Doni’s note: Please join me in welcoming columnist Liz Merry to A News Cafe. Her specialty is Tehama County news. You can also find her work published in the Red Bluff Daily News.
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Hello A News Cafe readers. Liz Merry here, newest scribe on the site. I live on the Tehama side of the foothill community of Manton. Like Cottonwood, it’s a joint town – in more ways than one. Half Shasta, half Tehama.
I’m in Shasta County often. You guys have the Costco, WinCo, and TJ’s, so I get some Shasta on me almost weekly. I have been following the dramatic saga of your Turtle Bay Eagles since Patriot was still in the picture and CalTrans tried to discourage Liberty and Pat from nesting by placing a large plastic cone over their nest. That didn’t work, and apparently the construction didn’t bother them in the least. Show-offs.
Liberty and her third mate, Guardian, have three eggs for 2022. You can watch the little family day and night here https://youtu.be/HNwk8fL51qM. Tune in for sushi and rabbit tartar. There was some early season drama with pesky magpies, but Liberty and Guardian will not tolerate any shenanigans from corvids while there are eggs in the nest.
Not sure it made the news in Shasta, but did you hear about all the dry wells in Tehama County last year? The southwest portion of the county was hit hard and the Antelope neighborhood saw their fair share, too. There was a parade of people with no water every week at the board of supervisors meetings. We’ll be seeing them early this year if we aren’t blessed with a lot more rain.
There was much talk about ag wells draining the aquifers to grow those delicious nuts we all love so much. The Groundwater Sustainability Ad Hoc studied data for 5 years to create a plan for the state and prove or disprove that theory. Red Bluff City Councilman Clay Parker, Chairman of the Ad Hoc, made a presentation before the supes on July 13, 2021, to give an update on the plan, which was still not finished. He claimed they had found no evidence that ag wells were causing the dry domestic wells. District 4 Supervisor candidate Matt Hansen followed Parker to the podium and shared data showing there was indeed a connection in at least some areas.
The number of dry wells continued to grow. At a Rancho Tehama Town Hall meeting in late summer, residents asked Bob Williams – the current District 4 supervisor – to ask the board of supes to consider a temporary moratorium on ag wells. He requested an agenda item and it was discussed at the board’s Oct. 5, 2021 meeting.
Clay Parker attended that one, too, and asked the board to hold off adopting their moratorium because the ad hoc was going to write and submit an ordinance based on their findings. Parker said they would bring it to the board for approval within “30 – 45 days”. Bob Williams made a motion to table the county’s ordinance indefinitely. It passed 4-1, with Supervisor Candy Carlson the lone Nay. The ad hoc still has not presented that ordinance. The 45 days were up Nov. 19.
So what happened? The squeaky wheels got quiet. Irrigation stopped after the nut harvest and the wells slowly recharged. The Christmas season began. It rained. People forgot. It happens. I guess the ad hoc just crossed their fingers and prayed for a wet winter.
I bet the dry well folks would be shocked to learn that Supervisor Williams’ mother’s trust sold almost 1700 acres of grassland in Henleyville (southeast of Rancho Tehama and northeast of Flournoy) less than a year before he motioned and voted to delay a moratorium on new ag wells. An orchard company bought the land for a cool $5 million in December 2020. One month prior to the sale, 8-18 ag well permits were pulled on the property. To my knowledge, those wells have not yet been drilled. In other words, Bob Williams motioned for and took part in a vote that potentially affected real property involved in a substantial financial transaction that benefited his family and did not disclose that fact nor recuse himself. Conflict much?
The ordinance the county was considering then was a farce anyway. Already permitted ag wells would still be allowed to drill. How would that help the over 100 families with no water? And who the heck wrote that ordinance? Don’t tell me – former county Counsel Stout and former CAO Goodwin perhaps – who both left last year? Maybe a little help from a board member or two?
If we don’t get a lot more rain this winter and spring, we are going to need a temporary moratorium on drilling wells, not permits to drill wells. And serious conversations need to be had about our future.
So where do we stand today? On shaky ground, water-wise. Apparently the well drillers are super busy and backlogged, what with moratoriums being adopted all over the place. Better drill now before they won’t let us.
Liz Merry was born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx, then transplanted to the Jersey Shore. She moved to Chico in 1984 and married her comedy partner, Aaron Standish, in 1990. They have lived in Manton since 1994.
