Bill Hocker | Aug 3, 2016

My concentration on this website has been on the impacts that continued urban development is having to all of us living in Napa County. I haven't spent a lot of time in public comments on the specific impacts that the Mountain Peak project next door, the fountainhead of all my angst over the future of the county, will have on our lives. But I will do so here because it is a modest example of the larger issue of water depletion in the watersheds that we first heard about on Woolls Ranch, and in many of the watershed projects coming before the county in the last 2 and a half years.

Upon our return from a 3 week hiatus on July 15, 2016 we discovered two new occurrences on our Napa property. 1. Another oak had fallen dead, the second this year in addition to one major limb lost. This brought to 6 the number of oaks within a 200' radius of our pond that have died in the last 10 years, with the one large valley oak adjacent the pond on its last legs (roots?). 2. The spring-fed pond had dried up completely for the first time in our 22 years here.

To be sure, for the last 10 years the surface of the pond at the end September has been getting lower and lower. But this year by mid-July it had dried up completely - hard dry. I have probably been less concerned than I should have in the diminishing water level over the 10 years. It has been a period of drought. I should have been especially concerned over the last 2 years knowing that a large winery was being planned next door. It was not until I was staring at the completely dry hole that I thought, this could be serious.

Our property is surrounded on 3 sides by a gorge. The fourth is our property line with the Mountain Peak project. Any water that makes its way to our spring and to the 100' deep well just adjacent to it has to pass under the Mountain Peak site. They are planning to add a second well on the property. How much more will they be pumping to accomodate a 100,000 gal winery, 80-100 visitors and 19-27 employees per day? The water availability analysis for the project indicates they will be using less than is currently used. No amount of number crunching will convince me of that.

The current irrigation on the Mountain Peak site is probably not a whole lot more than it was 20 years ago (although a portion of the site was replanted in narrow rows thus increasing water use). There are some low areas of the site that may have had drainage lines put in which may have diverted the water table that feeds the spring. Just as important, many more vines have been planted uphill from us in the last 20 years in addition to Mountain Peak. And, although last winter's rains should have done something to improve near surface springs, the drought is still with us. Whatever the cause, extracting more water from the area has to be considered a reasonably foreseeable contribution to an already ominous situation for our continued water availability.

Our pond and the dying trees may not rise to the level of a canary in the coal mine when it comes to changes in water availability in the eastern watershed. But it is a real example of a water source drying up. As such, in an era of global warming and continued exploitation of groundwater for ever more agricultural and urban development, it is an occurrence worth noting.

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