Abstract
This is the first in a sequence of chapters focusing explicitly on the adaptive management of Chino Basin under the OBMP and Peace Agreement. It begins with the continued urbanization process and its effects on water use, groundwater recharge, and wastewater production. These were all important drivers to which groundwater management in Chino Basin had to adapt. Another was the changes to the price and reliability of imported water supplies. Those supplies had become important elements of water supply and basin management in the second half of the twentieth century, but by the 2000s it was apparent that they were becoming uncertain as well as more expensive. One way of adapting to that circumstance was increased reliance on the reuse of treated wastewater, but that came with its own constraints and challenges. Another adaptation has been a renewed investment in facilities for stormwater capture for basin replenishment, through the implementation of a Recharge Master Plan, with periodic updates. Another adaptive management program was designed and initiated for understanding and stopping land subsidence. Together, these new endeavors illustrate the more active and adaptive approach to basin management while also highlighting how demanding it is.
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Notes
- 1.
Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2016.
- 2.
The difference between the amount taken out of agriculture and the amount counted as urban reflects the time lag involved in property acquisition, construction design, permitting, and development. Agricultural use dropped faster than urban use increased, but eventually nearly all the former agricultural land was urbanized.
- 3.
Daryl Kelley and Janet Wilson, “A Bumper Crop of New Homes.” The Los Angeles Times. June 15, 2004.
- 4.
Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2016.
- 5.
Effects of land-use conversion on groundwater recharge – including conversion from agricultural to urban use – remain an active area of research. See, for example, Han et al. 2017.
- 6.
Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2016.
- 7.
Parts of Chino Basin lie within Riverside and Los Angeles counties, but the majority lies within San Bernardino County and that area includes nearly all the creeks that cross the basin. For those reasons, even though flood control agencies in the other two counties took the same sorts of actions, the impacts of the actions by San Bernardino County Flood Control District contributed the most by far to the reduction in stormwater recharge in Chino Basin.
- 8.
Chino Basin Watermaster, State of the Basin Report 2016.
- 9.
Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2016. This comparison uses California Highway 60 as an easily recognizable dividing line between the northern and southern halves of Chino Basin.
- 10.
Chino Basin Watermaster, OBMP Status Report 2008-2, p. 5.
- 11.
To provide some idea of the magnitude of this impact, direct (i.e., non-potable) use of recycled water in Chino Basin averages more than 20,000 acre-feet per year for uses that would otherwise be met with groundwater, stormwater, or imported water. Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2014.
- 12.
IEUA and Chino Basin Watermaster operate the groundwater recharge program with recycled water under Regional Water Quality Control Board orders R8-2007-0039 (which was revised in 2010) and R8-2009-0057. The Regional Board’s 2004 Basin Plan Amendment, described in the next chapter, “allowed for the aggressive expansion of recycled-water reuse.” Prior to 2005–06, recycled-water recharge averaged about 500 acre-feet per year; afterward, it averaged about 6000 acre-feet per year. Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2014.
- 13.
Reporter’s Transcript of Oral Proceedings. November 18, 1999, pp. 31–53.
- 14.
Chino Basin Watermaster. Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Chino Basin Watermaster, Fiscal Year 2000–01.
- 15.
The flows in the creek channels were what could realistically be used for recharge in Chino Basin. Larger quantities of storm flows that hit the river from the upper area of the watershed and are impounded behind Prado Dam before being released to Orange County are less practicable as a recharge source for Chino Basin, since they would have to be pumped back up to the middle or northern areas of the basin for effective recharge.
- 16.
“The Etiwanda, Montclair and San Sevaine basins are currently used by Watermaster for replenishment. During the development of the OBMP, seventeen additional existing storm water retention basins and one former recycled water percolation facility were identified that could be used to meet future replenishment obligations.” OBMP Implementation Plan, June 2000, p. 14.
- 17.
Chino Basin Watermaster, 2007 Supplement to the Implementation Plan Optimum Basin Management Program for the Chino Basin. October 25, 2007. This document was also Attachment D to Watermaster Resolution 07-05.
- 18.
To clarify, Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Chino Basin Facilities Improvement Project (CBFIP) are different from Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Recharge Master Plan. As mentioned earlier, Phase 1 of the Recharge Master Plan had been completed in the 1990s. Phase 2 of the Recharge Master Plan was implemented by means of the added facilities in Phase 1 of the CBFIP plus the facility improvements in Phase 2 of the CBFIP.
- 19.
Recharge basins are normally taken out of use periodically so that silt can be removed from the bottom and the percolation rate kept high. With enough recharge basins, maintenance can be rotated so that there are always basins available to receive water.
- 20.
Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2014.
- 21.
Chino Basin Watermaster, OBMP Status Report 2008-2, p. 5.
- 22.
Letter from Jean Cihigoyenetche, attorney for IEUA, to Michael Fife, attorney for Chino Basin Watermaster, June 22, 2010.
- 23.
It is relevant to note here that these processes took place with a new judge at the helm. Judge Gunn retired in 2008 and his immediate successor, Judge Wade, presided over the Chino Basin case for one year before he too retired. In September 2009, the Court’s continuing jurisdiction over the Judgment was reassigned to Judge Stanford E. Reichert. In this, the Chino Basin parties were fortunate: Judge Reichert had once been an assistant to Judge Gunn, and remained with the case for over a decade.
- 24.
Chino Basin Watermaster, OBMP Status Report 2011-1.
- 25.
Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2016.
- 26.
Wildermuth Environmental Inc. memo to Chino Basin Watermaster on Watermaster compliance with the 2010 RMPU , October 31, 2017.
- 27.
For example, in 2015–16 when drought conditions were severe and there was almost no stormwater runoff or imported replenishment water, IEUA and Watermaster were still able to recharge 13,200 acre-feet of recycled water. Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2016.
- 28.
Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2018.
- 29.
The particular subsidence problem in MZ-1, known as differential subsidence, may be due to the fact that the San Jose Fault runs through MZ-1 and there may be differences in soil composition and density on the sides of the fault that cause soil compaction to proceed at different rates when groundwater is removed. Horizontal differential subsidence may be manifested by fissures that open as the underlying dewatered soils settle at different rates, pulling the overlying land surface apart.
- 30.
In this area the underground water is separated by a layer of less permeable soils into a shallower zone and a deeper zone. Such a layer is known as an aquitard because it limits vertical movement of water between the aquifer zones. Aquitards are commonly composed of finer and denser soils such as clay through which water passes much more slowly than it does through coarser sand and gravel soils.
- 31.
Chino Basin Watermaster, Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Chino Basin Watermaster, Fiscal Year 2000–01.
- 32.
This hypothesis is mentioned in Lofgren 1971 and in Chino Basin Watermaster and Wildermuth Environmental Inc., State of the Basin Report 2018.
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Blomquist, W. (2021). The Changed Landscape and Chino Basin Groundwater. In: The Realities of Adaptive Groundwater Management. Global Issues in Water Policy, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63723-1_10
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