CHICO — The man accused of igniting the Park Fire, which has grown to be California’s fourth-largest wildfire ever, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of arson, prosecutors said Thursday.
Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, of Chico, also denied all special circumstances relating to the arson charge and prior convictions, court records show.
Stout was arrested on July 25, the day after the fire started near Chico in Upper Bidwell Park.
Prosecutors said a man was seen pushing a burning car into a gully near Alligator Hole. Cal Fire arson investigators and the Butte County District Attorney’s Office later identified that suspect as Stout.
Stout has maintained that he did not purposely start the fire and previously did not enter a plea in an August 1 arraignment hearing that was continued to Thursday’s hearing.
Stout is next scheduled to appear in court on September 19 to set a future preliminary hearing.
Stout has two previous strike felony convictions in 2001 and 2002. He was first convicted of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a minor in Butte County. He was later convicted in Kern County of robbery with great bodily injury, for which he received a 20-year prison sentence.
The Park Fire has been burning for nearly a month and scorched around 430,000 acres in Butte and Tehama counties. CalFire said early Friday that the fire was 63% contained and had charred 429,460 acres, or 671 square miles. Four counties, including Shasta and Plumas, were impacted by evacuation orders. All orders have since been lifted.
COHASSET — The Park Fire was the second time in six years the Baker family had driven away from their dream home with a dark plume of smoke from a wildfire hanging overhead.
It’s also the second time in six years that they evacuated only to learn that their home was among the hundreds of others destroyed by the flames.
Sylvia and Ken Baker had just spent months upgrading and renovating their house off Watson Lane in Cohasset.
“People ask you, have you been through the fire? Did you lose anything? And I’m like, ‘Yeah, for the second time,’ ” Sylvia said. “They look at me, almost expecting me to cry and I tell them, ‘I don’t have the time for that.’ “
Sylvia’s husband Ken is an Air Force and Army veteran and was close to retirement. He said that when he saw the smoke rising into the sky from his work at the VA clinic in Chico last Wednesday, he called his kids and asked them to come help evacuate just in case.
“I could look up and see the smoke over the hill and I thought, ‘This isn’t good, I know where that goes,’ ” Ken said.
When the fire started creeping closer to their neighborhood, Ken tried to stay behind and save his home, sending his wife and kids away with as much as they could carry. Sylvia wondered if it would be the last time she would see her husband.
“For me, the emotion was when I had to, sorry now I get to cry. When I had to tell him bye, when I left with the kids,” Sylvia said. “I know him, being in war twice, doing this with the Camp Fire, I knew that he was not wanting to leave.”
Ken stayed as long as he could, hosing down his house, building as much defensible space around the property, and stepping through all the preparations he had put in place over the last six years. His bulldozer, one of the only things that survived the fire, was an investment he hoped would be enough to save his home.
Their Ring doorbell camera captured him escaping 15 minutes before his home was ravaged by the flames. The strength of the fire blew off their roof and melted it to where their back porch used to be.
“It’s just kind of surreal. Everything we own is sitting in an ash pile that you saw in Cohasset,” Ken said.
It took hours to evacuate, with the fire jumping the freeway and taking down power lines across roads and streets.
Ken has served in the military most of his life, serving two tours overseas, and hoped that after surviving the Camp Fire his home in Cohasset would be a fresh start.
“A lot of people will ask, why do you keep going back to the same place, suffering in the same position? It’s all we know,” Ken said. “Generations of my family are from Northern California.”
Sylvia said the thought of even picking out new furniture or starting over again isn’t something she is ready to face yet. The couple said they lean on each other during times like this, remembering that someone always has it worse.
“For me, I’m just grateful. I’m grateful I have my family. I’m still on the right side of the grass, so it’s hard to be bitter about that,” Ken said. “It doesn’t do any good. You can be as mad as you want, as angry as you want. You never know what the person you’re standing next to at the grocery store is going through.”
Ken said his heart breaks for the people in Cohasset who don’t have insurance. While the process is difficult even when you are fortunate enough to have coverage amid a growing crisis in California, he said so many people in his neighborhood couldn’t afford it.
“I feel worse for them than I do myself,” Ken said.
“I’ve never evacuated. Never. And they’ve evacuated us a lot,” owner Thomas Neverkovec said. “Believe me, if it was coming and I knew it was coming, I’d be going.”
