An unprecedented yearlong pump test of a deep water well in
Central Kitsap is expected to provide a wealth of new information
about our underground water supplies.
Joel Purdy, hydrogeologist for
Kitsap Public Utility District, checks the flow at Newberry Hill
Well 2, which is being pumped at 1,000 gallons per minute for a
full year. // Photo: Christopher
Dunagan
The 900-foot-deep well, off Newberry Hill Road, will be pumped
continuously for a year, drawing water at a rate of 1,000 gallons
per minute. Drawdown effects of the high pumping rate will be
measured in 56 other wells — including those operated by Silverdale
Water District, Kitsap Public Utility District, the city of
Bremerton, North Perry Water District, Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and
others.
The pump test is designed to better define the extent of
aquifers throughout Central Kitsap while increasing the accuracy of
a groundwater model developed to predict water supplies across the
Kitsap Peninsula.
“This is going to be one of the best data-gathering tests,” said
Joel Purdy, hydrogeologist for Kitsap Public Utility District.
“Hydrogeologists dream of doing this kind of aquifer test.”
UPDATE, MAY 31
The name LeCuyer Creek was approved yesterday by the Washington
State Committee on Geographic Names. The name change now goes to
the state Board of Natural Resources, which sits as the state Board
of Geographic Names. Action is normally a formality. The name,
which will be recognized for state business, will be forwarded to
the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, which is likely to adopt it for
federal actions as well.
—–
The late Jim LeCuyer, who developed a system of monitoring
rainfall, streamflow and groundwater levels in Kitsap County, could
be memorialized next week when a stream near Kingston is officially
named LeCuyer Creek.
Jim LeCuyer
The state’s Committee on Geographic Names will meet
TuesdayThursday to
consider the proposed stream name in honor of LeCuyer, who died in
2012 from a blood disorder.
Jim, who joined the Kitsap Public Utility District in 1984, came
to understand the water cycle on the Kitsap Peninsula perhaps
better than anyone else. When Jim took the job, one of the looming
questions for government officials was whether the peninsula would
have enough water to serve the massive influx of people who were
coming to Kitsap County.
“Jim started doing hydrological monitoring about 1991,” said
Mark Morgan, KPUD’s water resources manager who proposed the name
LeCuyer Creek. “What he developed became one of the best monitoring
systems in the state, some say on the West Coast.”
Overall, the Kitsap Peninsula is expected to have enough water
for people and fish for many years into the future, as long as the
water is managed well, according to a groundwater model developed
by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The model offers reassuring findings for residents of the Kitsap
Peninsula. It is also encouraging to see local water, sewer and
public works officials working together to plan for infiltrating
stormwater along with recycling wastewater for irrigation. Those
efforts will not only protect the peninsula’s water resources but
will save money for water customers.
Drilling for water on the
Kitsap Peninsula
Kitsap Sun file photo
Lonna Frans of the U.S. Geological Survey met this week with
members of WaterPAK — the Water Purveyors of Association of Kitsap
— to discuss the conclusions of a five-year, $1.4 million study of
water resources across the Kitsap Peninsula. Lonna said a final
written report should be available in about a month. (See website
Kitsap GW
model.)
The most impressive part of the groundwater model is the mapping
of geology across the entire peninsula, based on more than 2,100
well-driller logs that describe the type of soil at various depths.
Putting that information together provides a three-dimensional
picture of the underground structure, including sand and gravel
deposits, which contain water, along with layers of clay and
compressed soils, which slow down the water movement.
By monitoring water levels in 66 wells over time and accounting
for rainfall and groundwater withdrawals, the computer model
provides a dynamic picture of what happens under various
conditions. The model can be used to predict what will happen to
Kitsap’s aquifers under various rainfall scenarios, including long
periods of drought.
The model also can predict what will happen to streamflows under
various rainfall scenarios. The Kitsap Peninsula has no mountain
snowpack to supply the streams with water during dry summer months,
so the water must come from slow-moving underground supplies.
Now that the model is complete, it can be run for almost any
pattern of rainfall or drought that one wishes to dream up. For
example, running the model with average rainfall and no pumping at
all (close to a predevelopment condition) would bring the average
groundwater level up about 25 feet — although groundwater levels in
some places would be raised more than in other places.
