Cachuma Lake Pump System Prepped And Ready To Go

Unfortunately, the wet weather in parts of Santa Barbara County won’t do a thing to ease our drought situation or our shrinking lakes.

Each day that passes without substantial rain put the county one step closer to pumping water from Cachuma Lake.

As of Thursday, the lake level stands at 30-percent capacity.

NewsChannel 3 takes you into parts of the lake, no longer accessible to the public, with the help of Randy Ward, the General Director of Cachuma Operations and Maintenance Board (COMB).

We stand before a moonscape of a drying lake. A graveyard of concrete below and above, water marks scar the surrounding hillsides.

“To see a picture of the lake is particularly important,” said Ward. “A picture says a thousand words.”

Ward is the man in charge of keeping the lake alive, so to speak, and water flowing to the people who need it. As he steps into his SUV, Ward is about to do something that would have been impossible just three years ago; He drives onto the lakebed that was once covered with 50 feet of water.

“Now you .. have to really want to launch your boat to come down here,” said Ward.

Unused ramps and bridges litter one end of this shrinking body of water. Clam shells and animal prints dot the thick muck. And those lines cutting into the mountains show much of this precious lake we’ve lost over the years.

“It could take, with reasonable rainfall, it could take three years to fill this lake again,” said Ward.

So, COMB has turned to technology, again.

During the drought of 1991 a pumping system was brought in. Now, a bigger, better pump. A lifeline of sorts, with the historic help of state water.

130 acre feet of water pours in each day from other parts of California. Cachuma Lake is the only way to get that water to the towns below.

Once the lake level drops to a point where water won’t flow on its own, the pump system will go online — with all seven pumps — flowing water from Goleta to Carpinteria, and the cities in between, through a seven mile tunnel bored into the mountainside.

“We’re hoping to delay it as long as possible because it’s expensive,” said Ward. “Particularly the power costs that are necessary to run these pumps.”

Ward said contractually, as is stands, when the calendar hits March 19, the pumping system in “standby” mode will cost the county $50,000 a month. Once it’s operational and running, the cost will spike to $100,000 a month. Tack on an additional $25,000 to $40,000 each month for the power bill.

The hope is, not until December at the earliest. Cooler weather could extend the timeline.

But Ward warns: “The lake is so low, we could find ourselves back in this position once again next fall.” Ward is bracing for a repeat of the drought over the next two, three, four years.

Funds for the monthly costs will come from a grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation along with $3 million dollars in grant funds from three different state sources. Ward credits State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) and Assemblyman Das Williams (D-Carpinteria) for helping secure those grants.