• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice
  • Arts
  • Education
  • Environment
  • History
  • Nature
  • Politics
  • Wit
  • About

Water Goes to College

December 8, 2014 By Eric Caine Leave a Comment

CSU Geology Major Rene Toth
CSU Geology Major Rene Toth

It was standing room only last Friday night in the Sierra Hall at Modesto Junior College West. Audience members included a former state Secretary of Agriculture, several members of the Stanislaus Water Advisory Committee, the President of the Central Valley Farmland Trust, and the Conservation Chair for the Yokuts Chapter of the Sierra Club*.

People had filled the room not to attend a celebrity appearance but to hear an introduction to a new groundwater model by Steve Phillips, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. The packed hall offered strong evidence that pumping by industrial-sized wells on the Stanislaus County’s east side has galvanized public interest and made groundwater a key issue throughout the region.

Entitled “Modeling Modesto’s Groundwater,” Phillips’ model will enable a very precise look at how groundwater moves through Modesto’s aquifers. Stanislaus County Geologist Dr. Horacio Ferriz says the model will help local authorities defend their actions when enforcing the state’s new groundwater regulations.

“The model divides the region into quarter-mile squares,” said Dr. Ferriz last Saturday. “If you’re going to deny someone permission to pump groundwater, you’d better have very good and specific reasons.”

Dr. Ferriz was supervising a water event of his own at the Naraghi Hall of Science on the California State University Stanislaus campus in Turlock. In addition to his role as county geologist, Dr. Ferriz is a tenured professor and Chairman of the Geology Department. Students from his Geology 4810 class had constructed posters illustrating issues relevant to the course content, “Development and Management of Water Resources.”

‘The course is really an introduction to my spring hydrogeology class,” said Ferriz. “The spring class is more for geology majors. Here, I have some who are geology majors and some who are not.”

Geology major Rene Toth says the class is fascinating but rigorous. “His tests take two hours,” she said. “There’s lots of math and diagrams.”

“We have to figure gradients and understand the hydrological cycle,” said Lucas Trippo, a General Studies major who is minoring in geology. “It’s hard but it’s really important.”

Toth’s poster was titled, “Conditions and Subsurface Geology of the Denver Basin Aquifer System in Relation to the Water Supply to the City of Denver, Colorado.”

“The Denver system is a lot like ours,” said Toth. “There are a lot of similarities.

Our own aquifer system will soon be one of the best understood in the nation, if not the world. Steve Phillips’ presentation showed aquifers around Modesto are like “layer cakes” with strata of various “hydraulic conductivity” stacked atop one another. His slides showed super-saturated aquifers around Modesto and Woodward Reservoirs, as many have suspected.

While some have speculated that the aquifer system around Modesto features isolated sources of groundwater, Phillips’ model suggests most of the system is connected. Water finds a way through most anything, and moves more easily horizontally than vertically.

However, as Dr. Ferriz’s students have learned, the “gradient” is important. When the water table drops in one part of an aquifer, it’s often replaced by water from a source higher up the slope, however slowly.

Phillips also explained the interaction between rivers and groundwater.

“When the river’s surface is higher than the water table,” he said, “the river contributes to groundwater. And when the river’s surface is below the water table, groundwater contributes to the river.”

These new findings will present both challenges and opportunities. And, as Valley citizens confront the complex realities of drought and the growing evidence of climate change, most might agree with Dr. Horacio Ferriz:

“Everyone should be required to understand some basic geology,” he said last Saturday. “It’s really important.”

*Bill Lyons, Thomas Smith, Neil Hudson, Jim Mortensen, Denny Jackman, and Brad Barker.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Featured, History Tagged With: Dr. Horacio Ferriz, Modesto Groundwater Model

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Note: Some comments may be held for moderation.

Primary Sidebar

Off The Wire

?Monster Fracks? Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
“Monster Fracks” Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
A Times analysis shows that increasingly complex oil and gas wells now require astonishing volumes of water to fracture the bedrock and release fossil fuels, threatening America’s fragile aquifers.
www.nytimes.com
Newsom urges SCOTUS to consider encampment ruling that has 'paralyzed' California cities
Newsom urges SCOTUS to consider encampment ruling that has ‘paralyzed’ California cities
The Democratic governor’s intervention lays down a mark in a legal dispute with potentially profound implications for one of California’s most pressing issues.
www.politico.com
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events
Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.
www.propublica.org
How hungry is California? Millions struggle to eat well in an abundant state
How hungry is California? Millions struggle to eat well in an abundant state
How bad is hunger in California? A lot depends on your access to food aid, which expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic but now is being reduced.
calmatters.org
Sacramento DA sues city over homeless encampments
Sacramento DA sues city over homeless encampments
Sacramento County had nearly 9,300 homeless people in 2022, based on data from the annual Point in Time count. That was up 67% from 2019. Roughly three-quarters of the county’s homeless population….
www.mercurynews.com
At Last, a Real Possibility to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change
At Last, a Real Possibility to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change
After decades of minimal action, Congress passed the largest and most comprehensive piece of climate legislation in U.S. history. Will we make the most of this opportunity?
www.audubon.org
How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
How the fentanyl crisis’ fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
The epidemic’s staggering scale and infiltration of communities is laid bare in a new study.
www.bbc.com
Can licensed tent villages ease California's homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
Can licensed tent villages ease California’s homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
Taking people off the street and into tents is a new twist on homeless shelter being explored by the San Francisco-based Urban Alchemy in two tent villages operating in Los Angeles and Culver City.
www.latimes.com
Mississippi has problems, but it's handling homelessness better than L.A.
Mississippi has problems, but it’s handling homelessness better than L.A.
The public tends to blame homelessness on poverty, drug use, crime or even warm weather. But other cities don’t have L.A. levels of street homelessness because they have more available housing.
www.latimes.com
Neo-Nazis March Through Florida Park
Neo-Nazis March Through Florida Park
The demonstrators raised “Heil Hitler” salutes and waved flags with swastikas.
www.thedailybeast.com
Families have high hopes for Gavin Newsom's CARE Courts. Providers want to lower expectations
Families have high hopes for Gavin Newsom’s CARE Courts. Providers want to lower expectations
Gov. Gavin Newsom?s experiment to push Californians with mental illness off the streets and into treatment, CARE Court, starts soon.
calmatters.org
Pope says 'backward' U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology
Pope says ‘backward’ U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology
Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church. He says they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
apnews.com

Find us on Facebook

pp
The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Footer

The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Subscribe for Free

* indicates required

Search

• Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 The Valley Citizen

Dedicated to the memory of John Michael Flint. Contact us at thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Editor and publisher: Eric Caine

Website customization and maintenance by Susan Henley Design