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   COLD SPRINGS 250 ACRE FEET PILOT

                    PROJECT

       81.5 Million Gallons

   WATER SAVINGS FOR COUNTY PARKS

 

SITE RAINWATER AMOUNTS AND                                

CALCULATIONS

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Using Cold Springs Creek that flows out of the foothills

across E. Mountain Drive we can gather more water than

can be used by 50 county parks. The watershed feeding

these two points is 3,000' to10,000 wide and about

10,000' deep. From East Mountain Drive at the Cold

Springs crossing, up to Camino Cielo at the top of the

foothills...

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Fact is, on the coast we have nearly as much drainage

area as the Cachuma reservoir watershed, and more

rainfall... the difference is this water runs off in creeks and

culverts to the ocean, instead of into a lake. If we added

up all major creeks on the Santa Barbara coast, the

combined watershed is over 70 square miles.

The area we are concerned with is completely uninhabited and

consists of mostly sandstone hills, brush, creeks, pools,

tributaries and a few hiking trails. We are talking about 2,295

ares of watershed, all draining to the crossing at E. Mountain

Drive. We are using a 30% coverage number, so we assign 30%

of this area as impermeable and this drains to the Crossing at E.

Mountain Drive. That means 688 acres of usable drainage,

creating 688 AF of water from one foot of rain, all draining across

the East Mountain Drive crossing.

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My design here involves collecting runoff water at the E.

Mountain Drive Crossing (Crossing) where it flows across East

Mountain Drive. At this point Cold Springs Creek is a boulder

strune creek with house sized boulders to refrigerator sized

rocks lining and filling the channel.

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Our plan to capture part of this relatively clean creek water

where it crosses the road. From here pipe the water out of the

channel and down to the debris basin 2,000 feet to the South.

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Across this area there are three open areas owned by the county

that we recommend as spots for cistern storage of this water. A

200' X 300' X 14' cistern will hold 19.2 acre feet (AF) so three will

store 57.6 AF.

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