Neverkovec has owned the Bambi Inn for 25 years and he has been a firefighter for 35 years.
“(The Park Fire) is the fastest one I’ve seen going, besides Paradise, of course,” Neverkovec said, referencing the Camp Fire of 2018 which ravaged the town of Paradise. “This one here, (firefighters) are getting it. It kind of threw them for a loop a couple times but now they’re on it. They’ll get it.”
The Bambi Inn in Butte Meadows, California.
KPIX
The Bambi Inn features a sign over its entrance which reads “We don’t dial 9-1-1” featuring two crossed sniper rifles.
“Well, they never come up here anyway,” Neverkovec laughed. “We’ve got to take care of our own up here.”
Contrary to the sign, the Bambi Inn is staying open for first responders.
Officers, deputies, firefighters and contractors in Butte Meadows are stationed at the Bambi Inn, the only place in town with an internet connection.
A power outage is also affecting Butte Meadows, where there is no phone signal.
“Bambi always caters to law enforcement,” Neverkovec said.
Neverkovec said he didn’t want to leave because “we don’t want our hometown to go up in smoke.”
He also expressed worries about the months ahead.
“These next two months are the busy ones. Usually, this is the beginning of fire season for us,” he said. “We’ll just keep going on this (wildfire). Get it done.”
Just before 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, as temperatures in Butte County simmered around 106 degrees, a man pushed a burning car down a gully in Chico in what authorities say was an act of arson.
Within minutes, the flaming vehicle ignited tall grasses that had sprung up in the wake of a wet winter but dried out in recent weeks. Soon, live oak trees and grapevine were burning, and wind-driven embers were shooting down canyons and the along ridges of the Lassen foothills, catching new vegetation as they touched down.
By nightfall, the Park fire had grown to 6,000 acres, and by the following morning its size had expanded sevenfold. As of Saturday, the fire had surpassed 307,000 acres — the largest so far this year in California — with no containment and few signs of slowing down.
Experts say the fire’s explosive growth is due to a perfect storm of hot, dry conditions, combustible vegetation and a landscape that hasn’t burned in decades. The remote terrain has made it challenging for crews to gain access to the blaze’s swelling perimeter, and the firefight could be long and arduous as they struggle to gain a foothold.
“This is really the first fire in the past several years in California that I would call extraordinary — and that’s not a good thing,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, said in a briefing. “This fire is a big deal, and it has done some pretty incredible things.”
Indeed, the fire and its massive smoke plume have already exhibited rare and erratic behavior, including “super-cell thunderstorm-like characteristics” replete with large-scale rotations, Swain said. On Thursday, footage captured by AlertCalifornia wildfire cameras appeared to show the blaze spewing tornado-like vortices, sometimes referred to as fire-whirls or firenados.
“At this point the fire is kind of creating its own weather, and that can be pretty unpredictable,” said Courtney Carpenter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. “Really big, explosive wildfires can create thunderstorms; they can make whirling fire plumes that can mimic tornadoes.”
The Park fire’s thunderstorm characteristics haven’t yet sparked lightning — though Carpenter said that’s still possible given its “explosive fire growth” and extreme behaviors. She noted that smoke from the blaze has already reached Oregon.
Fortunately, the fire’s rapid rate of spread has so far marched it north and east — stretching across northern Butte County and a growing portion of Tehama County — into a relatively remote mixture of grass, brush and timber and away from the threatened communities of Cohasset and Forest Ranch. But Swain said it is almost certain to become several times larger than it currently is, and will probably be a several-hundred-thousand-acre fire before it is contained.
“This is a fire we’re going to have with us for weeks, if not months,” he said. “This may be one of those fires that starts in midsummer and burns into mid-autumn … and it could end up posing more of a threat to communities later on.”
The fire has already carved a path of destruction. Chief Garrett Sjolund, of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Butte County unit, said “numerous structures” have been burned, including 134 buildings destroyed and an additional 4,000 under threat.
Ignited within Chico’s city limits, the fire has had an overwhelming favorable path, experts said— pushed by dry, southerly winds that moved it away from the city center.
