Please join us on Monday, May 1, at noon – by Zoom – for a conversation with Santa Barbara’s newly-appointed Water Supply Manager, Dakota Corey!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
About Dakota Corey :
On her Linked-in page, “The water policies and programs we enact now have long range implications for the future” Her employment interests and responsibilities are:
- – Long range water supply planning and policy
- – Water resource conservation
- – Public engagement
- – Water supply and consumption data analysis
- – Report writing
She’s worked for the City of Santa Barbara for more than 9 years, starting in 2014 as a Water Resources Specialist, then becoming a Water Supply Analyst for 7 years. With a BA in psychology from Colorado College and an MA from the Bren School, specializing in Water Resources Management, she worked for 5 years, as consultant at Kennedy/Jenks, and then as water conservation/outreach coordinator for the City of Oxnard.
This January, she was appointed Santa Barbara’s Water Supply and Services Manager, part of the Public Works Department. It was a rare job opening in a highly competitive field, involving great technical knowledge of water supply planning, from drought to reservoir spilling, and an emphasis on public outreach.
In researching for CPAR, we discovered …and are admiring of her volunteer interests and participation: From May 2018 to the present, at the Ventura County Animal Services, where she is an experienced large dog handler, with special attention and love for the “bully breeds”; since 2011, also until the present, she organizes cooperative sponsorship teams to collect funds to sponsor 10 kids/year at AHOPE for Children. (AHOPE is a home for kids living with HIV in Ethiopia.) Since July 2019, she has participated in the Anti-Racism and Social Justice Book Club, with interests in civil rights and social action.
We expect Dakota to share with us Santa Barbara’s present water situation, what are the challenges in moving so rapidly from drought to surplus, and what she sees for the future.
There will be Zoom questions via the Chat, more will be welcomed. So far, we’ve heard:
- A general question about groundwater storage: how are the city’s groundwater basins recharged? And, specifically, has the city been able to quantify the improvement to our groundwater storage basins from the tremendous amount of rain we’ve received this year?
- What is going on with the water pressure throughout the City of SB? It appears to be distributed at a very high pressure and/or to vary considerably. Many homeowners are having to replace PRV’s on a regular basis, or install several in series in order to step down pressure.
- And: Does the increase pressure in the water mains reduce the longevity of the mains themselves due to scouring of the internal walls of the pipes from all of the solids that we have in our water?
- With all the water calculations are there any calculations that reflect the amount of silt that has been added to the capacity of the lakes and water reservoirs, so we know the actual amount of water that we have?
- With the reservoirs spilling, has there been a way to release some of the water from the bottoms of the dams so as to remove some of the accumulated silt?
- With so much rainfall, more than 200% of average, has there been any pushback on salt water intrusion noted in the West Beach area.
From April 2020 to January 2021, a time of drought, the City presented Water Vision Santa Barbara. CPA’s representative Betsy Cramer participated and met (virtually) Dakota Corey and was very impressed by her willingness to answer questions. Now after such an amazingly wet winter, we thought it would be very interesting to know more about that essential-to-planning resource, water.
For more information about CPA and this Speakers Series, please contact Marell Brooks, CPA President, at citizensplanning
See CPA’s website for posted letters, click Resources, and prior Speaker Series recordings, click Calendar.