Groundwater is so scarce in parts of the Midcoast that in a dry year, water levels can fall far enough to endanger the water supply, even if no further wells are dug, according to the County Times’s report on the county’s groundwater report.

"I think a safe and sustainable water supply is crucial to a community’s public health," said Steve Monowitz, long range planning services manager for the county. "And if an individual homeowner drills a well that impacts the community, that’s something the county needs to review when it considers new development proposals."

"What I took away from the report is that all the basins are at risk of problems in dry or very dry years, not just the granite areas. I wouldn’t limit the possibility of banning wells to the granite rock areas," Monowitz added.

The county report has been in the works for at least six years and in some cases, is more notable for the information it doesn’t provide than what it does.

The purpose of the study was to gauge how much groundwater could safely be extracted over the long term without exceeding the amount replenished by rainfall each year, as well as to determine environmental impacts.

But this could not be achieved because of lack of well data and accurate stream-flow measurements. Of the 1,097 wells in the county’s database, only half gave crucial details like their location and how much water they can produce.

Two or more consecutive dry years can cause the water table to drop all the way down to sea level and even below sea level, raising the risk of saltwater intrusion in the groundwater aquifer. The Midcoast is in its second consecutive dry year right now, but officials can’t say what the effects have been. The county is not monitoring any wells on a long-term basis.

Montara resident April Vargas was named Democratic Volunteer of the Year from Region 4 during the State Democratic Party Convention held in Sacramento from April 24-26. Region 4 includes San Mateo and San Francisco Counties. Vargas is a local business owner,  community organizer and former elected official who currently serves as Controller of the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee. She was Congressional District 12 Coordinator of Obama for America during the primary and general elections and was an elected Obama delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

"We congratulate April as the recipient of this award and and thank her for her exceptional service to our local Democratic Party," said San Mateo County Democratic Party Chair David Burruto.  "Her outstanding leadership, effective community organizing skills and dedication to the values of the Democratic Party make her a role model for Democratic activists everywhere. We are fortunate that she calls San Mateo County home."

In concert with the Catholic Social Workers, Coastside Lutheran Church is hosting a free Community Breakfast on Thursday mornings, starting at 7 a.m.  The first Thursday netted 8 people.  Last Thursday, 39 were fed.  The demographics were wide spread:  families with children, homeless men and women, just plain hungry people in need.  The congregation will vote on May 10 whether to make this a regular, weekly event to assist those in need on the Coastside.

The Coastside Community Orchestra’s (CCO) Spring Concert on May 2nd includes Beethoven’ s Symphony No.1 in C major, Bizet’s L’Arlesienne Suite and Michael Haydn’s Concertino in Bb major with Barbara McKee playing the solo bassoon part. 

Originally from Western New York, Ms. McKee now resides in El Granada. She began piano studies at age seven and settled on the bassoon at age 12. While in Law School, she played with the University of Chicago Orchestra and started "Bassoons at Noon," a bassoon quartet that performed its own arrangements of classical and popular pieces.  Ms. McKee has studied with Barbara Greenwald, Ron Daniels of the Buffalo Philharmonic and, most recently, Rufus Olivier of the San Francisco Opera and Ballet Orchestras.  She joined the CCO in 2004. Her bassoon is a 13000 series Heckel made in 1986.

Sara Lomax, one of the founders of the CCO, will conduct the orchestra.  The CCO will also present scholarships to three young students to encourage them to continue their music studies.

Saturday, May 2 at 7 p.m.
Community United Methodist Church, 777 Miramontes Street,  Half Moon Bay
TIckets at the door:  $10 general, $7 seniors, students and children free
Call 415-298-7057 or visit www.coastsideorchestra.com

Featuring vocalist Andy Kirshner, eleven poems by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins, America’s most beloved and widely known poet, set to music for voice, sax, piano, bass and drums. Andy Kirshner, an astonishing singer who mixes, pop, soul and traces of Johnny Hartman in his voice, gives perfect realization to the settings.

Andy Kirshner (vocals), Michael Zilber (sax), John R Burr (piano), John Shifflet (bass), Jason Lewis (drums).

Sunday at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Miramar. $30.

In his April 27 opinion piece on Coastsider, Ken King makes several false statements about Sharp Park, the restoration proposal for the land, and the bill introduced by Supervisor Mirkarimi to kick-start that proposal.

Every environmentalist has demanded that scientific studies be conducted before any decision about Sharp Park’s future is made, including decisions about Sharp Park’s illicitly built and crumbling sea wall.  The Mirkarimi bill expressly requires, based on the best scientific evidence available, that a restoration study be conducted along with alternatives that retain or redesign the golf course.  The bill will force these studies to be integrated into the EIR process referenced by Mr. King, but it will modify that process to ensure that restoration alternatives are considered along with existing alternatives that keep things largely as they are.  Mr. King has steadfastly opposed restoration studies, because for political and personal reasons he doesn’t want the status quo to change.

But the status quo cannot be maintained.  The golf course loses too much money, it causes too much harm to the environment, and it exposes the surrounding community to flooding risks that will be exacerbated by climate change.  In the face of these liabilities, subsidizing golf in San Mateo County for as little as $12 a round while San Francisco makes drastic cuts to basic city services simply cannot continue.