Streamsflows under the no-pumping scenario would be an average
of about 2 percent higher — although this would be difficult to
measure with current instruments. Nobody would really notice the
difference.
If pumping across the peninsula were increased by 15 percent,
there would not be much difference in aquifers near the surface and
only a two- or three-foot drop in aquifers around sea level.
Streamflows would go down by a fraction of a percent but not enough
to notice.
Decreasing groundwater recharge by 15 percent, such as paving
over the landscape with new roads, houses and parking lots, would
have a greater effect on streamflows.
Again, not all areas on the peninsula will see the same effects.
The model can be used to zero in on specific streams and their
watersheds — although the smaller the area of study, the less
accurate the prediction is likely to be.
Bob Hunter, manager of Kitsap Public Utility District, said the
model can be used to predict the effects that new wells would have
on streamflows as the population grows. The model could advise
managers whether it would be advisable to pump certain wells at
certain times of the year and hold back at other times.
Kathleen Cahall, water resources manager for the city of
Bremerton, said the model can also be used to make sure
aquifer-recharge areas are protected and that industrial facilities
that store large quantities of chemicals are not located where a
spill could contaminate a major underground water supply.
Morgan Johnson, general manager of Silverdale Water District,
said he would like to use the model to predict what will happen
when highly treated effluent from the Central Kitsap Wastewater
Treatment Plant is used to irrigate ball fields and other areas in
Central Kitsap. Efforts between the water districts and Kitsap
County might lead to greater infiltration of water and greater
groundwater supplies to be pumped from existing wells throughout
Central Kitsap.
The USGS provided half the costs for the study. The other half
was shared among Kitsap PUD; Silverdale Water District; West Sound
Utility District; North Perry Water District; Manchester Water
District; the cities of Bremerton, Port Orchard, Poulsbo and Gig
Harbor; Washington Water, a private utility; and the Suquamish and
Port Gamble S’Klallam tribes.
Rainfall in most of Kitsap County was fairly normal or slightly
above average until April, when the spring rains basically stopped.
The lack of rain has led to extreme conditions, as anyone can see
by looking at the dry vegetation across Western Washington.
The total rainfall has now fallen below normal in most areas of
Kitsap County, as shown by the maps on this page. That
below-average condition is unlikely to change without some
uncharacteristic rainstorms between now and the end of the “water
year” on Oct. 1.
The Kitsap Peninsula, like islands throughout Puget Sound, does
not rely on snowpack for its water supplies, so a shortage of
drinking water is unlikely. The one exception might be residents
who rely on private shallow wells, some of which could start to dry
up by the end of summer, according to Bob Hunter, manager of Kitsap
Public Utility District.
Deeper aquifers used by most major water systems on the
peninsula are not affected by a single year’s weather. It takes
time for the water to trickle down to the deeper layers, where
groundwater levels reflect the pattern of rainfall occurring over
several years.
The soils and topography vary so greatly from one place to
another that nobody can say how soon shallow wells will be
affected. Some wells depend on springs or surface infiltration,
while others tap into aquifers with adequate supply. The rate of
withdrawal, including the number of homes in a given area, can have
an effect on water supply.
Although the deeper aquifers are not likely to be affected this
year, what if we are at the beginning of a dry period that lasts
three years or more? I would hate to look back on my current water
usage and regret not saving water when I had the chance. To a
varying extent, conserving water can protect our water supplies and
help the overall ecosystem.
In addition to affecting aquifers, the lack of rain has reduced
streamflows in creeks and rivers to below-normal rates throughout
the county. The resulting low flows could affect coho salmon, which
spend a year in freshwater. The fall salmon migration will be
mostly affected by whether rains show up to saturate the soils and
raise stream levels in September and October.
Bob Hunter says the per-capita use of water has been dropping,
but he’s not sure how much of the change is a result of personal
choices and how much is a result of new kitchen and bathroom
fixtures required by plumbing codes. Low-flush toilets and low-flow
faucets can really make a difference, he said.
People use large amounts of water on their lawns, so one
long-term effort is to reduce the amount of grass and thirsty
vegetation that homeowners maintain while improving the soil to
increasing its water-holding capacity.
“This year, people are irrigating a lot earlier than they were
in the past,” Bob told me. “That has to have an impact, especially
if the summer stays dry the whole way.”
