Chapter 116: Dispute (3)
TL: Hanguk
Unlike Korea, nights in America were frightening. That was why, except on a few special occasions, I always hurried home as evening drew near, but today I couldn't go home.
Clatter!
Dominic Smith pulled an assortment of equipment out of the back of the truck. A water level gauge, a piezometer, sample collection bottles, and a laptop. Rolling up his sleeves, Dominic said to me,
"In broad daylight the data stays steady, so you can't catch the flow. There are so many water disputes around here that most of the farms using a lot of water run their pumps at night. So now's the real window."
I switched on a flashlight and helped him.
"What kinds of disputes usually happen around here?"
"In the Lodi area? Well... there are way too many, but a while back, up north on McGill Road, one farm drilled a groundwater well six hundred feet down."
"Good grief..."
Already guessing what must have happened, I let out a sympathetic groan.
"Ha, you can picture it, can't you? In the end, the water levels at eight farms within a one-mile radius all dropped more than four feet at the same time."
"Ah..."
"And that's the common kind. Southwest of here, along the Mokelumne River, there was a feed alfalfa farm and a dairy ranch sitting side by side, and when the alfalfa farm drilled its well deeper, the nitrate concentration in the groundwater shot up. In the end, two nearby vineyards tested at nitrate levels over 45 mg/L, which exceeded the drinking water limit. Naturally the lawsuits started flying... it was a complete madhouse."
"I can imagine."
"But that's the kind of thing you'd expect to happen. There were some ridiculous ones too. Northwest of here there's a whole string of big walnut farms, and one of them dammed up a tributary of the Mokelumne and built itself a private reservoir."
"Ha ha..."
"The vineyards downstream of that tributary sued, and it turned into a total mess."
Trading small talk like that, we gathered our gear and moved out, and we started by checking the groundwater well at the pear orchard.
When we opened the well cover, the smell of damp earth rose up. Dominic connected the sensor to a cable and slowly lowered it down into the well. A signal tone went "beep—" three times, and a blue graph appeared on the laptop monitor.
"Two hundred eighteen feet. Water pressure 0.73 psi. That's normal. But if you look at the graph, it's a little..."
As I listened to him and looked at the laptop screen, I could see the curve wavering gently.
"So somebody else is running a pump?"
Mr. Dominic gave me a startled look.
"Where did you learn this?"
"...At school."
"Ah! Mr. Pierce was singing your praises... anyway, from these numbers it looks like a pump's running somewhere else right now, so let's move quickly."
We hurriedly retrieved the equipment, moved off at a brisk pace, and climbed back into the truck. We drove south for about ten minutes, then carefully checked a few of the farms' groundwater wells.
Check, then move; check again, then move. We kept repeating the cycle, and about two hours in we pulled into a pistachio farm. But the moment we stepped in, I felt a low vibration under my feet.
Hummmm–
"You feel it, right?"
I nodded.
"Yes."
"Let's go."
We moved quickly and approached the well. About two meters from it, he buried a piezometer. As he checked the reading, Mr. Dominic's face stiffened slightly.
"Pressure 0.64... it dropped all of a sudden."
"That means the water pressure in this aquifer is draining out right now, doesn't it?"
"That's right."
It meant someone was pumping water at this very moment. But then I noticed the well cover trembling faintly. When I put my hand beside the lid, I could feel air leaking out with a soft hiss.
"Huh? This isn't pumping up, it's flowing backward."
Mr. Dominic Smith checked the graph once more, saw it lurching wildly, and said,
"Something's definitely off. This isn't a normal pressure fluctuation. Someone's tampering with the aquifer pressure in reverse."
Dominic collected the water seeping out through the gap in the well cover into a sample bottle. There wasn't much, so he filled it only about a third of the way before capping it.
"If we compare the temperature and electrical conductivity (EC), we can tell whether the layers have mixed."
"Let's get going for now."
"Yes."
We quickly cleared the farm, got in the truck, and drove back to the pear orchard office.
"How'd it go?"
Chloe, who had been waiting tensely in the office, brushed the dirt off my clothes as she asked, and I set down the equipment I'd carried in and said,
"There's a pistachio farm way out there running its pump right now. We won't know the details until the results come back from the data we collected."
"Take a look at this for now."
Dominic took out the laptop and the glass bottle of collected water. But even though the water in the bottle was groundwater, it clearly didn't look clear. Under the indoor lighting it reflected the light faintly, with a subtle cloudiness swirling through it.
He put a portable EC meter into the bottle and checked the reading. When it came back at 1.41 mS/cm, his face immediately brightened and he said,
"This is on the high side for salinity. The upper layer's salinity is roughly 0.9. The aquifer in southern Lodi is old groundwater with a higher mineral concentration, so this means water from a deeper layer came up to the surface."
I let out a breath and asked,
"So this proves we're not the cause?"
"Correct. It looks like that pistachio farm is pulling the aquifer dry from underneath. This data is more than enough to serve as evidence."
The next day, Mr. Dominic came by the pear orchard office carrying a neatly prepared document.
"Here's the material I put together. Take a look."
Knowing he was coming, Chloe and I had been out at the pear orchard since morning, and we looked over the report he'd prepared.
《Well Interference & Pressure Dynamics Analysis – Lodi Pear Orchard》
That was the title of the document he'd made, and based on the various data we'd collected and verified earlier, the report had been put together beautifully.
