Friends of Gualala River Protecting the Gualala River watershed and the species living within it
| This article was published in the Independent Coast Observer on May 31, 2002. |
Courtesy Independent Coast Observer, Gualala, CA
Water mogul Ric Davidge answered some of the 101 questions sent to him following The Sea Ranch Forum in March, but he referred others to his engineering staff. He has written to the State Water Resources Control Board that he is changing his water bag export project in response to local concerns.
One change he told local people he would make is to move the location of the water bag to the south and farther from shore than shown on the map accompanying his 2000 and 2001 applications, which showed the bag well inside Robinson Reef.
His undated letter to SWRCB does not mention this change and we have seen no map of a new location. SWRCB has not yet answered this letter, Engineer Kathryn Gaffney said Wednesday.
In sending Davidge the questions, most of which were submitted before or during the forum on three- by-five index cards by members of the community, The Sea Ranch Forum asked him to “respond in the context of the new designs.”
Davidge discusses his company, WorldWater SA, an “international consortium of companies” including the Abdul Latif Jameel Group based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Nippon Yesen Kaisha, said to be the largest shipping line in the world.
“I suggest you read the book, ‘It’s not the BIG that eat the SMALL … it’s the FAST that eat the SLOW’ by Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton. This is the model our group wishes to achieve,” writes Davidge.
Although his applications specify annual export of 20,000 acre feet from the Gualala River and 10,000 af from the Albion, Davidge writes, “We will not be hauling 30,000 acre feet from these two rivers to San Diego.”
He goes on to say several times that he plans back-up water sources. “In addition to the Gualala and Albion rivers we are negotiation [sic] with a number of coastal water utilities interested in selling excess water during their winter season. We also continue to study and develop other sources along the Pacific coast in California.”
Some of those sources may be in Marin County. In his letter to SWRCB, Davidge wrote, “Thanks for the contact with Marin County regarding their watershed management plan. We have recently received this material and are reviewing it.”
He also wrote to SWRCB that his group does not intend to modify the amount or season of harvest in the current application. That season is listed as year-round, with more taken in the winter months, and 170 cubic feet per second, about what a household in Gualala uses in a month.
He asks the SWRCB for more time, and for the privilege of changing his project without having to submit a new application.
He also wrote to SWRCB that San Diego will not provide the type of map of service area the Water Board asks for, “due to security concerns.”
In his response to The Sea Ranch Forum, Davidge writes, “We are extraordinarily benign compared to the ecological costs of desal[ination], upstream diversions, or dams.” It is doubtful whether any dams would be approved on the Gualala River because of its geomorphology and its location on the San Andreas Fault trace.
Davidge writes several times in his answers to the forum questions that he is working with a local fishery restoration group, but he does not specify which one. He also states that the river mouth sandbar is seasonal, which it is not. It is seasonally open to the sea. His project will require tunneling through or around the sand bar, which is a public beach.
Many of the technical questions he declines to answer on proprietary or security grounds.
For the full list of questions and answers, go the new Friends of the Gualala web site, www.gualalariver.org
