God bless SLO County Supervisors John Peschong, Debbie Arnold, and Lynn Compton for doing the right thing at the March 6 Board of Supervisors meeting in regard to the Estrella-El Pomar-Creston (EPC) Water District request to transfer Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) status to their newly formed water district. That request included transferring 29 percent of the voting power from the county to the EPC’s special interest group. It meant the district would have been speaking for thousands of landowners in the western third of the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin even though there are only 170 members in the water district who own 6 percent of the land area to be represented.
Our supervisors made it clear that was neither fair nor equitable to all the other property owners in the area. Had they asked for a more reasonable portion of the pie, I’m sure the vote would have been different, but they lost their opportunity to have a seat at the table because of their own greed!
Allen Duckworth
Paso Robles
This article appears in Mar 15-25, 2018.
Sorry, But based on their past performance we have no reason to trust the motives of Compton, Arnold or Peschong, each of whom have a long and sordid history of doing the dirty work for greedy, unethical lobbyists who infiltrated and infected our community during the past decade and continue to degrade and debase our democratic system.
At some point good people need to stand up and say NO MORE. We need fresh new leadership ASAP.
The new State Law called SGMA requires that each groundwater basin must have a governing structure for basin management. Each basin must prepare a GSP, Groundwater Sustainability Plan, and submit the plan to the State for approval. The GSP is the framework for sustainably managing the basin for the next 20 to 40 years. Within our basin five GSAs, Groundwater Sustainability Agencies, have been formed. The EPC WD applied to become a sixth GSA.
The primary task the GSAs are responsible for is to craft and submit the GSP to the State. Being a GSA and helping to create the GSP was listed as the primary purpose of the EPC WD when it was formed.
When the MOA, Memorandum of Agreement, was created for the Paso Robles Basin, eligible agencies had to figure out who was going to pay for creating the GSP. Initial estimates of the cost of creating the GSP were $500,000 to well over a $1,000,000. Who pays what? Tough question! A logical solution was that the folks that use to most water should pay the most. VERY FAIR, and that is why the percentages were created. That doesnt look like greed to me.
Mr. Duckworths assertion breaks down even further when you consider that the primary purpose of this entire endeavor is to create the GSP. To get agreement on the GSP, it requires a unanimous vote with each agency getting 1 vote. So, Heritage Ranch, a tiny user of water – gets 1 vote. EPC WD, a large user of water gets 1 vote. That doesnt look like greed to me.
One step further, if you look at the relative voting power of Heritage Ranch versus the EPC WD, Heritage Ranch has roughly 30 times more voting power than EPC WD.
And that doesnt look like greed to me.
Jerry Reaugh, EPC WD Secretary/Treasurer