Profile: John King

Got Water?

Penngrove Rancher Fights To Save A Way Of Life

 
Afraid of losing more water on his 132-acre Penngrove ranch, John King is fighting to solve an ongoing water crisis in Sonoma County. King refers to this water crisis as, "one of the county’s best kept secrets". Most residents in the area are unaware of the water shortage that is currently taking place, which is possibly affecting them as well as many others.

King, a 46 year-old Penngrove native, owns a 5-generation family ranch in Penngrove, Ca. In 1998, King was forced to replace his 77 year-old, 100-ft deep well because it went dry. Well drillers finally hit water on King’s ranch, 400-feet below the surface, 11 days later, and at a cost of $20,000. King began to question why the water table is dropping and began talking with friends and neighbors. "Every single neighbor has lost their well in the last five years", King says.

In 1999, King learned that the City of Rohnert Park was planning on annexing 1,250 acres of county lands to build 4,500 homes and 5 million square feet of commercial and industrial space. This same county land acts as a recharge area for ground water. Recharge areas allow for water to percolate through the soil and collect in the ground water basin. PES Environmental, Inc., a company that had prepared a map identifying a large sub-region of the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Basin, quantifies the recharge rate of ground water in the area. The diamond-shaped sub-region, affecting King’s ranch, begins at the southern edge of Santa Rosa and extends southward to the northern edge of the Penngrove core area, and expands in an east/west direction from the Sonoma Mountains to the Cunningham/Laguna de Santa Rosa area just north of Hessel. This sub-region extends 4.5-miles by 6.5-miles wide, and is said to have a normal water recharge rate of 1.6 million gallons a day. Yet, Rohnert Park alone is pumping out 4.2 million gallons of water a day on average.

King states, "The City of Rohnert Park is pumping more water than can recharge. The demand exceeds the supply". Rohnert Park, Cotati and Sonoma State University want to continue building over these county lands and ranches, which will only create a bigger water problem for this area. King feels, "Rohnert Park just wants to build, and they don’t care about anyone else. Our water supply is declining and it’s only going to get worse. We need to protect the recharge areas".

In the summer of 2000, King helped found The South County Resource
Preservation Committee. He passed out 2000 surveys to residents living in Penngrove, Cotati, Rohnert Park, South Santa Rosa, and the Sonoma Mountains. Of those 400 who responded, the majority were dealing with water problems or dry wells. King also went door to door, explaining the water problem to numerous unaware residents. The South County Resource Preservation Committee, consisting of neighbors and local residents, raised enough money to file a lawsuit against the City of Rohnert Park in July 2000.

After attending numerous city council meetings and presentations to various cities, John King and The South County Resource Preservation Committee won a court sanctioned settlement agreement with the City of Rohnert Park. King states, "The fight is about me and others protecting our land use". Rohnert Park agreed to cut back the water usage from 4.2 million gallons of water a day, to 2.3 million gallons a day, before additional growth can take place on yet to be annexed county lands. Even with the cut back, the amount of water consumed in Rohnert Park alone (2.3 mgd), still exceeds the amount that is recharging (1.6 mgd) in our entire sub-region of the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Basin.

Although Rohnert Park has agreed to cut back water usage, the city continues to pave over recharge sources. Residents will likely continue to see the water table in their wells slowly drop, until the wells are eventually dry, if Rohnert Park continues to build over these county lands. King feels strongly about this water issue. He expresses, "On a personal level, I have traveled a bit, but my families farming heritage keeps me tied to the ranch, agriculture must remain a priority". King and other area property owners will resort to further litigation if area cities and the county don’t immediately address this critical problem of over drafting ground water supplies. King quotes, "I don’t give a damn what happens outside my fence line, but don’t take my water!"

 

Paige Phillips and Shannon Gordon study Investigative Sociology with Peter Philips at Sonoma State University. They provide background information on John King and his discovery of Sonoma County's water problem.