Members of the Great Basin Air Pollution Control District Board were surprised when three Mammoth Community Water District Board members showed up at a recent APCD meeting in Alpine County and said they were holding a special meeting of their own right then and there. The Water Board members made their unhappiness clear during public comment.
The unhappiness continues to point to the fact that APCD Director Ted Schade certified Ormat geothermal’s environmental document to drill new wells in Mammoth as part of an expansion project. Schade has said that there has been no evidence of connection between deep and shallow groundwater aquifers that would lead to impacts on Mammoth’s water supply. He said he was obligated to move forward on the environmental document.
Schade has also made it clear that he will issue no new well permits to Ormat unless there is a groundwater monitoring plan in place. Mammoth officials feel this does not protect the community. Water District General Manager Pat Hayes said the District had additional information for the environmental process that was not included. Hayes said the statements in the document about impacts say that Ormat’s project is “not likely to impact Mammoth’s groundwater.” Hayes said that’s not good enough.
Water Board member Tom Cage said he and the other two board members who attended the APCD meeting, Gordon Alper and Dennis Domaiile, communicated that “what Mr. Schade had certified for the Ormat project was inadequate, lacked our comments and should have had an independent scientific report to check validity and confirm what both sides were stating.” Cage said Schade took Ormat’s word as gospel and discounted the Water District comments. A lawsuit followed.
At the Alpine County meeting, Water District officials asked the APCD board to rescind approval of Ormat’s EIR. Following the unusual appearance of Mammoth’s officials, the APCD board did ask Mr. Schade to send a letter to Ormat. That letter addresses the question of whether Ormat can proceed with its project before submitting a groundwater monitoring plan for approval by the BLM. It can not.
The letter says a BLM-approved monitoring plan must be submitted by Ormat with any new well permit applications. Manager Pat Hayes still believes that all the risk of this operation rests on Mammoth Lakes.
There is a lot of talk about a monitoring plan but what good is a monitoring plan without a mitigation plan? In the event of adverse effects being detected to the ground water would shutting down the new expanded plant be part of the plan? Would Ormat ever agree to… Read more »
Any monitoring plan can only detect a problem after the damage is done. Then what? How do you mitigate the pollution of an aquifer? I’m all for geothermal energy. But not if there are consequences that may damage the essential water supply. The town doesn’t get a deal on the… Read more »
Thought I dislike playing dirty like the plague. Sometimes you need to fight dirty with dirty. You folks seem to forget that the GBAQMD promised to not approve the project without a mitigation plan. However the Director did so anyway. As per another post by BK there was a months… Read more »
We did not say that Ormat would start with drilling before the plant. I believe permission for the construction of the plant has been granted. Well permits have not. BK
The Special meeting was posted on the MCWD website prior to the GBAPCD meeting. So not a violation. Good work Patrick.
There was no outreach to the Great Basin Board. The courteous thing would have been for the MCWD Chairman to contact the Great Basin Chairman and notify him of MCWD’s intention of the “joint” meeting. It may have been legal, but it was not the right thing to do.
Desert Tortoise, while what you say about the Brown Act is true, I believe you missed the fact that the special meeting of the Water District was posted as required. The District posts meeting notices on their website along with other methods. The use of “surprise” is misleading. The special… Read more »
The members of the water district are apparently not well versed in the Brown Act. A Special Meeting only means the meeting is held on a day other than a regularly scheduled meeting. There is still a legal requirement for an agenda to be made available to the public a… Read more »
There was an agenda. They followed the rules. BK