However, officials have been worried about the community of Cohasset, where they initially feared a repeat of the 2018 Camp fire, which razed the nearby community of Paradise and killed 85 people — the deadliest wildfire on record in California. During that blaze, dozens of people were trapped on the area’s limited roadways while trying to escape.
“Cohasset was particularly concerning to us because … there is really only one way out and that is a narrow, windy road,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. “It is hard to traverse, so we wanted to get those warnings out as quickly as we could.”
About 4,000 residents have been evacuated from Cohasset, Forest Ranch and parts of northeast Chico, along with several rural areas in southern Tehama County.
While the dry winds that drive fire weather conditions in the area typically come from the north, a less frequent pattern brought them from the south this week and sucked up all the Bay Area moisture they usually carry with them, said Carpenter, the weather service meteorologist.
“Things have been really dry for the last month — and hot — and that’s why we’re seeing those critical fire conditions,” she said.
The area was been under a red flag warning, signaling dangerous weather that supports rapid fire grow, both Thursday and Friday.
That pattern has pushed flames into wilderness that has been untouched by fire for decades, if not longer — making it ripe with thicker vegetation and dead and dying brush, which ignites easily and fast.
“There’s tremendous amounts of live and dead fuels,” said Dan Collins, a spokesperson for Cal Fire’s Butte Unit. He added that the Ishi Wilderness area and some parts of Cohasset “have zero to little fire history” on record.
The region’s rugged topography is hampering firefighting efforts, with steep cliffs, expansive canyons and few roadways throughout the national forest.
“That’s one of the big challenges, just getting folks [to the fire lines] due to the remote area,” Collins said.
The blaze isn’t the only Western wildfire of concern. Cal Fire is battling more than 20 active fires in the state, while crews in Canada are combating an 89,000-acre blaze in the Alberta province that has already leveled portions of the historic resort town of Jasper. Experts say many of the fires have been fueled by the persistent, record-setting heat wave that has blanketed the West for weeks.
Residents from the Chico area are watching the Park fire’s movements with anxiety.
“It’s been a pretty restless time for us,” said Don Hankins, a professor of geography and planning at Cal State Chico who is also on the Butte County Fire Safe Council.
The Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve where he conducts much of his research has already burned, with cameras indicating that nearly all of its infrastructure has been lost, including an 1870s-era barn, Hankins said.
Though the blaze has some echoes of the Camp fire, the community of Cohasset has prepared in recent years for a potential fire, Hankins said, including fuel-reduction projects and prescribed burns to help clear some of the combustible material that lies between the town and the wildland.
“But unfortunately, with the wind on this, and the scale of these projects, it’s not necessarily enough to make a difference” if the fire continues to burn out of control, he said.
The days and weeks ahead are likely to see more acreage added to the fire as crews contend with rugged, volcanic topography and persistent hot and dry conditions.
“The outlook is that it’s not going to be easily contained,” Hankins said. “We’ve got a long season ahead of us before the rainy season comes, and that’s really going to be the ultimate thing to curtail any of these fires that are happening across the West right now.”
Sjolund, the fire chief in Butte County, said he’s hopeful an expected drop in temperatures and increase in humidity this weekend could assist in fighting the Park fire — and others across the region.
“It’s kind of a moving target with the way the weather patterns are coming in,” he said. “This fire is moving very rapidly and very quickly.”
The Park fire in Butte County — the largest blaze in California this year — exploded to more than 164,000 acres by Friday morning, with its rapid spread destroying scores of buildings and forcing more evacuations.
The growth of the fire over two days amid steady winds and hot temperatures has been dramatic, with its remote location making it difficult to fight. It was listed at 164,286 acres Friday morning and what little containment crews had on the fire Thursday — listed at 3% — had been lost and containment was reduced to 0%, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website.
Conditions on the ground are going to continue to be a challenge, forecasters say.
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for the northern Sacramento Valley through late Friday, including the region where the fire is spreading. Forecasters warned there could be wind gusts up to 30 mph pushing the blaze north combined with low humidity, which “can cause new fire starts and ongoing wildfires to … grow rapidly and dangerously in size and intensity.”
At least 134 buildings have been confirmed destroyed, and another 4,000 are threatened, according to Cal Fire.
“This fire is moving very rapidly and very quickly,” said Garrett Sjolund, the fire chief for Cal Fire’s Butte County unit.
