Groundwater fears cloud Del Rio well lawsuit against Modesto

An environmental justice lawsuit tinged with elements of drought, country club vs. rural underdog and fighting City Hall is about to get its day in court.

Some people north of Modesto are challenging a government plan to drill a huge well near their rural homes, at Ladd and St. John roads, saying it could suck dry their shallower domestic wells. They’re not wild at the thought of a 20-foot, 250,000-gallon water tank invading their neighborhood, either.

The project would not help these folks one bit, and might hurt them in a big way, their lawsuit says.

Rather, the well, a pump house and imposing water tank are meant to benefit the exclusive Del Rio hamlet and its 1,270 residents a half-mile away.

“Del Rio residents will receive all of the benefits with none of the burdens, and (those suing) will shoulder all of the burdens with none of the benefits,” reads a recent court brief.

Del Rio residents, getting by on groundwater pumped from two other wells, aren’t embroiled in this fight. The lawsuit was brought against the city of Modesto, which owns and operates Del Rio’s water system and is trying to augment its supply with the project.

Attorneys for the city say the lawsuit is wasting everyone’s time because its main goal – canceling City Council approval for the well and water tank – was achieved a year and a half ago, when the council backed down.

“Whatever nasty things they want to say about the city, the city set its approval aside,” said Oakland attorney Rick Jarvis, representing Modesto. “It should be moot.”

But the project is far from dead. Modesto is preparing a more robust environmental study and will argue that fears of groundwater depletion are unfounded, court documents say.

So country folk behind the lawsuit continue to ask that a judge declare the council’s initial approval “illegal and therefore null and void,” in part because the city’s sneakiness violated rights of the rural neighbors, they say.

Anticipating that ranchette owners might be upset at the prospect of an industrial-size well and water tank in their neighborhood, the city invited them to a meeting in 2011 and showed them the plans. People shared worries about groundwater competition, among other concerns, and gave the city their names, addresses and telephone numbers with the expectation that they would be notified when the time came to formally protest.

Seven months later, the city published a hearing notice in The Modesto Bee but did nothing else to contact neighbors. With no opposition, the City Council approved the project in March 2012.

Five months later, the city informed neighbors that the project was a done deal. The neighbors formed the North Modesto Groundwater Alliance, hired Sacramento attorney Daniel W. Smith and sued, claiming that their constitutional rights to due process had been intentionally violated to prevent them from stating their case at the public hearing.

In November 2013, the council rescinded the project, which was the product of an earlier settlement with a Del Rio homeowners group seeking improved water pressure and firefighters’ ability to attack flames, if needed. Because those needs still exist, however, the city is pursuing a better environmental study, and the plan remains very much alive. Modesto also hopes to sink another well at the northwest corner of Stewart Road and McHenry Avenue, also serving Del Rio.

Both new wells would go about 600 feet down, and each could pump 1,000 gallons per minute.

Smith asked a judge to “take judicial notice” of the ongoing drought, now in its fourth year, which is forcing the city to pump more groundwater to make up for a loss of river water from its treatment plant. “That will hasten the loss of my clients’ groundwater,” he said.

The city commissioned a consultant to predict how the two new wells might affect the aquifer. It “concluded that pumping would have no significant drawdown impact on nearby wells,” a court brief says, partly because the new wells would be much deeper than neighbors’, drawing from a different source.

Also, the water table has rebounded since the city began taking surface water from the treatment plant in 1994, the city contends.

Smith questions the city’s computer modeling. It used data from the Stewart and McHenry site – not Ladd and St. John – and was conducted six months after the City Council’s initial approval of the Del Rio project, he noted.

The case is scheduled to be heard at 8:30 a.m. May 12 in Department 24 of Stanislaus Superior Court, 801 10th St., Modesto.

This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 6:54 PM with the headline "Groundwater fears cloud Del Rio well lawsuit against Modesto."