Mr. King proposes a simplistic solution: raise prices.  But if Sharp Park raises prices, fewer golfers will play there and the course’s deficit will increase.  The Bay Area already supplies 6 million more rounds of golf than golfers demand, driving golf prices downward precisely when Mr. King claims we should raise them.  Moreover, the National Golf Foundation found that golfers at Sharp Park have very little loyalty to the course and play there primarily because it is cheap. Because of this, San Francisco’s Budget Analyst concluded that Sharp Park cannot reduce its deficit by simply raising prices: golfers will just take their game elsewhere.  

This story was originally posted as a comment on the story about the Sharp Park Golf Course restoration debate

The financial excuse that San Francisco loses money and has to carry Sharp Park is disingenuous by intention and deliberately misleading. San Francisco Supervisor Mirkarimi, the legislation’s sponsor, has himself said he doubts the accuracy of the figures cited by proponents and thinks that whatever gap there may be is mere "chump change". Given Sharp Park has the lowest greens’ fees among San Francisco’s golf courses, or even in the surrounding area, a modest hike disposes of that argument. But why do that when it serves as an excuse for those intent on accomplishing their own estimable goals? 

Goal one of the Center for Biological Diversity and affiliated groups is to restore the area to its original pristine condition for all of the stated purposes outlined by Mr. Plater. Definitely laudable. But take a moment and consider his description of how the entire area was massively filled in, and then later buffered by the addition of an enormous seawall - a 20-foot high berm stretching along the entire width of the golf course at least a half-mile long. To "restore" the area would involve removing hundreds, maybe thousands of semi trucks full of fill, this in an area containing endangered species. Who, we might wonder, would be the permitting authority for this activity? 

There’s more. Laguna Salada, the fresh water lagoon snaking around the edge of the golf course receives the runoff from the entire golf course when it’s watered or raining. The berm between the lagoon and ocean keeps it all from draining, allowing only excess overflow to reach the ocean. This freshwater environment provides breeding habitat for the Red legged frog that in turn provides a food source for the San Francisco garter snake. The restoration folks want the berm breached in order to take us back to the pre-1930s when the lagoon was a brackish, read that as saline, estuary. With global warming raising sea levels three feet by the end of the century, if not faster, there go the frogs and the snakes that rely on them. 

Something seems strangely amiss here with the bio fans pushing so hard in face of the problems and contradictions inherent in this enterprise. Maybe restoration would be a net benefit to the species of concern regardless, but how could we determine that beforehand? The answer of course is to do an Environmental Impact Report that studies all of the possible alternatives, including doing nothing at all, then make the best decision. It so happens that San Francisco’s Planning Department is preparing to do just that, but this process would take one or two years to conduct, and our biological friends are in too much of a hurry and too wowed by their own Big Idea to want to hear anything scientific that might contradict their own romantic and well-intentioned project. There’s momentum now, so keep on pushing and worry about the details after they accomplish their mission. 

Mr. Plater is an environmental lawyer and college professor with an enviable record suing entities on behalf of threatened species. Supervisor Mirkarimi is looking for a way out of continued nuisance lawsuits from people like Mr. Plater, so one can hardly fault him for trying to remove San Francisco from potential legal liability for Federal violations. However, it’s plain to see that neither side is so much concerned about the species in question as with getting what they want. None of this ought to be considered without condoning and paying for a thorough and complete EIR that will shed light on whether restoration in any form at all will benefit the animals and improve the overall environment or not. 

We know one thing, and that is the frogs and snakes coexisted at Sharp Park for the last seventy+ years. We also know that critter protection improved substantially in recent years as the golf course was enjoined to change its practices. Ending the golf course or substantially altering it as restorationists propose may be a great idea, or it could prove hellish for the animals - remember what they say about the road to hell? The point is that we don’t know, and neither do they. 

The problem in a nutshell is that there’s no science underlying any of this, only out there as an eventual goal, the science education center, etc. Should these folks succeed in pulling this off without an EIR, I hope that there will still be something left to study there one day

With all the buzz about getting back to local farming and all, it has me thinking about it too. Those of you who have been to Europe have probably seen "victory gardens", or "community gardens". I know there are gardens like this around the U.S. too. My husband and I lived in Sweden for a few years where these gardens were such community gems! They could be very pretty, people could gather there, work the land, socialize a bit and soak up the sun. (which is a valuable commodity up there I must say.)

Is there a chance that our community here could start such a garden? I know there was a time when that plot of land just to the south of Farmer John’s place, was going to consider becoming an educational garden or something along those lines. I wonder if there is a land owner around town that would consider renting plots to folks who would like to try their hand at growing food and flowers for their families.

Sara Nebeling

The Coastside Land Trust is sponsoring a series of summer classes through Half Moon Bay Parks and Recreation called "How to Turn Your Lawn into a Water-Conserving Landscape." Led by local experts, each class of the four classes will meet from 9am to 4pm, with a mixture of class time and on-site landscape design and planting. The four classes will cover site analysis, design , plant selection, and planting. The cost of the course is $70 per class, or $240 for all four. Registration information is in Parks and Recreation’s Summer Activity Guide [click to download].

Now we need a nice lawn to work on! We’re looking for a property on a well-traveled street from Montara to Half Moon Bay where the class would provide the labor and expertise, and the homeowner would pay for the materials (costs dependent on the size of the lawn) and could participate in the class for free. We would place a small sign on the property for a few months mentioning that the landscaping was provided by the Coastside Land Trust’s Lawns to Water-Conserving Landscape Class, listing our website for information on upcoming classes.

If you know of someone who might be interested in this opportunity, please contact Shari Deghi at 650-208-9020 or [email protected].