The key to protecting future water supplies on the Kitsap
Peninsula is for everyone to change their habitats over time by
finding ways to use less water. If people understand the
trickle-down theory of aquifers, they might be less inclined to
take our water for granted.
UPDATE: April 24, 2015
Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of
Washington, says in his
blog that it is too early to be predicting severe drought in
Western Washington this summer because of possible late-spring
rains:
“I believe the media and some local politicians have gotten a
bit too worried about our ‘drought.’ We have NOT had a
precipitation drought at all….we are in a snow drought due to warm
temperatures. The situation is unique and I suspect we will weather
this summer far better than expected.”
—–
The word seems to be getting around about the record-low
snowpack in the mountains, which could create a shortage of
drinking water and even lead to problems for salmon swimming
upstream. Read about Gov. Jay Inslee’s expanded drought emergency, issued
today, as well as the last
update from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Kitsap Peninsula and the islands of Puget Sound are in their own
worlds, fairly insulated from what is happening in the higher
elevations. In these lower elevations, the key to water supplies is
rainfall, not snow, and the outlook for the year is normal so
far.
As you can see from the charts on this page (click to enlarge),
this year’s rainfall has been tracking closely the long-term
average. If the rains are light and steady, much of the water will
soak into the ground and recharge the aquifers where most area
residents get their water. The aquifer levels tend to rise and fall
over multiple years, depending on the rainfall.
Casad Dam on the Union River, which supplies a majority of
Bremerton’s water, filled in January, well ahead of schedule, said
Kathleen Cahall, water resources manager for the city. The dam is
scheduled for a normal drawdown, and Kathleen said she does not
expect any water shortage.
“We filled the reservoir fairly early this year,” she said. “We
are looking pretty good for the summer.”
October, the first month of the water year, was unusually wet,
Kathleen said. December precipitation also was high. The other
months were fairly normal for precipitation.
Precipitation in the Puget Sound region is expected to be below
average for June, July and August, according to models by the
NOAA’s Climate Prediction
Center. Interestingly, large portions of the Central and
Southwest U.S., Alaska and Florida can expect above-average
precipitation. See U.S. map.
Streams on the Kitsap Peninsula are fed by surface water flows
and shallow aquifers. At the moment, most of the streamflows are
near their historical average. That’s not the case for the larger
rivers in the Northwest, which rush out of the mountains. Most are
well below their normal flows, as shown by the map with the
dots.
Low streamflows usually mean higher temperatures and stress for
salmon. Low flows also can affect fish passage in some stretches of
the rivers while also reducing spawning areas.
While things look fairly good on the Kitsap Peninsula now,
things can change quickly. We have different vulnerabilities than
elsewhere. Climate-change models predict that rains will grow more
intense in the future without changing annual precipitation very
much. That means more of the water will run off the land and less
will soak in, potentially reducing aquifer levels over time.
Managing those underground water supplies will become more and more
critical.
“Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting
over.”
This quote kept running through my mind as I completed the
eighth part of our series “Taking the Pulse of Puget Sound.” The
latest installment, published in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun, is about water
resources.
Craig Greshman of Gresham
Well Drilling drills a new well on Virginia Point in
Poulsbo.
Kitsap Sun photo by Larry Steagall
It seems from my interviews that we should have enough water in
the Puget Sound region to serve the needs of people while
maintaining streamflows for fish and other aquatic organisms. It’s
all about managing the resource, as I describe in the story.
What isn’t so clear to me is what we need to do about water
rights, and this is where the real hangup can come in. People,
governments and developers are allowed to reserve vast amounts of
water for various uses, then they simply need to “use it or lose
it.” That does not encourage conservation.
Water rights are considered a property right. Even if the
Legislature had a plan for clearing up all the conflicts, it would
not be easy. So far, the courts have been fairly strong in
upholding individual water rights, even when the needs of society
call for a new direction.
We’ve all encountered belligerent people who speak out loudly
about their property rights. They’ll say, “This is my property, and
I’ll be damned if I will have the government telling me what I can
and cannot do with my property.”
Well, I’m sorry. But that battle is over. Zoning laws have been
upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Reasonable restrictions can be
imposed on the use of property to protect the rights of the
neighbors and the entire community.
