As a member of the San Pedro Ponds Trail Volunteers, I’ve
learned firsthand the value of water to the South Valley region.
Water is life.
As a member of the San Pedro Ponds Trail Volunteers, I’ve learned firsthand the value of water to the South Valley region. Water is life.
The San Pedro Ponds are located in Morgan Hill at the corner of Hill and San Pedro avenues and are overseen by the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD). For the last several years, my volunteer group has worked with the SCVWD to enhance the ponds for public recreation by planting trees and other vegetation along the walking trail.
Back in March, our group achieved “phase one” of our master plan with a community planting of oak trees in one section. SCVWD Director Rosemary Kamei was incredibly helpful in guiding our group to achieve this accomplishment.
Candidate Kamei is now running for re-election as director of District 1 on the SCVWD board. On June 6, she’s got my vote. One reason, of course, is because she helped our volunteer group so much.
There’s a second reason I’ll explain later in this column. But first, I’d like to tell you a bit about the history of the SCVWD.
During the Gold Rush, thousands of pioneers came to California. Leaving the gold fields, many found their way to the South Valley and discovered it was a prime agricultural paradise. They planted thousands of acres of orchards, which produced fruit shipped on the transcontinental railroad to the East Coast and European markets.
All those fruit trees required lots and lots of water, of course. So at first, the farmers dug artesian wells that brought water up from the underground aquifer.
But by the 1890s, as higher-strata water started to be used up, these original wells began to lose their pressure. So the farmers dug deeper wells and used pumping stations to draw up the water.
By the 1920s, people in the Santa Clara Valley began to notice a problem. Sections of the valley floor were sinking dramatically – by 10 to 13 feet. What was happening was that as millions of gallons of water were drawn out from the ground, the pull of gravity caused the land to drop down into the emptying aquifer. Geologists call the process “subsidence.” And once subsidence eliminates the aquifer, that source of water is gone forever.
To address the problem, forward-thinking farmers and business leaders created the Santa Clara Valley Water Conservation Committee. They hired a noted Campbell engineer named Fred Tibbets who came up with a daring plan. Tibbets recommended the construction of large reservoirs throughout the county that would catch rainfall and help replenish the underground aquifer through a process known as “artificial recharge.”
It was an ambitious undertaking. But seeing that the future of the valley was in jeopardy, the committee formed the Santa Clara Valley Water Conservation District in 1929. This district began construction of its first six dams and reservoirs.
By 1935, Almaden, Calero, Guadalupe, Vasona and Stevens Creek reservoirs were completed. Here in the South Valley, Coyote Reservoir was finished in 1936.
Following World War II, the valley’s population boomed. And of course, the new residents required water. So in the 1950s, the conservation district began building more dams – including Anderson, Chesbro and Uvas – to store water in reservoirs throughout the year.
But rain water wasn’t enough to supply the burgeoning population. And the valley’s budding high-tech industry also required massive amounts of water for computer chip factories. Water obviously needed to be imported from elsewhere.
Luckily, California has a massive source of fresh water – the Sierras. Winter snows melt and flow in rivers to the Delta region. And in the 1960s, the San Luis Dam was built to store this Delta water in a massive reservoir along the eastern end of Pacheco Pass.
The water from San Luis Reservoir cuts across Pacheco Pass and to the South Valley through a massive system known as the San Felipe Pipeline. This major construction project was completed in 1987, just in time for a seven-year drought. Without it, Silicon Valley’s phenomenal economic boom during the 1990s would have probably gone bust if it wasn’t able to receive enough H2O.
Some of that Sierra mountain water coming through the pipeline makes its way into the San Pedro Perc Ponds. Here, like water passing through the grounds of a coffee percolator, it settles through the soil and refills the aquifer below.
But the ponds also serve as a home for wildlife including bats, jackrabbits, wild geese, ducks and other animals.
Additionally, the ponds create a serene place for nearby residents to stroll in the evenings and watch the sunset behind El Toro mountain reflecting in the waters.
That gets me back to Rosemary Kamei and her campaign to get re-elected onto the SCVWD’s board of directors. Like those farmers and business leaders who saw the need to conserve our precious water in the 1920s, Kamei also sees the importance of protecting our sources of safe and clean water.
Kamei realizes water is the critical key to the future life and economic success of this region. Our growing population will only increase the burden on our water sources. Thus it’s a necessity to plan ahead for this impact.
The thing I really like about Rosemary Kamei – the second reason I encourage South Valley to vote for her June 6 – is that she realizes that our creeks, rivers, reservoirs and ponds are not just mere storage places for large quantities of water. They also provide a place for the people of this fast-paced area to escape the hustle and bustle and find an inner serenity.
People I meet along the San Pedro Ponds Trail say they like to go there to unwind and connect again with nature. The ponds provide an unquantifiable but important spiritual component to South Valley’s quality of life. And that’s why Kamei foresees developing other SCVWD properties for public recreation.
Rosemary Kamei understands that if you don’t replenish the well, the well will go dry. She knows that water is life.
