Water Bureaucracy
Way back in July I wrote a diary about a meeting presented by the State Water Resources Control Board. The gist of it was to inform citizens that information on water use and sources would be required from thousands of Sonoma County residents. Many of us were suspicious that privacy would be abridged and the information could be mis-used. It was also mentioned that failure to submit the information would result in a $500 per day fine.
The letters were sent out last week and the content of the Informational Order Response Form exceeded our worst nightmares.
This is freaking unbelievable!
I will link here to the
website which is only a portal to a vast number of other forms and regulations, with detailed instructions regarding time limits and inscrutable details. As I perused the site it became clear that this was prepared long ago, just as the "Patriot Act" was written long before it spontaneously appeared.
Some of the information is simply wrong. They present a list of water rights lawyers to contact for assistance. I called several of them and no one had a clue what I was talking about. One of them was a title company. I finally found an actual water rights lawyer, but he was no longer with the firm and had moved to Pasadena.
Some parts of the site are pretty cool, actually. A super detailed Google map allowed one to see one's property from a few hundred feet of altitude and it was very up-to-date. The idea here is to move your cursor above your well and then copy and paste the displayed latitude and longitude into the form. Then you must determine when it was drilled and by whom and the flow statistics.
A somewhat humorous detail from paragraph X, sub-paragraph Z, bullet point elebendy seven noted that to claim a certain water right which must be delineated in the form, one must file a form (incredibly detailed and intrusive) with the state, and this process takes an average of 10 years to resolve. I should live that long.
These forms may only be filled out on line. My thinking is….what about those residents who are older and not only don't have a computer but have never used one. Imagine sitting in the library trying to learn all of this while completing the form. "What does "click on" and "scroll down" mean?" Of course, the prospect of the $500/day fine for noncompliance would tend to flatten the learning curve. My 86 year old neighbor called me in somewhat of a panic and I promised to assist him once I figure things out myself.
Over 10,000 of these letters were sent out and the resultant data dump will take thousands of man (and woman) hours to read and analyze and judging from the afore-mentioned errors, what might we expect from this analysis? Misuse is a fear, of course.
"Oh, your water right which you've used for decades is void. So sorry, your homestead has no water and is now worthless. Better hire a water rights lawyer. Here's a list right here."
On a lighter note, Mrs. side pocket hung her gloves out to dry. I thought it looked funny.
"Howdy. Now get to work."
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