In 1975, I moved to Marin County for a rather weird reason. I had heard that water was scarce in Marin County and that there wasn't much construction going on. Strange thing for a guy who worked in construction. What was the basis of my reasoning?

I was sick and tired of driving in commute traffic that was caused by all those tracts of houses being built, along with all of the shopping centers and the other products of "growth." Marin County was beautiful and seemed more calm than the east bay. We could get to the Richmond/San Rafael bridge in twenty minutes! How long does it take today?

And why does it take so long to go that relatively short distance? Traffic! Traffic caused by more construction. Construction in Marin County, lots of construction. Well, what about the water shortage problem? Did they solve it? No . . . I don't understand. If there is a shortage of water why were all those houses built in the area east of Novato along Atherton Way? Or how about all those houses and condos and apartments you see from Highway 101 as you travel southward towards the Golden Gate Bridge? Where are they getting the water?

I remember well the drought. The little thing about not flushing when it is yellow, the brown lawns and the other things we had to put up with because there wasn't enough water for everyone. Everyone then! How about now? How many more people live in Marin County today? Where are they getting their water? There is no pipeline across the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge. There aren't any more dams to hold rainwater. Where do they get their water?

Oh, wait a minute! I remember when I lived in Novato and during the drought a lot of people didn't seem to be affected. Why? "Well, we get our water from the Russian River. There is a pipeline that comes down from Sonoma County. We don't have to worry . . ."

The North Marin Water District depends on water taken from the Russian River. Depends on it!

Do you remember the drought? I still do. But I don't live in Marin County anymore.

I moved to Sonoma County. Been here for about twenty years. I live in Rohnert Park. Rohnert Park gets most of its water from wells. There were about 42 wells but they have since cut back to only using about 30 wells. They're getting the rest of the water they need from the Sonoma County Water Agency and its "source..." the Russian River.

The old, now retired, city engineer used to say at city council meetings, "we are currently running on about 80 percent well water and 20 percent water from the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA -pronounced squaw). In the near future we are going to change that ratio and start using 80 percent SCWA water and cut back on the well water. Time passed and the city engineer retired. I started thinking about the Russian River water and the use of well water.

When I first moved to Rohnert Park in 1985, I would hear frequent complaints from people who lived in the northwest quadrant of the city complaining about "brown" water and "foul smelling water" or "milky colored water." They were told, "it was just the characteristics of well water."

One Saturday morning I went to draw a bucket of warm water out of the downstairs bathroom and I got a bucket of dark brown water. Since I had never lived where we had to use well water I didn't understand what was going on. I thought that perhaps some dirt had gotten into the water pipe before it was hooked up to the house and that it had settled in the water heater and some how had gotten stirred up. The water heater was in the garage which was on the other side of the downstairs bathroom wall.

I got a hose and hooked it up to the drain on the water heater and ran it out to the front lawn. I was going to flush out the water heater. I shut off the heater. Turned off the incoming water line and proceeded to drain it. I noticed little flecks of white stuff coming out of the hose so I ran the draining water into a bucket. By the time I had drained the water heater, the buck was half filled with sand! Hmmm! Something is wrong!

On Monday, I took a little sample jar of the sand down to the Rohnert Park Public Works department and asked for an explanation. "We don't filter the water!"

"What? You don't filter the water!"

"That's right! If you want it filtered, you have to install your own filter system!"

"That sand surely isn't any good for the dishwasher and the, clothes washer! I don't want sand in my water lines and I am sure no one else does either."

"If you want your water filtered, you have to install it yourself."

I went to a hardware store and bought some two water filter cases, some fittings and a couple of filters. One was a carbon filter to remove foul tastes and odors and the other was a 5 micron filter to get the sand.

The first couple of months went by and I noticed that the water flow was getting sluggish coming out of the faucets. Must be time to change the filters! Wow! What a mess! The filters were saturated with this dark brown mud. I learned that it was iron oxide and manganese, a common element in local well water. In July, the water flow slowed down quicker between filter changes. I found that I had to change the filters almost weekly. August was the same. The dark brown mud in the filters also included some little clear, jelly-like critters that look like large amoebas! Yuck! Large, meaning they were about an eighth of an inch long.

I went to the city council and showed them a jar of water and a used filter in a plastic bag. At that time in my new life living in Rohnert Park, I was only beginning to understand how corrupt the city council was. "If you don't like it, why don't you move?" was the stock reply to anyone who came to the city council with a complaint.

