Summary: Thursday, August 23, 2012 The Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency, or PVWMA, has voted to proceed with a brand new Basin Management Plan (or BMP). Don’t you just love those acronyms? In fact, the adoption of this BMP is a pretty big deal. In today’s Land Use Report blog, I am providing a link to a PowerPoint presentation that was shown to the PVWMA Board of Directors on August 15th. The BMP will attempt to correct current overdraft conditions in the Pajaro Valley groundwater aquifer by saving 5,000 acre feet of water per year through water use efficiency measures; an additional 3,000 acre feet per year of conservation will come from optimizing the use of existing supplies. The BMP also proposes that 4,100-acre feet per year will be made available through the development of new supplies. The PVWMA’s new BMP is not suggesting that the problems we’re facing here can be solved by importing water from somewhere else. Three projects have been specifically identified. One is a project that would make use of water from College Lake. One would establish a North Dunes Recharge Basin, and one would divert water out of the Pajaro River at Murphy’s Crossing, and then capture that water in recharge basins nearby. The future of our agricultural industry depends on solving our current overdraft problems. More Information: Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog PVWMA Website Information on the BMP Presented on August 15, 2012 PVWMA Press Release on Adoption of the BMP
