Letter: Water shortage the real problem

The Hillcrest water issue appears to be drawing to a close with an affordable water (rate) increase over time to pay for the construction necessary. None will be entirely happy about how it began or ends. The city council is trying to resolve the issue with the least public resistance. But are they overlooking a far greater threat to sourcing water?

I have mentioned at a meeting before the threat of serious surface water shortage with global warming. I do not believe it registered at all. The current wells are contaminated  with impurities and compounds that the aquifers accumulate over time from the exchange of rising and falling surface water. This is the city's real impurity issue. Surface water has changing contamination levels with the seasonal runoffs upstream. It’s a day-to-day change. Surface water is better if available. But what happens if the river level sources continue to diminish? Back to the wells again; as a temporary water rationed solution? There are not nearly enough wells to supply this city if surface water becomes difficult to obtain in the warming future.

The city should and must address the problem of how to renew the present wells by either recasing at perforated levels and drilling deeper, or drilling deeper to new aquifers that will then blend with the perforations of higher-level aquifers at the present time. Later, when the river levels drop, these deeper aquifers can supply some, but not all, the water that will be needed. We need more deep wells to have a backup that is adequate and can be relied on. We do not have any backup regardless of what the city has been calling those few wells.

L. Stange
Yuba City