But water rights are fairly entrenched and inflexible. It may be
in the best interest of a community if a farmer could find ways to
grow his crops with less water and share the surplus with a growing
population. But is it fair to expect the farmer to give away his
water rights for free, or should he be paid a sizable amount of
money to set free the water he is holding hostage? Maybe he will
need that water in the future, given the uncertainties of climate
change.
And then there is the groundwater-permit exemptions for single
family homes, allowing withdrawal of up to 5,000 gallons per day of
water from a well — even though most families use only a few
hundred gallons a day. In addition, the courts have ruled that
farmers may use an unlimited amount of groundwater for watering
livestock. All these water rights are recorded on the books,
competing with other water rights — including instream flows to
protect water in the streams for fish and other aquatic
creatures.
Such water rights can be issued until there is no water left to
appropriate or until there is a real water shortage and people
generally agree that an adjudication is necessary. That’s when the
courts begin to sort out who is using what water and for how long,
trying to resolve the tangled claims and conflicts. While it may
seem like the most reasonable solution, the adjudication process
involves historical evidence and legal rulings that never seem to
end. Such an adjudication has been underway in the Yakima basin for
40 years, according to the Department
of Ecology website.
While water supplies in the Puget Sound region seem to be
generally adequate for years to come, it is unlikely that people
and governments will find a way to share this precious resource,
setting the stage for ongoing legal battles.
“Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting
over.”
While this quote is commonly attributed to Mark Twain, there is
no evidence he ever said it. See the blog entry by Michael Doyle of
McClatchy Newspapers. Trying to prove that
Twain never said it, however, is virtually impossible. It reminds
me of the effort it may take to prove that one of our ancestors put
his water rights to “beneficial use,” thus guaranteeing a quantity
of water for all time.
Click on image to download
the complete graphic (PDF 2.8 mb).
For this week, let’s call it “Amazing Monday.” When I first saw
this video, I thought it was a fake animation for a science fiction
film. But it turns out that it could be the answer to a troubling
riddle: What is dryer than a desert?
The crack might also be the result of erosion from either an
underground or surface channel following an unusually heavy rain.
Despite the attention in Mexican and U.S. news outlets, I have been
unable to find a good explanation.
The crack is said to be about three-fourths mile long and up to
25 feet deep. Some nice close-in photos were posted on the website
of Excelsior,
a daily newspaper based in Mexico City. They show people standing
next to the giant fissure. (When watching the video, it’s worth
blowing it up to full screen.)
In a Washington Post story last week, reporter
Joshua Partlow quoted a geologist at the University of Sonora as
saying the crack was probably caused by pumping groundwater for
irrigation:
“The chair of the geology department at the University of
Sonora, in the northern Mexican state where this ‘topographic
accident’ emerged, said that the fissure was likely caused by
sucking out groundwater for irrigation to the point the surface
collapsed.
“‘This is no cause for alarm,’ Inocente Guadalupe Espinoza
Maldonado said. ‘These are normal manifestations of the
destabilization of the ground.’”
I think the geologist’s comments were meant to quell fear and
speculation that started running wild when the crack first opened.
While it may not be cause for alarm, I can’t believe that a crack
this size — which has cut off more than one roadway — can be
considered a good thing. Nevertheless, it is fascinating, and I’d
like to learn more about it.
Sharing water resources over a wide region is an idea that goes
hand-in-hand with the Growth Management Act’s strategy of
concentrating population in urban areas while protecting rural
areas.
Of course, the first level of action is water conservation. But
the ability to take water from one aquifer with an adequate water
supply while protecting an overtaxed aquifer somewhere else makes a
lot of sense.
That’s the idea behind building new pipelines to connect
numerous water systems across a good portion of Kitsap County,
including Silverdale. I described the latest steps in this plan in
a story published in
Monday’s Kitsap Sun.
Thirty years ago — before the Growth Management Act was passed —
I recall talking to folks at the Kitsap Public Utility District,
who declared that they were not in the land-use business and had no
intention of getting involved in land-use battles. It was the job
of the Kitsap County commissioners to decide where to put the
growth, they said. The PUD staff and commissioners believed their
role was to provide water for the growing population, wherever it
goes. Check out this
Kitsap Sun story from Feb. 25, 2001.