Firefighters remained focused on protecting the communities around the fire Friday, including Cohasset and Forest Ranch, where about 4,000 people were evacuated. Some neighborhoods in northeast Chico were also evacuated, affecting about 400 people, along with several areas of Tehama County, authorities said.
The fire is burning north into the Ishi Wilderness and Lassen foothills, which experts say hasn’t seen fire activity in decades, if not a century.
“Once it got into that area, it had a lot of fuel to consume,” said Dan Collins, a Cal Fire spokesperson for the Butte Unit.
Zeke Lunder, a fire specialist and geographer based in Chico, agreed with Collins and said the lack of recent fires has made the area a jackpot for flames.
Ronnie Dean Stout II, a 42-year-old Chico man, was arrested on suspicion of starting the Park fire.
(Butte County District Attorney’s Office)
“A lot of us who work in fire have kind of been waiting for this fire to happen for the last 25 years,” he said.
On Thursday, authorities announced they had arrested 42-year-old Ronnie Dean Stout II, a Chico resident, on suspicion or arson. Prosecutors said the man pushed a burning car into a gully, starting the fast-moving fire.
“It is maddening that we’re here again, and it is particularly maddening that this particular fire was caused by an individual,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. “During this particular time of year, we are under a very high threat for fire.”
The Park fire was one of several burning in California:
Sjolund, the fire chief in Butte County, said he’s hopeful an expected drop in temperatures this weekend could assist in fighting the Park fire and others across the region.
“It’s kind of a moving target with the way the weather patterns are coming in,” he said.
A fast-moving fire in Butte County was burning rapidly near some mountain communities Wednesday night, forcing evacuations.
The fire started Wednesday afternoon just north of Chico at Bidwell Park. Wind fanned it north, where it has burned more than 6,000 acres, according to Butte County.
Some small mountain areas — including the hamlet of Cohasset — are under threat, and people are attempting to evacuate.
There are no reports of burned structures, Butte County said.
Rick Carhart, public information officer for Cal Fire, told the Chico Enterprise-Record late Wednesday that “a lot of crews” would be battling the fire through the night, with three night-capable helicopters helping battle flames. Carthart said crews “from all over Northern California” were helping in the firefight.
Blazing heat and increased wildfire risk will grip Southern California through the Fourth of July weekend and into early next week, with temperatures peaking above 115 degrees in desert areas Friday and forecasters issuing heat warnings and advisories throughout the region.
Extreme temperatures and gusty winds will also combine with dry conditions to create a high risk of new wildfires throughout the state as the Thompson fire continues to burn across more than 3,500 acres north of Sacramento.
“Tomorrow is going to be an absolute scorcher,” Joe Sirard, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard, said Thursday morning. “It’s not your typical heat wave. This is a dangerous heat wave, this is a high-end heat wave. Very dangerous.”
Heat warnings were in place Thursday for much of L.A. County’s valleys and deserts as well as the Santa Monica Mountains.
Construction workers on a sidewalk improvement site toil as temperatures rose into the triple digits in Palmdale over the holiday.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The predicted highs for July 4 hovered around 106 degrees in the valleys, 103 in the lower mountains and 111 in desert areas, according to the National Weather Service. On Friday, temperatures are expected to soar as high as 110 to 112 degrees in the county’s valleys and mountains, and between 112 and 118 in the desert. The only parts of the county that aren’t experiencing extreme heat conditions, Sirard said, are coastal communities.
Officials advised Southern California residents to take precautions against exposure to high temperatures, which can elevate the risk of heatstroke and heat exhaustion. The National Weather Service called on people to stay in air-conditioned spaces during the day and early evening, stay hydrated, check on neighbors and the elderly and avoid strenuous outdoor activities.
“It’s just too hot,” Sirard said. “Just use common sense. It’s a dangerous heat wave and that’s why we have the heat warnings.”
Jacque McDonald, 39, drove with her husband and their two young children from their home in Tarzana to Hermosa Beach on Thursday morning to beat the high heat in the San Fernando Valley.
“We came here just because we know it’s going to be hot. I’m not about it,” McDonald said as crowds of people in bathing suits and sunglasses strolled by on the Strand and gray clouds helped keep the temperature down. “We have a pool at our complex, but we figured it would be packed. So we planned to come down here to the beach.”
