Thanks for your comment and letter. I’m going to post it to the Community egroup as well. You raise some good points. As of today, 1/29/08 I have heard nothing from Ms. Whitlow in response to my questions about their press release. Her silence is deafening.

I completely agree, and probably most do as well, that we should all make a concerted effort in Nipomo to conserve water. But, I take an extremely dim view of my government misleading the public. That is true on the federal when they lie us into war, and it is equally true on the local water board level when people like Ms. Whitlow make unsupportable statements meant to scare people into achieving certain governmental ends.

We, at Blacklake, were amazed to see the article in the Adobe Press yesterday. I have copied our response to the reporter in hopes that he would do a better job in the future.

Bill

—– e-mail to Mr. Hodgson ——

Mr. Hodgson,

I was surprised to see your article today in the Adobe Press because it presents a biased view of our Nipomo Mesa groundwater problem.  All of the alarmist statements regarding the groundwater supply is based on a draft report by one consultant of NCSD.  As a reporter, I am surprised that you rely on unsubstantiated conclusions from a single source.  The report on which the conclusions are based has not undergone any peer review and it does not agree with data and conclusions in more comprehensive DWR and SLO County Water studies.  At the very least, SLO County and Santa Barbara counties should agree with the data in this report, as it may affect actions throughout the Santa Maria Valley Basin.

If NCSD felt the problem was so serious when they analyzed the measurements in October, why did they wait until January 20 (or thereabouts) to notify the press, which coincidentally is 5 days before a public workshop on their proposed emergency rationing plan?

[Ref. “Nipomo Mesa Groundwater Resource Capacity Study, San Luis Obispo County, California”, S.S. Papadopulos & Associates, San Francisco, CA, March 2004 (available online at http://www.slocountywater.org/site/Water%20Resources/Reports/Nipomo%20Mesa/index.htm)]
[Ref. “Water Resources of the Arroyo Grande – Nipomo Mesa, 2002″, Department of Water Resources, Southern District, 2002 (available online at http://wwwdpla.water.ca.gov/sd/water_quality/arroyo_grande/arroyo_grande-nipomo_mesa.html.

The NCSD customers, both here at Blacklake and in the other areas of Nipomo, are becoming highly critical of the one-way flow of information from NCSD.  As a result, we try to do our homework to verify what is made public before it causes problems.  This water conservation issue is certainly one that will incense the community.  I have already contacted NCSD regarding concerns about the basis for the trigger points identified in the SAIC draft report.  They have not responded yet.

I have preformed a statistical analysis of the data in the SAIC report and found that their own data shows a nice normal distribution (bell-shaped curve) over a 25-year period.  The mean (average value) and standard deviation show that any data between 52,000 and 122,500 AF can be expected (statistically).  This means that the trigger points and the “scare” values identified in the SAIC report and in your article are unimportant (statistically).  

I agree that all the water users on the Nipomo Mesa need to conserve water and be aware of water conditions, but doomsday predictions and scare tactics, along with draconian ordinances, are not the way to elicit widespread public support. As we all know, “WMD reporting” can lead to undesirable results.

If others in the community are as upset as those of us who have read and studied the NCSD proposal, then the meeting next Wednesday should be quite a show.  I hope you will attend and gather more information. It’s too bad your paper cannot issue a retraction or provide alternate viewpoints before next Wednesday’s meeting.

Bill Petrick
Chairperson, Blacklake Management Association NCSD Committee