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Return of the Grevious Water Bags Less than one month after the Coastal Commission denied his proposal to take water from Mendocino County rivers and tow it in giant plastic bags to San Diego, entrepreneur Ric Davidge has moved north and is now proposing to take water from Humboldt County’s Mad River and barge it down to thirsty Monterey County or anywhere else that will buy it. Your help is needed to fight this proposal! As reported in the Eureka Times Standard on January 8, 2003, Davidge has proposed to use water from the Mad River that was formerly allocated to industrial pulp mills that are no longer operating on Humboldt Bay. Davidge’s proposal consists of using plastic bags that are 800 feet long, 200 feet wide and 25 feet deep to carry about 46.5 acre feet of water each – 15 million gallons. Under the Davidge world view, he would take up to 20,000 acre feet -- enough to cover 20,000 acres to a depth of 1 foot, every year, using 200-foot tugboats to tow it to communities like Monterey. Officials in both San Diego and Monterey claim that even though they have water worries, they have no interest in Davidge’s plans to start a water war between northern and southern California. In order to ship 20,000 acre-feet per year, Davidge would have to make 217 barge trips from Humboldt Bay each year. These trips would require towing the giant bags out of the Humboldt Harbor entrance, a notoriously rough open ocean entryway where 20-foot high waves and larger routinely roll right into the harbor. The operation would bring 185 to 200 jobs to the Humboldt Bay area, Davidge said, and if a contract is secured, Davidge may move his bag-making facility to Humboldt County. Look for the Coastal Commission and other resource agencies to
raise many of the same environmental constraints identified in the
denial of the Mendocino plan to Davidge’s latest scheme. Up to Top |
