Supervisors approve of efforts to create water district for Paso Robles basin

(SLO) - San Luis Obispo County supervisors Tuesday directed the Public Works Department to continue its efforts to establish a water district to manage the Paso Robles groundwater basin.

Supervisor Bruce Gibson, who chairs the board, said the county was on the right track in its efforts to stabilize the basin, which has seen declining water levels in recent years. The county plans to pursue special state legislation that will give it additional authority to manage the basin and work to secure additional water supplies.

“We will see increases and decreases in storage over the years, no matter what, but capacity is declining,” said Paavo Ogren, public works director.

Specifically, a newly updated water balance estimate shows that the basin has an annual yield of 89,200 acre-feet. That is the amount of water that can be pumped from the basin without depleting it.

However, the water balance study calculates that the basin lost an average of 2,900 acre-feet a year from 1980 through 2011 through a combination of drought and over-pumping. This has resulted in water levels dropping in some areas of the basin with some wells going dry, particularly in the area east of Paso Robles.

Claremont-based Geoscience Inc. did the updated study for the county.