Thumbnail photo: A rain-swollen Smith River from Slant Bridge. | Photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews
Though he said drought isn’t a major concern in Del Norte County, Sr. Environmental Health Specialist Houawa Moua introduced the Board of Supervisors to a resiliency plan for preventing water shortages in vulnerable communities.
The Del Norte County Drought Resilience Plan applies to domestic wells and water systems that have between five and 14 service connections, he said Tuesday. The plan includes a risk assessment and short-term and long-term strategies for responding to a potential water shortage.
The state legislation requiring communities to adopt a resiliency plan — State Senate Bill 552, which was signed into law in 2021 — also requires counties to establish a drought and water shortage preparedness task force.
“The task force consists of the Community Development Department, Environmental Health Division, County Office of Emergency Services, a County Board of Supervisors member, the Del Norte Farm Bureau and private property owners,” Moua told supervisors Tuesday. “The responsibility of the task force is to meet annually to discuss water preparedness, review domestic well and state small water supply conditions. The task force is also responsible for reporting to the Board of Supervisors if there are any changes (to the plan).”
According to Moua, there are 1,148 domestic wells in Del Norte County and two state small water systems, one in Klamath and the other in the Crescent City area. According to the Drought Resilience Plan, there are a total of 32 public water systems in the county with Crescent City being the largest single provider.
Larger systems with 15 connections or more have their own drought resilience plan, Moua said. He noted that while drought is a concern for most of the state, in Del Norte County wildfires, floods, tsunamis, power outages and quality can impact water availability.
District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey, who noted that the county is required to implement the plan, noted that Del Norters’ water availability was severely impacted during the 2023 Smith River Complex wildfires.
As the fire raged, Pacific Power de-energized the transmission line that serves its customers between Grants Pass and Crescent City. The utility restored power after about a week in 2023 by bringing in industrial-sized generators and hooking them up to its substations.
According to the Drought Resilience Plan’s risk assessment results, Del Norte County’s coastal areas are vulnerable to water shortages due to saltwater intrusion and sea level rise, though most areas are served by public water systems.
Domestic wells in the interior portion of the county — primarily Hiouchi and Gasquet — are vulnerable because they’re located in fractured rock formations and are in areas prone to wildfires.
Domestic wells within the Smith River Plain near Smith River are vulnerable to wildfire, saltwater intrusion and water quality issues. Near Crescent City, wells and state small water systems are at risk of saltwater intrusion, competing demand and threats to water quality.
The Klamath area’s biggest risks are wildfire and saltwater intrusions, according to the Drought Resilience Plan.
In his presentation, Moua also highlighted both short-term and long-term strategies for protecting the availability of water.
“Short-term response actions are implemented to help mitigate emergencies when they occur by providing emergency and interim drinking water supplies,” he said, “establishing contract agreements with organizations to provide drinking water supplies or access to potable water.”
Long-term strategies to reduce the overall vulnerability to water supply shortages include increasing community outreach to empower individuals to protect and improve their own water supply, Moua said. This includes providing information on groundwater monitoring as well as how to rehabilitate domestic wells.
When it comes to implementing the plan, Community Development Director Heidi Kunstal said that her department was planning on using existing staff time. Her staff will also attend monthly meetings with the California Department of Water Resources to discuss funding opportunities.
“We’re going to keep our eyes and ears open, but outside of that it’s just the resources we have,” she said. “The level of effort in being able to do it is going to be proportional to our staff time. The Environmental Health Division has many programs that it’s responsible for and this is one additional.”
District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard, whose constituents include residents in Hiouchi, Gasquet and Smith River, told Kunstal that he was concerned about how the county’s plan would impact the state small water systems he said were scattered off of North Bank and South Bank roads.
Kunstal said it’s possible her staff could act as a liaison between those residents and larger water districts that may be nearby.
“We recently worked together on one off of North Bank where we were kind of on the periphery, but we had a good outcome I believe,” she said. “But that’s really hard for those smaller water districts. They don’t have very many people and htey don’t have paid staff to make connections with the (State) Water Board or DWR — those folks who may have the funding and technical assistance to help them improve.”
During public comment, county resident Linda Sutter brought up the Environmental Health Division’s July 8 notification about domestic wells on Northcrest Drive testing positive for hexavalent chromium, also known as Chromium-6.
“I wondered what long-term mitigation steps were being taken to address contaminated waters,” Sutter said.
On July 8, the Environmental Health Division announced that it was reaching out to domestic well owners regarding recent detections of Chromium-6. Chromium-6 concentrations in wells serving mobile home parks on Northcrest Drive were between 14 and 23 parts per billion.
This level exceeds the California Maximum Contamination Level for Chromium-6, according to the county’s announcement, but was below state and federal standards for total chromium. According to the State Water Resources Control Board, hexavalent chromium is carcinogenic and toxic to the liver, though there’s a nontoxic trivalent form.
The Environmental Health Division stated the Chromium-6 detection in these wells weren’t an emergency, but they urged domestic well owners to test their systems and install a point-of-use or point-of-entry device to remove the contaminant. Staff also urged residents to call (707) 465-0426 or email environmental-health@co.del-norte.ca.us if they have any concerns.
