are the people going to drink when that happens? dust? this valley will revert back to the Desert from which it come, and these people don’t care what we the people thinks