Timeout in Chino’s Water Suit

Officials in Chino are blaming that sinking feeling on their neighbors.

Over the past decade, the ground in some areas of the city has dropped by as much as 21/2 feet, damaging several buildings and forcing the relocation of at least one family.

Chino has said that Chino Hills is responsible for the subsidence because the neighboring city has refused to stop pumping water from several deep wells that it operates in Chino.

Officials in Chino Hills counter that recent studies by water experts have cast doubt on whether pumping from the deep wells has caused the subsidence.

The issue became so contentious that Chino took it to court in January. Since then, other public agencies, including the Chino Basin watermaster, have weighed in.

Attorneys for the watermaster, the agency responsible for preserving and managing area ground water, asked Judge J. Michael Gunn to postpone any decision and give the feuding parties time to work out a solution.

On Thursday, the judge agreed.

“I’m not prepared to decide at this point,” he told a gallery crowded with public officials. “You guys are going to have to, through consensus building, work this out,” Gunn said.

Watermaster chief executive John Rossi said his agency has been aware of subsidence for years and is developing a plan to measure the phenomenon.

“We have to get this equipment in the ground so we have an idea of what’s going on,” he said. “We don’t know enough yet. We just don’t have enough data.”