The state’s Municipal
Water Law of 2003 clarified that the KPUD could deliver water
from one place to another throughout its service area — which is
all of Kitsap County. That allows water to be brought to developed
areas in North Kitsap, where annual rainfall is half of what we see
in the forested areas of Southwest Kitsap, where the Seabeck
aquifer is located. (See annual precipitation map on this
page.)
Many environmentalists have objected to certain portions of the
Municipal Water Law, especially sections that included developers
as municipal water suppliers — a move they say opens the door for
abuse by financial interests.
One of the big concerns in water management is that pumping too
much from an aquifer — especially a shallow aquifer — could disrupt
the subsurface flows and springs that maintain stream levels in the
summer and early fall. Adequate streamflows are needed for many
species, not the least of which are salmon.
With adequate monitoring, as needed for planning, experts can
track groundwater levels and streamflows to avoid such problems.
Pipelines allow aquifers to be “rested” when needed. And elected
PUD commissioners can be held accountable for their decisions
regarding the regional management of water.
Future water supplies and the right to use the water constitute
one of the most complicated issues in environmental law. A 2003
paper by the Washington Department of Ecology, called
“Mitigation Measures Used in Water Rights Permitting” outlines
some of the methods being used to protect natural systems and
competing water rights. Mitigation for use of the Seabeck aquifer,
which is an important water supply in Kitsap County, is described
briefly on pages 19 and 20.
When it comes to water rights in Washington state, it seems to
me that the Legislature is trying to sell survival suits on a
sinking ship.
Because of budget problems, the Legislature last year slashed 25
percent of the Department of Ecology’s staff in the program that
studies water resources and issues water rights. As you can see
from Ecology’s map at right (click to enlarge), more than 7,000
water rights are pending, and the backlog is growing.
The latest move is to expedite applications where groups of
people are willing to pay for studies to determine if water is
available. Reporter Chris Henry wrote about the approved
Senate Bill 6267 in yesterday’s
Kitsap Sun.
The new law allows a group of water-rights applicants to get
together and pay for the studies needed to process water rights for
a given area. Anyone not willing to contribute to the study must
wait in line for Ecology to get around to processing their water
rights. So the new law works well for water utilities, which have
enough money to pay for the studies. It may or may not work well
for farmers and others who have limited dollars, depending on their
share of the costs. Continue reading →
Last week, I wrote about a meeting between water officials on
the Kitsap Peninsula and hydrologists from the U.S. Geological
Survey. The USGS folks were floating the idea of studying the
geology and available water supplies across the entire Kitsap
Peninsula. (See story in
Thursday’s Kitsap Sun.)
Surface waters of
Kitsap.
I’ve covered water resources for years, and one of the big
questions in the context of growth and development has always been:
“Will the area have enough water to support growth.”
It’s a question I’ve asked local water managers since I arrived
here in 1977. Their answer is generally something like this: “We
should have enough water far into the future if we manage it
carefully.” My latest story, published in the
Kitsap Sun Oct. 3, described a relatively low-water year ending
in October.
Most of Kitsap County’s water comes from wells. Consequently,
managing water carefully means conserving what we’ve got, allowing
our rains to soak into the ground and, in some contexts, being able
to move water from areas of lesser supply to areas of greater
supply. The map of surface waters at right can be found on the
Kitsap County
Web site.
Water is one of the big environmental issues of our time, and it
will grow more important as long as the population continues to
grow. Most people in the water business would like to know more
about underground water supplies, so a study of the peninsula’s
water resources would be valuable. Experts also realize that
studies of this kind are only as good as the data that go in. That
involves using measurements from hundreds of wells and well logs
(soil layers) across the peninsula. You may want to check out
similar
studies conducted by USGS.
This topic also appears to be interesting to Kitsap Sun readers,
because the story I wrote last week was rated the most popular on
the Web site for two days running.
As with many environmental stories, the first comments to be
posted seemed skeptical of the whole idea that caused me to write
the story:
Crownvic (the first comment): “This is another
one of these greeny try-to-scare-the-hell-out-of-you articles.
First of all, almost all water wells pump from an aquifer 100 feet
plus deep and have absolutely no effect on surface waters due to
the impervious layers top and bottom…” Continue reading →