Annie Seawright celebrates while being carried by people after winning the Hermosa Beach Ironman competition on July 4.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Just before noon, dozens of visitors shuffled down the dirt path at Eaton Canyon Natural Area, a popular L.A. County park in Altadena with a stream and a waterfall.
At the trail’s first water crossing, Mercedes Monje, 29, of Los Angeles sat along the bank with her partner and 2-year-old son splashing in the water while the rest of her family sat nearby. Monje said her family usually hits a beach or river on the Fourth of July.
They originally planned Thursday to go to the East Fork of the San Gabriel River. But when they arrived about 8 a.m., they were told by authorities that it was full.
“We’re a little bit disappointed that we couldn’t be where we actually had planned to go, but we’re trying to make the best out of it,” Monje said.
Meanwhile, the risk of wildfires is high in inland areas, as is the chance that even small fires could quickly become larger conflagrations, given the extreme conditions.
“We’re expecting high heat today, which increases the chances for fire growth,” said David Acuna, a Cal Fire battalion chief. Fire departments across California urged people to resist the temptation to celebrate the Fourth of July by shooting off fireworks that could spark new blazes.
In Butte County, the Thompson fire remained just 7% contained as of Thursday morning, Acuna said, though it had remained steady at 3,568 acres overnight. He said 1,962 personnel, 20 helicopters, 214 engines, 46 dozers, 43 water tenders and 37 crews were fighting the fire. At its peak, about 12,000 structures were evacuated, affecting about 28,000 people.
“The firefighters on the line will continue to remain hydrated and ready in the event the fire acreage increases,” Acuna said, adding that though some have been downgraded, “a number of fire evacuations and warnings” remained in place near the blaze Thursday.
In Simi Valley, the Sharp fire was holding at 133 acres, and the containment was updated from 15% to 60% Thursday morning, according to Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Andy VanSciver.
Airn Barnes enjoys a cool fountain at Courson Park Pool as temperatures rose into the triple digits in Palmdale.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
No structures have been damaged by the fire, which at one point prompted an evacuation order for 60 nearby homes and an evacuation warning for an additional 340. The orders and warnings were lifted Wednesday evening, VanSciver said.
“The containment lines have been holding and they’re being reinforced,” he said, adding that he didn’t anticipate wind conditions to cause the blaze to spread. “We have enough resources on hand to handle it.”
(FOX40.COM) — An evacuation order is in effect for areas of Butte County amid a wildfire, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office.
Around 8:30 p.m. on Monday, BCSO issued an evacuation order for the Apache Fire on the south side of Grubbs Road between Crossa Country Road and Alta Arosa Drive in zones 884 and 885. Shortly after, evacuation orders were also issued for all of zone 884, 865, 866, 868, and 869. For information about zone locations click or tap here.
An evacuation warning was also issued for Crossa Counry Road, She Yo Lane, and Tessaro Lane in Zone 884 in Palermo. Zones 868 and 883 are included in the evacuation warning.
(FOX40.COM) — A wildfire in Northern California has prompted immediate evacuation orders, according to Cal Fire.
At around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Cal Fire reported that a fire was spreading near Four Junes Way and Palermo Honcut Highway, south of Palermo in Butte County. As of 5:25 p.m., the fire has burned through 750 acres and at least two structures.
Cal Fire announced an arson arrest in connection with a Butte County vegetation fire that prompted evacuations, according to a release from Friday.The Ranch Fire, which started Wednesday near Big Bend and Newsome Ranch roads near the Concow area, burned 10 acres. It prompted an evacuation order, which is mandatory to follow, for nearby homes. Cal Fire said crews were able to stop the fire from advancing two hours after it started, allowing for the evacuation order to be downgraded to an evacuation warning. With a warning, evacuation is not mandatory but encouraged in case fire activity becomes life-threatening.With the help of the Butte County Sheriff’s Office, Cal Fire said they found and booked a person into the Butte County Jail on an arson charge. That person was not identified. Details were also not released on when the person was arrested.The Ranch Fire was the first major fire in Northern California for the year. Cal Fire reported access issues because the fire was in a remote area. Aircraft helped establish a perimeter around the fire using retardant to slow the spread while ground crews were still on the way.On Friday, Cal Fire also announced it reached 100% containment around the fire, which is a perimeter that is either manmade or natural that prevents flames from continuing to spread. Full containment does not necessarily equate to a fire being fully or mostly extinguished. That can happen before crews finish creating containment lines.On Thursday, AlertCalifornia cameras already showed no plume of smoke in the area where the fire started.”This early season fire is a reminder to all that now is the time to concentrate on defensible space around your properties as the weather is heating up and the fuels are getting drier,” Cal Fire said in the release.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app.
BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. —
Cal Fire announced an arson arrest in connection with a Butte County vegetation fire that prompted evacuations, according to a release from Friday.
The Ranch Fire, which started Wednesday near Big Bend and Newsome Ranch roads near the Concow area, burned 10 acres. It prompted an evacuation order, which is mandatory to follow, for nearby homes.
Cal Fire said crews were able to stop the fire from advancing two hours after it started, allowing for the evacuation order to be downgraded to an evacuation warning. With a warning, evacuation is not mandatory but encouraged in case fire activity becomes life-threatening.
With the help of the Butte County Sheriff’s Office, Cal Fire said they found and booked a person into the Butte County Jail on an arson charge. That person was not identified. Details were also not released on when the person was arrested.
The Ranch Fire was the first major fire in Northern California for the year. Cal Fire reported access issues because the fire was in a remote area. Aircraft helped establish a perimeter around the fire using retardant to slow the spread while ground crews were still on the way.
On Friday, Cal Fire also announced it reached 100% containment around the fire, which is a perimeter that is either manmade or natural that prevents flames from continuing to spread. Full containment does not necessarily equate to a fire being fully or mostly extinguished. That can happen before crews finish creating containment lines.
On Thursday, AlertCalifornia cameras already showed no plume of smoke in the area where the fire started.
“This early season fire is a reminder to all that now is the time to concentrate on defensible space around your properties as the weather is heating up and the fuels are getting drier,” Cal Fire said in the release.
As California grapples with worsening cycles of drought, a proposal to create a new water district in Butte County has sparked fears of a profit-driven water grab by large-scale farmers and outside interests.
In the walnut and almond orchards along State Route 99 near Chico, agricultural landowners have led a years-long campaign to form the Tuscan Water District — an entity they say is vital for the future of farming in this part of Northern California. They say having the district will enable them to bring in water and build infrastructure to recharge the groundwater aquifer.
Yet some residents argue the district would open the door to water profiteering, claiming the plan would connect local supplies to California water markets, and allow the state to demand transfers during drought emergencies.
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The proposal, which will be decided Tuesday via mail-in balloting, has generated debate about the use of partially depleted aquifers to store imported water. Although major water suppliers in other parts of the state, such as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, have invested in efforts to bank water underground for times of drought, the concept has met with deep suspicion in Butte County.
“You put in the infrastructure, you start taking over the groundwater basin for private profit, and it changes everything,” said Barbara Vlamis, executive director of AquAlliance, an organization focused on protecting water resources in the Sacramento Valley. “It becomes this economic engine for these people that want to take over ownership.”
Supporters deny the charges of seeking to sell or export water. They say the district is necessary to address the local groundwater deficit and achieve sustainability in the coming years, as required under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA.
“This is the most important development in local agriculture in a hundred years,” said Richard McGowan, a farmer who is one of the campaign’s leaders.
Local nut and fruit orchards depend entirely on groundwater, which because of overuse is projected to require reductions in pumping to meet state-mandated sustainability goals.
McGowan said the district, once formed, could plan projects to transport water to the area and use that water instead of pumping from wells, or use it to recharge the groundwater basin. Another benefit of forming the agency, he said, would be the ability to apply for government grants to fund infrastructure projects.
“We’re going to have to become sustainable,” McGowan said. “This gives us a great opportunity to work together to preserve this water resource we have. And now water has become such a hot topic, and the state has now become involved with it, that it almost dictates that we do something like this.”
Those who are fighting the district say it’s unnecessary. Vlamis argued the area’s current overuse of groundwater, which is not as severe as other parts of the Central Valley, could easily be addressed through conservation, estimating that if growers would save about 5%, that would be enough.
