RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR EARLY RELEASE OF COMPLIANCE ORDER
First of all, I would like to give you my credentials to make comments on this post. Growing up my father owned a Water Well Drilling Company in San Bernardino. When I was old enough to around a drilling rig I spent my weekend and summer vacation working around the drilling site cleaning tools, greasing bearings, tightening packing, and learning how to use oxygen/acetylene torches, and welding machines. and helping out where needed. When I got out of the service I went back to work as a driller with my rig while going to college at night. After my time drilling wells I went to work for a large municipal water company as a Water Systems Operator. After finishing college I left the water industry and became a software engineer. So I have firsthand knowledge of the operations of the maintenance water wells, pumps, and a working understanding of hydraulics.
You may ask how it is that I have possession of these documents. All documents that the State Water Resources Board has on file or issues out are public records and all you have to do is file a written request for the information to receive a copy of them. They are not private or Water Company propriety files. You may also ask why I wanted to see this. I always thought, from my experience, that there was something just not right about this whole Source Capacity issue.
I have been doing some analysis of the Source Compliance order and there is one thing that sticks out after reading the water company’s latest request to the State. If the three wells (#3A, #4A, and #8) had undergone rehab before the State issued the Complaint the water company would have been 451 GPM (649,440 Gals per Day) over what the State required. In the request letter to the State, the water company stated that the lower production of these three wells was caused by a mechanical problem, when in fact it was a maintenance issue caused by a calcium and Magnesium Carbonate build-up in the well casings (see page 5 of this document). They are also blaming the State’s 2018 mandate to reduce water consumption by 25%, which is equal to the total system capacity increase after the wells were rehabbed, so this whole Compliance issue was caused by the haphazard manner under which the Water Company is being managed. Every penny that the customers have had to pay because of this incompetence could have been avoided by following normal well maintenance.
A second thing I would like to address is Sheep Creek’s current Tier allotments. The company by-laws state that all shares are entitled to 1/8000 of the company’s water production and that can legally only be changed by changing the by-laws, which was not done.
I will grant you that the Source Capacity Request prolonged drought that California has been in has affected the total water production but the biggest issue is the lack of proper management of the wells. We all know that Sheep Creek’s water is high in Hardness and has 1000 MCL of dissolved solids, 300 MCL of Iron, 500 MCL of Chloride, 500 MCL of Sulfate, all of which cause the buildup of sediments in pipes. The bottom line is that the current Source Capacity Deficiency is entirely a man-made issue. Read the entire document and make your own determination as to why the Water Company was non-compliant in it Source Capacity.