"The sharp pressure drop at the point near the pistachio farm is confirmed in the same pattern at the pear orchard's observation point after a delay of two to four minutes, which can be interpreted as a pressure wave caused by reverse pumping of the aquifer from the south. Nice. With this, even the NSJWCD won't be able to ignore it."
It wasn't just that the report was well made; what I liked even more was the signature that lent it authority, "Hydrogeologist Dominic Smith."
After all, if it were only a matter of writing a report, I could have done it myself; it was for that signature that I'd paid to bring him in.
"This is just my job."
"Still, thank you. This is the fee we agreed on, but I added a little extra."
With that, Chloe paid him for his work with the cash she'd prepared in advance, and together we headed back to the Lodi County Administrative Office.
Having been there before, we were familiar with the place now, so we went straight in and asked to see Nancy, the paralegal. Not long after, the inner door opened, and the middle-aged woman we'd seen before came out, clutching a file folder to her chest.
It was Nancy Hamilton.
"So you're here."
"It was quite a bit of work."
At my reply, she gave a small smile.
"I can tell from your face. Come on inside."
Once we'd settled into a small consultation room, Nancy sighed and took a sip of coffee.
"It's been a while since a farm owner came in with documents this fast and this confident. And you're young, so I imagine you don't have a lot of farming experience..."
"Chloe here, her father's been growing cherries for a long time now. She learned to farm right alongside him, so she may be young, but her experience isn't lacking."
"I see. All right. And the additional documents...?"
"Right here."
I carefully held out Dominic's report. She turned the first page, the second, the third, and around the fourth page her hand stopped moving.
"Hydrogeologist Dominic Smith... so you went through a proper verification process with a hydrogeological consultant? And the numbers are quite detailed, too... you've prepared thoroughly, haven't you?"
"We're innocent, so we just want this resolved quickly. Can we use this to formally amend the reconsideration request?"
"Of course. A Reconsideration Request, a Stay of Order, and a request for independent technical review. We'll go with all three. The basic forms are already on file, so we just need to swap in the new attachments."
Nancy immediately pulled out a new file folder and slid the cover of Dominic's report right to the front. A large red stamp came down on it a moment later.
[ATTACHMENT – TECHNICAL MEMO]
[SUBMITTED BY – LODI FARM BUREAU]
"From here on, we'll handle it. The investigator has no authority to dismiss this. That man only writes field reports. The decisions are made higher up, at the Hearing Office."
Chloe, who had been listening, leaned forward.
"So that investigator can't say anything to us anymore?"
"He's already issued the temporary suspension order, so he won't withdraw it right away. But... with material like this, getting something like a 'provisional stay of effect' is easy. And then it'll be overturned at the hearing."
I asked again.
"How long will it take?"
"The Hearing Office will be in touch within ten days. Two weeks at the most."
It was the time of year when the water really ought to be flowing, and a wait this long was slow enough to make me sigh, but there was nothing to be done about it.
On the way back to the farm, Chloe heaved one heavy sigh after another.
"This is bad. What do we do?"
"The one saving grace is that thanks to the biochar our water usage is low... and it helps that it's the end of February, too."
Because the charcoal held onto water for as long as possible, there was at least that small mercy, and from late February into March the pear trees were just stirring from full physiological dormancy, so they didn't use much water to begin with.
"So we're okay then?"
"Yeah, up to about that point we're fine without water. If it drags on longer than that, then it's a problem."
"Phew... then we're fine."
The injustice of it all still made her angry, but hearing that the pear crop would be fine for now, Chloe smiled and pressed a hand to her chest in relief. Seeing her worry more about the crops than about herself, like a farmer through and through, made me smile too.
"Don't worry. The pears will be fine."
And then, exactly ten days later, the phone rang. The number was the Lodi County Administrative Office.
"Hello?"
"Is this Chloe Harris? This is the Hearing Office at the Lodi County Administrative Office. Good news. The temporary suspension order has been changed to 'stayed' status. The NSJWCD has begun a review, and a hearing date has been set. Which means... as of today, you're cleared to restart your groundwater well."
"Eeeeee! Thank you!"
Chloe let out a cheer on the spot. She told me the happy news right away, and by the time I reached the farm, the sprinklers were already going full tilt before my eyes.
"Now we can use water however we want."
"That's great."
"Yeah, now I can finally sleep easy."
I gave her shoulder a light pat and said,
"But it's not over yet."
"It's not over?"
"Right. If we just let this slide, they might dig up some other excuse to harass the farm."
From the very start, this had looked like an attempt to put the newcomer in her place. Would they ever have dared raise a complaint like this back when Frederick, the previous owner, was still around? Probably not.
Now that a young woman had become the farm's owner, they'd colluded to make things easier on themselves, and if it had worked, they'd have used the water even more freely going forward. But would it really end with water? Considering all the environmental regulations the farm had to comply with, I couldn't be sure something like this wouldn't happen again.
"So what are you going to do?"
"We can't just sit on our hands."
As afternoon rolled around, we arrived once again at the Lodi County Administrative Office. Maybe because this was our third meeting, Nancy's face felt familiar now.
"I heard the temporary suspension was stayed. Congratulations."
I nodded, and this time I was the one to speak first.
"Thank you. But... today we came for a different reason."
"Hm? What's that?"
I slid a USB drive across the desk.
"I want to formally report the pistachio farm to the NSJWCD. Reverse pumping, excessive water extraction, aquifer disturbance. I intend to put the damage we suffered on the record, exactly as it happened."
*****
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