Unhealthy behind-the-scenes infighting has become the norm today as many of the same interests squabble over something that the American River accord, known as the Water Forum, failed to provide: a lasting solution for a river to the south, the Cosumnes, and the south county groundwater basin that sustains communities such as Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova.
This groundwater basin is challenged on all fronts. A widening toxic plume from Aerojet has shut down wells beneath Rancho Cordova. The Cosumnes sometimes runs dry because flows now feed the emptying aquifers below.
Sacramento County is scrambling to serve the huge new Sunridge development by importing groundwater from miles away. Rancho Cordova's water company, meanwhile, wonders whether anyone will figure a way to replace its lost groundwater supplies.
These problems, which present a technical and political challenge perhaps greater than what faced the participants in the Water Forum deal, need a coordinated solution.
The county wants to import water from the Sacramento River if and when a new pipeline from Freeport is built (the project is being fiercely fought by Southern California and San Joaquin farming interests). But this is a partial solution at best. And it hangs on the questionable assumption that the county can pump millions more gallons every year from the south county groundwater basin beyond what its own general plan says is sustainable.
What made the Water Forum effort so successful was how the environmentalists, real estate brokers, builders and water districts bought into the others' problems and solved them all together. There is always going to be disagreement about the wisdom of this or that project, and battles and lawsuits won and lost.
But there is also a way to separate these growth politics from
consensus-based water planning. That's the Water Forum way. It illustrated
the art of the possible. The Cosumnes and south county are in need of the
same treatment.