I made another video about sea level rise in Carpinteria. This one looks at what we can do about it.
Reposted from https://ift.tt/2rtNGOx.
Tags: carp without cars, carpinteria, sea level rise, climate change, global warming, managed retreat, warning: my face, waaaaayyyyy too much of my face.
This series is very informative. Are there any studies regarding the effects of rising sea levels on the water table in Carpinteria?I came to your site after Jim Taylor posted a link to your site on Nextdoor. Thanks very much,Carol Tokar
I’m not aware of information about threats to Carpinteria’s groundwater from sea level rise, but the information might be out there somewhere. As you probably already know, the city of Carpinteria is working on an overhaul of the city’s General Plan/Local Coastal Plan, and as part of that it is taking a careful look at sea level rise. I believe there will be a public meeting of the general plan update committee to talk about sea level rise specifically on Monday, August 21 at 5:30 at City Hall; I encourage everyone who is interested in the issue to attend that meeting.
There was some information about the possible effects of saltwater intrusion into the freshwater aquifer under Carpinteria in the documents for the recycled water project. You can see that document here:
https://carpinteria.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=262&meta_id=19837
…and if you search in it for the term “intrusion” you can find mentions of it. That document refers to a 2014 study of the Carpinteria basin groundwater; I believe this Q&A document from the water district is talking about that 2014 report:
https://www.cvwd.net/pdf/water_info/QACarpGWBasin082014.pdf
I didn’t see any specific mention of sea level rise in those documents; they talk about saltwater intrusion as being caused by excessive pumping from the aquifer in times of drought. But it seems reasonable to be concerned that sea level rise would make that problem worse. And climate change is also likely to make droughts more frequent and severe, which in turn would put more pressure on local freshwater supplies.
Personally I think the issue of freshwater availability is likely to be an even bigger problem for Carpinteria than sea level rise, though both issues will be important. And as your question points out, they’re related.
Thank you again for watching the videos and sharing your feedback, Carol. And if he sees this, thanks to Jim for helping to spread the word. I think I’ll head over to Nextdoor and see if I can find where he did that so I can thank him more directly. :-)