She and others argue that if infrastructure is built to bring in water for groundwater recharge, the imported water that’s stored in the aquifer would become a privately owned asset, effectively creating a water bank. They say the groundwater basin could then be drawn down and filled with banked water, which could be sold and shipped elsewhere for profit.
Such water banks have been established by various entities elsewhere in the state, such as the southern San Joaquin Valley.
Vlamis said banking water would require a drawdown of the aquifer to create storage space, which would diminish the flow of streams, threaten groundwater-dependent trees and put shallow domestic wells at risk of running dry.
“I think it is a damaging effort that could potentially destroy this region as we know it,” Vlamis said.
A pump draws groundwater to irrigate a nut orchard near Nord in Butte County.
(Jeffrey Obser)
Opponents formed a political action committee called Groundwater for Butte, which has warned that establishing the district is a “water grab by Big Ag and the state.”
“When they begin to pump water into the ground, from surface water that is already owned by private parties, those companies or those interests will own the water in the ground under my house,” said Jeffrey Obser, executive director of Groundwater for Butte. “That public status of the water will slowly be erased.”
Supporters of the Tuscan Water District called such claims unfounded, saying they do not intend to transfer any water out of the area — and that measures are in place to prevent that from happening.
They pointed out that the resolution outlining the district’s authority specifically states that it will not “have the powers to export, transfer, or move water” outside the local Vina and Butte subbasins, and that the district will not transfer any imported water outside its boundaries.
“That’s an important restriction,” said Tovey Giezentanner, a consultant and spokesperson for the Tuscan Water District. “It was formed without the power to export water out of the county.”
Another of the conditions adopted by the Local Agency Formation Commission says the district must submit proposed projects, such as those focusing on aquifer recharge, to the local groundwater agency to ensure consistency with the area’s state-required groundwater sustainability plan.
Those conditions “will ensure that the water stays local,” Giezentanner said.
Supporters note that Butte County also has since the 1990s had an ordinance that requires a county review process for any transfers of local groundwater outside the county, or for so-called groundwater substitution transfers, in which a property owner would sell surface water that would otherwise be used locally and, as a substitute, would pump groundwater.
McGowan touted those measures, saying the effort to create the agency “is not about shipping water out of the county.”
But Vlamis said the district’s bylaws could easily be changed to allow for water to be moved out of the area, and the county ordinance simply outlines a procedure that would have to be followed.
“Even if that’s not their intention, to transfer water out of here, all it takes is an emergency proclamation by the governor, and all local ordinances and everything are thrown out,” Vlamis said. “You may have honorable intentions, but once the state wants more water, and you’ve put in the infrastructure to facilitate this, all bets are off.”
The water district’s proposed 102,000-acre territory covers a portion of the Tuscan Aquifer around Chico. It would overlap with part of the local Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency’s territory.
State regulators have endorsed the area’s groundwater management plans, but Vlamis’ group AquAlliance is suing to challenge the Vina plan, as well as two other local plans. The group cites various failures in the plans, saying they would allow for substantial declines in groundwater levels, threatening wells and streams.
Vlamis said she’s convinced there is a longstanding interest among state and federal water officials to “integrate” the county’s groundwater into the state’s supplies, allowing for water to be transferred out of the area.
The state Department of Water Resources denied that.
Landowners have been casting ballots in the mail-election election. The balloting is weighted based on assessed land value, so the largest landowners, some of which farm thousands of acres, will have the biggest influence in the result. Critics have objected to this type of vote, saying they believe a one-vote-per-person system would be fairer.
Richard Harriman, a lawyer in Chico, called the effort to form the district a “Trojan Horse,” saying out-of-county landowners are seeking control of the area’s water “for purposes that are not for the public interest in Butte County.”
“It is absolute folly to think that the water is going to stay in Butte County, in that water bank, once the price of water is higher than the economic value of that water to agriculture. It will be gone. The water will follow the money,” Harriman said.
Farmer Ernie Washington said in a letter to the Chico Enterprise-Record that he initially was concerned about the potential to export water from the county.
“Conspiracy theories abound in the water world and I’m not naive enough to think that there aren’t plenty of outside interests with designs on our groundwater,” Washington wrote.
But he added that he’s satisfied measures are in place to address that “as well as it can be,” and believes the intent of those seeking to form the district is to “preserve our groundwater resource,” as well as farmers’ livelihood and way of life.
