Semitropic
This morning’s Mercury features an article by Paul Rogers about the Semitropic Water Bank down near Bakersfield, where the SCVWD has been storing water for the past decade. It’s not a true bank, in that we don’t get back the same water that we “deposit.” In years like this one when the District makes a “withdrawal,” it diverts water from the Delta that would have otherwise gone down to Semitropic. It’s actually a big weakness, since any disruption in Delta pumping would immediately increase our need for the water, while making it impossible to reach.
When I was reading about Semitropic this spring, I got the impression that its storage capacity was a result of way too much pumping in the past. But Paul doesn’t mention that angle.
Actually, it strikes me that it is very much like a bank (albeit one without Federal insurance?). You and others give resources to the bank. Pooled, the bank hands out those resources to others. When you want some of your share of the resources back, you’re limited in the rate at which you can remove resources or (like certificates of deposit) when you can remove resources.
The way in which this seems unlike a money bank is that there’s no fear of the “investments” going bad — that aquifer sounds fairly robust — it’s the deposit stream that’s at risk. And, like you say “since any disruption in Delta pumping would immediately increase our need for the water,” the fact that we make our withdrawals from the semitropic deposit stream is a bit concerning.
Reader for some months now thanks to a recommendation from Fae.
You make a good point, but the actual users of the water that we deposit are the 600 or so farmers who make up the Semitropic Water District.