Winter came and I didn't have to change the filters for three or months at a time. And so it has been the cycle ever since. I looked into water issues and made a couple of visits to SCWA, where I learned that Rohnert Park is a greedy user of water.

It seems that Rohnert Park had signed an agreement with SCWA and had limited their use of SCWA water because they had their wells. But as time passed, the Rohnert Park municipal wells apparently didn't produce enough water. So the City of Rohnert Park made a deal with the City of Petaluma to obtain some of Petaluma's "surplus" water. A surplus of about 14 percent. The deal was that for the time being, Petaluma didn't need the water and was holding the surplus for future development. So why not let Rohnert Park have the water. It wasn't quite that simple though. The water had to pass on to the North Marin Water District in Novato and then it could be used by Rohnert Park. A deal was made. How would Rohnert Park ever pay back that loan of water? Flash forward to the present time and . . . it won't be paid back. Just another adjustment in the "books."

That little amount of the 14 percent surplus of water was actually a 400 percent increase in Rohnert Park's SCWA allotment for water.

How much water is Rohnert Park using? According to the figures in the latest edition of Rohnert Park's General Plan, Rohnert Park draws more than four million gallons of water a day out of the aquifer. That vast underground lake of water. Now remember, this is just out of the aquifer, that underground body of water that is not only lies under the city of Rohnert Park but also extends way beyond its borders in all directions.

Four million gallons a day! That could fill a lot of swimming pools!

Out of that same underground body of water, Sonoma State University is also drawing water, along with the little town of Cotati, Canon Manor, that unincorporated area just south of Sonoma State University made up of half-acre lots, and a bunch of private residents who are outside the city limits of Rohnert Park and some larger parcels and ranches that run all the way up the west side of Sonoma Mountain. The Sonoma County Water Agency also runs a so-called "Emergency Well" out of that same underground lake. There is more water being taken out of the aquifer than is going into it. This is called "Ground water overdrafting."

Rohnert Park, all by itself with its more than four million gallons of water is taking out more than triple the amount of water that is recharging that great underground lake!

Now wait a minute! If they are taking more water out than is going in, won't that cause trouble?

Certainly! Hundreds of those little private wells outside the city limits of Rohnert Park have gone dry and have had to be redrilled deeper, or to have the pumps lowered down deeper in the existing well. Well gee! Isn't that expensive? Yes, it costs about $20,000 per well, and there is no guarantee how long the water will last. As a matter of fact, some people have had to redrill again. Seems like people would be getting mad. Oh they are. In fact, they filed a lawsuit against the City of Rohnert Park and there was a last-minute settlement right in the ante-room of the court house.

But in the mean time, the new pro-growth-at- any-cost city council is going ahead with plans to develop 4,500 hundred new homes on the east side, along with millions of square feet of commercial space. Construction in Rohnert Park is going at a pace like back in the early days of the "old boy" network.

And so, we come back to what is going on in Sonoma County, right now... today! In terms of water. A group of folks called the "Friends of the Eel River" have won a court decision in the Appellate Court that is going to allow them, the "Friends" to cut back on the amount of water that is currently being siphoned out of the Eel River up in Mendocino County to supplement the flow of the Russian River. The discussion is about taking between 15 and 80 percent of the water back. To allow it to stay in the Eel River for the sake of the salmon and fishing industry.

This adds to the bleak picture in Sonoma County about water. Sonoma County does not have a groundwater protection plan. Sonoma County doesn't have any idea of how much water is left in the aquifer(s) of Sonoma County. SWCA is making plans for the future but they are unrealistic. Although the word "moratorium" has been mentioned, the sub-contractors of the SWCA are not even close to being serious about the real state of the water situation.

If water is going to be cut back in the flow of the Eel River to the Russian River and wells are going dry from the underlying aquifer, where are they going to get water? Think about this for a moment.

Be logical! Sonoma County sends water south of its border down to Marin County. At first it was just to the North Bay Water District but, after the drought, that water service was extended further south. Now if Sonoma County is running out of water, which will most likely happen within the next five years! Five years! Yes, consider the 10,000 pending building permits in just Santa Rosa alone, let alone the so-called "growth" plans for each of the other cities of Sonoma County, where is the water going to come from? Petaluma is talking about doubling their population! Rohnert Park is doing the same, they are not just talking. Construction is in progress right now.

I predict that within five years, as things are going now, the pipeline so Marin County is going to be shut off! There won't be any more water from Sonoma County and the Russian/Eel River source. Are you ready for that Marin County!

How long is it going to take to build a desalinization plant?

You better do more than just think about it.

In the long term, Marin County is going to run out of water!