"Where there is some motion on the part of area water agencies to address the ongoing drought, long-term questions about water management here in the San Jacinto Valley are getting little attention.

Oh yes, the settlement with the Soboba Indians has been formally signed and ratified, but implementation of its attendant groundwater management plan waits indefinitely upon government process and procedure.

The crowning irony to this rapidly developing predicament is contamination of the San Jacinto Groundwater Basin’s critical recharge and storage area through continued percolation of sewage produced by the Soboba Casino, which rests directly over the highly permeably riverbed sediments of the San Jacinto River. This is a serious problem. The Indian settlement requires that all agencies and participants strive to their fullest to preserve and enhance the quality of the underlying groundwater, as do the principles of water management agreed upon several years ago by the Groundwater Management Planning Group. Yet questions of Indian sovereignty, responsibility, official trepidation, and apathy allow a major heavily trafficked public activity to operate over a critical water resource with nothing but a septic system between it and the water we all drink."

Get the Story:
Rob Lindquist: Valley gambling on groundwater (The Valley Chronicle 4/25)

Related Stories:
Kempthorne to speak at Soboba Band's golf club (8/14)
Soboba water rights settlement signed into law (8/1)
Soboba Band water bill still waiting on Bush (7/29)
Soboba water settlement cleared for White House (7/25)
House passes Soboba Band water settlement (5/22)