Scorecard Project Team Meeting
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Sonoma Ecology Center in Eldridge
Directions: http://sonomacreek.net/directions/

Chris Ferrar, Bob Zlomke, Alex Young, Lisa Micheli, Deanne DiPietro, Caitlin Cornwall, Peter Vorster, Kat Ridolfi

We worked away on the following indicators.... see below the discussion for each for associated action items.

Storage: Groundwater Storage:

Sonoma-

Weighted average of depth to GW goes down significantly over 1980-2007. 10 wells, cut to the same time periods to compare- 1980->. The long-term network is a limited set of valley floor wells.

Napa-

24 wells for Napa. Best to look at the three aquifers separately and talk about them individually in the report.

New thoughts:

May want to comment about the need for better monitoring in the future in the Scorecard report. Probably want to plot spring and fall levels separately b/c it shows recharge, and if you have enough in the spring. Look at negative delta of the rebound. What are we going to call "full"?- use the 50% level as the baseline to compare to. Need to fold in the difference in the natural recharge from year to year due to differences in ppt. Scorecard should reflect the "bank account" and our management of it. May be fine to have two pieces, to tell the whole story, but stress the management one with a look to the natural conditions for our responsiveness.

Chris has a decision-tree for us to use. What is the time period we want to use to decide how we're doing? Take some year or span of years as baseline (1970's). Look at the patterns of land use, or population- consider big bursts in vineyard development, urban development. 15 years long enough to include a couple of cycles of wet and dry.

Peter: Talked to Tim Parker about recompletions and number of new wells drilled over time as an indicator. Still need to get hold of the data... from DWR. Again, will end up making recommendations about data and monitoring. Depth? There is a lag- when there is a series of drought years people start drilling more wells. Consider whether ag or domestic. Data is very difficult to work with- scanned images of permits. 1800 wells in Sonoma Valley, can't tell a lot about them quickly. Make recommendations for digital data, better data management and access. Number of wells per capita would be simplest thing to get.

Actions: Finish analysis, decide baseline, begin scoring

• Chris sending us his protocol
• Alex, Bob, and Lisa- Look at how to figure baseline, or whether to at all. Consider plotting 50-th percentile levels for baseline and use weighted for dry or wet year- or is that too much analysis?
  
• Look at whether we're bracketing large changes in land use (or just vineyard acreage), population, and precip.
• Use a consistent time period with every well
• Peter will get well permit data and parse by year- what is the scoring based on or is it even a metric or just part of what we consider?
• Think about scoring to tell the story of recharge and draw-down and management for the future
• Alex get population data for use by Peter for wells per capita (and some of the other indicators)
• GW Team will meet over conference call...

Runoff

Trends not statistically significant - the RO coeff from these gauges isn't sensitive enough to reflect management. High rainfall years have no signal. Pick base years and look at runoff for comparison- difficult to avoid bias. Look at moderate water years b/c less effect from land use and permeability. Problem of not enough data points historically.  Recharge will only function in moderate years.

What was found- Alex did what Bob did for Napa, which had a longer record. Saw the same kind of trends, analyzed with Jump software. Somewhat baffling- baseflow actually increases, possibly due to irrigation? Confounding our use of the conceptual model. Maybe not a management indicator, but just a measure of wet or dry year (condition).

Does a wet year early in the time period have a different effect than having a wet year later in the time period. Need to assign all the years to bins and cut the time periods up equally.

Sonoma Valley GW Mgt Plan Appen. C section 3.1.2- definition of a average year, wet year, dry year. Put in this context and review for possibility of a management index in subcommittee.

Actions:

• Consider accumulated departure analysis for showing wet or dry period/condition.
  
• Put the whole scorecard in the context of condition (precip).

Recommendations- monitor extent of dry streambeds, HEC RAS


Impervious cover- (it's back)

For whole watershed, keep it simple using coefficients for land use categories, make a recommendation for ongoing land use mapping. Will have a recharge map in a year from our work for SCWA's GW Mgt Plan. Would like to find models for analysis. % impervious cover in the recharge areas would be a great index. Express as per capita.

Sustainability goals from eastern watersheds, WA and OR- 10% is impaired, etc.
Side question: What is the watershed carrying capacity?

Actions:

• Calculate % impervious surface from land use data that we have. Alex, Sonoma- who is doing Napa?
  

Recycling-

As grey water use increases there might be data we can track from the water board
Will need to discuss in scorecard how runoff is related to impervious surfaces, and to drainage density. Distribution?

Imports-

Bob, Alex, and Peter conference-calling on June 19 to make decisions on this indicator.